NEWPORT BEACH : Cyclist Bucks Heat but Beats Own Time

The desert heat reached 110 degrees and he was plagued with back and neck pain. But cyclist Bill Harney still managed to ride from Newport Beach to Las Vegas in 29 hours, beating last year’s time by four hours.

“It was a great ride,” said Harney, 29, who made the 300-mile trek to raise money for the Make-A-Wish Foundation, an organization dedicated to granting terminally ill children their hearts’ desire.

“I wasn’t in as good shape and my racing bike is not geared to go up hills like my mountain bike last year, so I worked a lot. But it was wonderful,” Harney said Tuesday.

Harney left DP’s Pub and Grill in Newport Beach at 2:10 p.m. Thursday and made it to the Hard Rock Cafe in Las Vegas by 7:15 p.m. Friday. He took only one long break of nearly two hours early in the trip, when he had to wait for his crew to catch up with him in Yorba Linda.

Harney drank 5 1/2 gallons of water to combat the heat, but he said he felt fortunate that he missed some thunderstorms that rumbled through the desert. “At night, it was beautiful,” said Harney, who sustained himself with peanut butter and bananas while pedaling.

Harney, a manager trainee for a sandwich shop, made the trip last year in 33 hours and vowed to beat that time on his second time around. But a collision with a car while he was cycling three months ago injured his left elbow and back and threatened his plans by keeping him from training for two months.

He spent the last month riding about 200 miles a week to get back in shape, but he said his body ached more during this year’s desert ride than it did last year. “I don’t think I’m 100% healed from the accident,” he said.

A car accident two years ago is actually what got Harney into cycling. He decided not to replace his car and used his bicycle instead for transportation, which meant riding 70 miles daily between his workplace in Brea and his then-home in Newport Beach.

Harney has already begun planning for his third desert ride, which he hopes to make in May, rather than in the heat of summer or in the windstorm-plagued fall, as he did last year.

“I want to do it on a night with a full moon because it’s just beautiful out there,” he said.