Day 56 – Kirkwood to Sacramento

Next to last day, and what a day it was! Wow. We started up near the top of Carson’s Pass, climbed to 8k’ feet, and we’ll  end up spending the night at 31′(that’s thirty one feet… 7,969 feet lower than we started) with a lot of beautiful riding in between. Craziness.

The ride out of Kirkwood was cold. Not just chilly, but proper cold. It was 41 degrees when we left the hotel, and I swear one of our descents was in the 30’s. I lugged cold weather gear all the way across the country and got to use it on the next to last day. JP, the eternal heat source, rode with shorts on. I had full length thermal leg warmers on. I’m not sure how he didn’t get frostbite.

We actually started with a few climbs this morning. The Sierra’s weren’t quite done with us. The views on the climbs where (once again) amazing.

Most of our route yesterday and today followed the Emigrant Trail. It’s a bit hard to make out, but at one point in our nation’s history, people went up and over this pass and they weren’t going skiing at Tahoe. They did it the hard way and were very serious about making it over these mountains. Having done it on a bike on a paved road, I still can’t imagine making the trek on dirt with horses and wagons.

Then came the downhill. The most serious, longest, amazing downhill I’ve ever done. There were a few small climbs here and there, but mostly we went downhill for nearly 40 miles loosing 6,500′ of vertical. The road conditions varied quite a bit, but for the most part they were OK. About halfway down we turned on to Omo Ranch road… the traffic disappeared but BOY was the road bumpy for a while. I got airborne a few times, which was a sign it was time to hit the brakes. Also, if you want to test the build quality of your bike, it’s a great road for that.. any defects will likely have a catastrophic failure at some point.

Needless to say, we had to take some breaks along the way.

JP has been struggling with his allergies the last few days. He made the descent down, but then SAG’d up to Sacramento. I stopped for lunch, then got a short ride up to the road and took a run at the last 40 miles in to Sacramento. I made it in to town around 5pm.. and WOW was I hungry. I’ve been pretty much eating non-stop.

Sacramento was the last stop on the Pony express. Just as we bid the loneliest road adieu, we now must say goodbye to all the Pony Express signs we’ve seen for the last week or so.

We had dinner in Old Sacramento… which as an bit of a New Orleans feel to it. Good food, odd people. I like it 🙂

Tomorrow we ride in to SF. Actually, we ride to Vallejo, then take the 2pm ferry to SF, then ride to the Golden Gate Bridge. For anyone looking to meet up with us at the finish, there’s been a slight change of plans…but only slight:  Be at the Warming Hut (aka: the new stopping point for our ride) by 3:30.

Warming Hut Café & Bookstore
983 Marine Drive
San Francisco, CA 94129
Presidio of San Francisco‎

We should be rolling in shortly after 3:30 and would love to see you there. If you’re interested, we’re having a small party at Heidi’s sister’s house (just a few blocks from the Presidio) after. Ping us for details.

 

Day 55 – Carson City to Kirkwood

Welp, we’re in California. And yep, the kids are constantly singing the theme from The OC… or at least the “California…. CALIFORNIAAAA” part.

This morning the boys got their final stamp in the “Route 50 – Loneliest Road” Passport. Terran was clearly overjoyed.

Today involved a big climb up and over Carson Pass. It’s a 3,500′ pass up that runs just south of Lake Tahoe. JP really wanted to get up this thing from start to finish. Since this is his first day back on the trail, he SAG’d up to the base of the climb right at the CA/NV border to give himself the best chance possible. I rode out of Carson City directly and was hopeful to at least get most of the climb in.

The route took a very back route in to California. There was no giant “Welcome to California” sign or anything. Just this little green sign, a stripe in the road (?!?!) and some tool in the background sticking out his tongue.

The first part of the climb was definitely serious. It was ~800′ of climbing at 8%. I met up with a small group of bikers on that stretch and at least one of them gave up after the first 1/2 mile. Not a reassuring start to the climb.

