Blue Diamond haven for biker crowd

Friday, Sept. 10, 1999 | 11:15 a.m.

A little calendar hanging above the cash register at Blue Diamond's Village Market foretold the inevitable in a single word scrawled over three days of this week.

"Bikes."

On Thursday about 3,000 bicycle dealers and distributors from across the world descended on this teeny Red Rock Canyon town to trail-test the newest -- and sometimes oddest -- mountain bikes on the market.

The event was a precursor to Interbike, an annual convention that draws thousands of bicycle dealers who are looking for the two-wheelers or newest bike thingamadoodles their shops will carry in the coming year.

The actual convention opens today at the Sands Expo and Convention Center and is open only to dealers and other bicycle industry workers. It's the second year in a row that Las Vegas has drawn Interbike away from Anaheim, Calif., said Mac Vorce, of Club Mosh Racing, a Las Vegas mountain bike race promoter.

Vorce mapped out the trails participants were using for dirt tests in Blue Diamond Thursday.

He said it should come as no surprise that Interbike officials already have committed to coming here again next year. Las Vegas is a great convention and entertainment town, and Blue Diamond's trail system is second to none, Vorce said.

It offers something that couldn't be duplicated in Anaheim's temporary, indoor dirt track.

"This way, they actually get to pedal a $2,000 bike before they buy it for their shops. They get to go out and ride through the hills. They get a feel for the bike," he said. "This is one of the best places around to ride. The biking is really good here."

Almost too good, some Blue Diamond residents say.

What once was the mountain-biking community's best-kept secret isn't a secret anymore.

"On weekends this is Bicycle City. And it's growing all the time," said Marilyn Noggle, a 10-year town resident.

Noggle is secretary of the Blue Diamond Charitable Association, a private, nonprofit group that raises money to take care of the town's park and other public amenities.

On Thursday Noggle sat on the Village Market's porch next to a card table piled with T-shirts emblazoned with mountain bikes and "Rip 'N Red Rock." Noggle was asking $15 a piece. Proceeds went to the association.

Noggle said what they didn't sell during Interbike, they'll unload during the rest of the year. Mountain bikers make for an ever-increasing customer base in Blue Diamond.

"In some ways it's good. In some ways it's not," Noggle said.

"Mostly not," a small chorus of residents added.

Trash on the trails, creation of illegal offshoots and riding through residents' yards topped the list of specific complaints.

"And they don't stop for the stop signs," said Kim Murray, charitable association president.

Still, some Blue Diamond residents like the bike crowd. Bill Landsberry, a four-year resident of the town, sat atop his fat-tired two-wheeler at the mouth of the trail system and watched as one after another high-tech biker pedaled past.

"Every time you see one of these ride by, it's three-grand," Landsberry said. "As long as everybody's cool. As long as there's no garbage left, they don't hurt anything."

Blue Diamond has always been a popular place for off-road bicycling, Landsberry said. But it really seems to have taken off in the past couple of years.

"It used to be just a local group, but the last two to three years it's become really popular," he said. "We still have some secret trails back there. We pick up our bikes and carry them there, because we don't want any trails leading to them."

A new bike shop is scheduled to open across the road from the Village Market at the end of this month. It's the third one to give it a try, but Landsberry said he figures this one might get enough business.

"I've seen two come and go already," he said. "But this isn't a secret anymore."

The great thing about Blue Diamond is it gives Las Vegas visitors who aren't into the casino gig a place to play, Vorce said.

And, well, there's also that other reason.

"Man, you can really hammer in the big ring on these trails!" a rider hollered to his buddy as they tore down the town's main street and headed for the vendors' staging area.

"There's about 20 times as many visitors today as there are residents," said Metropolitan Police Officer Greg Weeks, who patrols Blue Diamond. "We're sending some of our bike officers out here to mingle."

This year's event seemed to go more smoothly than last year's, Jeannie Leavitt, Village Market manager, said.

"Some of the neighbors don't like it," she said. "(Last year) they couldn't get into their houses. They couldn't get to the post office."

This year Interbike added a bike patrol to make sure riders stayed on the trails and didn't leave trash behind. They also checked for helmets and yanked Interbike passes for the day from those who didn't wear helmets, Vorce said.

By midday paramedics hired to stand by "just in case" said they had doled out bandages to half a dozen riders, but no serious injuries were reported.

Before the event was two hours old, a young woman sporting newly applied bandages on her shoulder and elbow and a shiny new scrape on her forearm walked into the market clutching a handful of black Lycra.

"Do you have a place I could change?" she asked.

Leavitt directed her to the bathroom at the rear of the store.

Weeks stood at the end of the counter sipping his morning cup of joe and watched athletes clad in skin-tight bike shorts crowd in for Gatorade, beef jerky, microwave burritos and candy bars.

"I tell you what," the police officer said. "I wish I had invented Spandex."