Well, this past weekend put a mark on the Escape Adventures/Las Vegas Cyclery history books with the Grand Opening celebration aptly named Wheelapalooza(Professional event photos link). Five of us from Moab Cyclery made the 8 hour drive to Vegas in one of the EA big rigs loaded with bikes and guides on Friday.
As with any Escape production, the adventure started with a marathon shopping trip. But this time it was to gather enough groceries to potentially feed pancakes, chips, salsa and dutch oven cobbler to upwards of one thousand people. Our mission for the weekend was to spread the word that Las Vegas Cyclery has a tour company connected to it that does multi-day trips! This might seem funny to those of us who know that Escape Adventures actually was the tree that sprouted first, before the bike shop. But now LVC’s 208 solar panels are literally overshadowing its pioneer.
So we set up an Escape Adventures Experience under the solar awning complete with a tour kitchen, EZ up, stoves, 8 dutch ovens, a tent (with sleeping bags), blue chairs and a “campfire”. We did our best to recreate an EA tour in an urban setting but really nothing beats the magic of wilderness and eating fresh made chips after a full day ride!
The Blue Team! I know, I know red shirts, but we’ll always be the Blue Team The guides in attendance were Jacques, Eric B, Nancy, Tim, Merrick, Erik K. (aka Ferret) plus guides in training Cooper, Lynn, and Zephyr. And cameos from Dom and Jeff (aka Wheels). We can’t forget Jared and Heather either, the ones who started this circus 21 years ago! Anytime that many guides get together the laughter ensues and this weekend was no exception:)
The duration of the event was spent flipping pancakes, cooking chips and cobbler, and chatting with whoever wandered back about the beauty of multi-day touring. Luckily there were no campfire songs (as advertised) because none of us are singers. The only one who can is Anne St. Clair and she couldn’t make it. Please make your song requests to Anne on your next tour…The bonus was that we would switch our aprons for bikes and head out for a ride on the trail system a mile away from the new shop, or stick closer to home and do hot laps on the test ride track around the shop.