Once I got on CA 88, the climb continued. Within a few miles, I caught up to JP and Art. JP had put in 7 solid miles up this climb, but unfortunately was feeling under the weather. He put the bike up, ate a bunch of Advil, and called it a day. It’s a real bummer because I know he was looking forward to this climb, even if it took him all day to do. Maybe next time.

I pushed about halfway up the climb… but unfortunately my knees and hips are pretty messed up still from the ride 2 days ago. Today didn’t do them any favors. In fact, as I sit here writing this my left knee and right hip are a special breed of uncomfortable. I’m really glad there’s only 2 days left in this adventure because I’m not sure my body could get past the weekend.

We’re spending the night in Kirkwood. We hadn’t done a lot of research on this place before we stopped, but knew it was a ski town so we figured there’d be a lot going on. Bzzzzt. Try again. There’s one restaurant and a general store that closes early. Luckily the restaurant is good. 🙂

The ski area here is the Kirkwood Mountain Resort (owned by the same company that owns Vail). The trails look pretty impressive, especially some double diamond runs up at the top fed by a long, conventional (ie: not high speed) quad. This is some hard core skiing. The hat approves.

Tomorrow is our last chance at a century. We’ve got 80 miles of downhill on the route tomorrow on our way to Sacramento. Yes, 80 miles, 8k’ of vertical to lose. That’s an average of 2% grade downhill. Should be interesting. Plus it’ll be in the 40’s at the start. Wow. Fun next to last day.

And then Sunday. We’ll be arriving in SF and finishing this adventure Sunday afternoon. Our plan (presently) is to be on the ferry from Vallejo to SF that arrives shortly before 3pm. We’ll then ride from the ferry terminal to the Golden Gate Bridge gift shop (the end point). We should be arriving around 3:45, give or take. Bobby is probably going to ride that last 6 miles with us in SF.  He’s very excited.

To our San Francisco area friends – we’d love to see you at the finish if you can make it.

As always, more details tomorrow.  🙂

 

Day 54 – Fallon to Carson City

We’re in the home stretch. We can actually see California tonight. In three more days we’ll be at the Golden Gate Bridge. Crazy. I think we’re all ready to wrap up this ride and maybe do some mountain biking for a while.

Anyhoo, it was a beautiful morning in Fallon. read: the wind wasn’t blowing like a hurricane. It was supposed to be a relatively short day to Carson City (61 miles) so I had Terran suit up and join me for the first part.

Riding out of town on 50 was nice… a slight breeze but sunny and cool. We were making good time until we had to make the turn to Carson City around 10 miles in to the ride. Then our fancy road with a nice wide shoulder turned to a 65mph road with zero shoulder and a fair bit of traffic. Those kind of roads make _me_ nervous, and I could tell Terran was dreading heading down this stretch of highway.

So I called Heidi and managed to get her before she left the hotel. Terran and I looped back and got 20 miles total before we got to the hotel. The boys needed haircuts and I needed new bike gloves, so we decided to just drive to Carson City and I’d ride more in the afternoon.

I’ll spare you the drama… I never got the afternoon ride in but we did get a lot of pre-California errands taken care of… plus we had In-n-Out again so we had a nice post-lunch food coma. 😉

In the afternoon, we scouted tomorrow’s ride. We head south of town ~30 miles, then turn to head up and over Carson’s Pass. It’s a 21 mile climb… Should be interesting.

Along the way, we went through Genoa. Genoa is apparently the first real settlement in Nevada (they claim to have the oldest house in Nevada and the oldest saloon. Why someone would have waited until they got this far west before putting up a house is beyond me, but maybe they couldn’t afford the real estate prices of Tahoe so they settled down in the valley).

Genoa is filled with interesting history. Like this “hanging tree”. I thought it was called that because of its shape or something. Upon reading this plaque, turns out it got the name for a different reason. Yikes.

Tonight we picked up some food at the grocery store so we could have lunch in the MCC tomorrow. In the parking lot we saw what the MCC would have looked like had we made this trip back in the 70’s. Don’t they look cute together?

BTW, JP and Art are back with us. JP is back from his event and Art is back from a few days vacation up in the mountains. As much as the Potters like Colorado, Art may be hooked on Tahoe.

Tomorrow, California! I’m excited for the state line, not so excited for the 21 mile climb that lay just past it. Wish us luck.  Also we’ll provide the details of our arrival in tomorrow’s post for those in the area who are curious.

 

Day 53 – Austin to Fallon

So, I got a century in today… sorta. A metric century. The imperial century remains elusive on this trip (I think the closest I got was back in VA on Day 5). Read on to see how the day went.

Yesterday, I alluded to how boring/desolate/lonely US 50 is through this area. In fact, it’s called the Loneliest Highway in America. There are signs on the road that proclaim as much. You can buy t-shirts in the small towns that dot the landscape that say things like “I Survived the Loneliest Highway”, etc. After 3 days riding this road in Nevada, I can say it’s very aptly named… tho there are roads in Alaska that are more desolate, but the folks around here don’t want to hear that.

The Pony Express went through this part of the country. I had no idea (or at least I don’t remember enough grade school history) that the Pony Express only lasted 18 months. I was thinking of starting a cycle-express to deliver messages across the country, but I don’t think 57 days is an acceptable delivery timeframe.

So, about the ride. I left Austin shortly after 7 and had a good ride the first few hours. I climbed through the pass at Mt Airy (not the Mt Airy in MD… I was about a mile higher than Mt Airy, MD) without much hassle. It was a long (hour-ish) climb but really not too steep. It was a great way to start the day.

After that pass, I descended down to the basin below… and that’s when all hell broke loose. Or rather, the winds from hell. I’m not an exceptionally seasoned rider, but I have never in my life ridden in wind like I had today. Within about a mile, the air went from basically calm to approaching gale force. No, I’m not joking. The grasses were bent over, tumbleweeds were tumbling, and small pebbles and pieces of sand were blowing down the road. From my kite flying days, blowing sand means the wind was going at least 25 mph… the closest weather station I could find on Weather Bug verified sustained winds of 25 with gusts up to 40.

You know that gust of wind you get when a tractor trailer goes past you in the other direction? It sort of knocks you around and slows you down? It was like that, non-stop. My wonderful pace of 18mph dropped to 13.. then 11.. then 10.. then _9_. There were stretches where it was a battle to keep my speed at 9mph. Totally flat, sunny day… in the middle of nowhere… working my butt off for 9mph. Yeah. That was awesome.

After several hours of battling that mess, I gave up. Partially because I was tired, but mostly because my hip was really hurting me. I think that all the buffeting of the wind was forcing me to constantly correct my position and riding mechanics just to hold a straight line. I felt it in my knees first, then my left hip just went bonkers. I pushed through it for a while, but after 65 miles, that was all I could take. I’ve pounded a bunch of advil, and it feels a bit better. It doesn’t hurt when I walk, but I can feel it when I’m on the bike. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Anyhoo, I finished up at Middlegate Station. This place is sorta like the bar from top gun. It’s about 20 miles from the nearby Naval Air base, there’s pilot memorabilia all over the walls, and about $1,000 in 1 dollar bills stapled to the ceiling with messages all over them. Oh, and late 80’s beer pinup girl posters in the men’s bathroom. Of course, the food was awesome 🙂

On the way in to Fallon, we passed this…

Yep, it’s a mountain of sand. Why? No clue. But it is huge, and made entirely of sand. Nevada is an interesting place.

Tomorrow we ride to Carson City. Terran will ride out with me in the morning to keep me company. And then tomorrow night JP joins back up with us. After that, it’s only 3 days till San Francisco. And THEN we start the drive back home. Heidi and I started looking at routes and timing for that trip and realized we need to really scoot to make it back in time for school. This trip is far from over 😉