San Jose to Denver

We had our best breakfast yet at the Pony Expresso Deli. Owner Paul challenged us to finish off a large breakfast burrito. Dick and I accepted and completed the task at hand. I also bought a couple fresh baked tarts and some buffalo meat sticks.

Paul and his Dad Louie have been running the cafe for about four years. The family is from Lowville, NY, not far from my hometown of Rochester. If you ever go through this town, don’t miss this!

We knocked off four summits in 78 miles today. I arrived in Ely about 4 pm. Ted has dropped off; we did not see him at all today. We spoke with another cyclist who is riding from Salt Lake to Santa Cruz. I gave Dan from Boston some advise on routes to the south bay.

Both my wife, Sarah, and I remember Ely as being a very small town when we passed through on the way to California back in ‘96. We must have had our eyes closed the whole way through town, because this is the largest ‘burg we have seen since Carson City!

-Rick

This post is dedicated to my recently passed brother-in-law, Bill Cole. Bill was a true free-spirit who loved wandering Nevada and visiting the hot springs. I think the hot, dry weather appealed to him and eased the pain of his arthritis. He took me on one journey to the Black Rock Desert once, which I throughly enjoyed.

Bill would have wanted me to visit Spencer Hot Springs. Everyone who knew Nevada recommended it. I could not convince the others to join me, so Jerry helped me plan out a route to the springs, and off I went solo after a great pancake breakfast.

A dirt road veered off Highway 50 to the east. I went approximetely six miles on it, and was astounded to find wildlife living back in the sage. I got within 20 yards of a herd of prong horn sheep. Instead of prancing away like deer, they thundered through the desert to escape me. I also saw some wild burros.

I finally made it to the hot springs after 30 minutes of riding. I had difficulty locating it, but a car went by and I followed the dust trail.

I joined five others in the spring and enjoyed a view of the snow covered east slopes of the Toiyabe range. Bill would have loved this day. One of my fellow soakers offered me a beer. I declined, knowing I had a long day ahead. Bill would have never passed up the beer, but he would have loved this day. This soak’s for you Bill!

I soaked for about an hour and got back on the bike. I took another dirt road to the north and joined Highway 50 after four miles. Altogether I added eight miles onto my day. I had lots of ground to make up, and put in a race-worthy effort. I caught Jerry, Dick and Ted (he’s still with us!) just as they were about to eat lunch.

I pulled into Eureka about 4pm, and the others got in an hour later. I was exhausted from todays effort! We got some food at the Eureka Cafe, one of the worst meals all of us have ever had. That is so disappointing after a long ride.

We camped at the Silver Sky RV park on some nice, new grass. I think everyone slept well! I rode 82 miles today; Jerry and Dick did 72.

-Rick

Jerry mentioned the Mormon Crickets. These 3 inch long insects are all over the road. The locals say this years crop is small; they are usually about 4-5 inches long! There are thousands of them in the sage and crawling on the road. They apparently scavenge the dead ones that get crushed by cars; you can imagine what happens to the scavengers then…it’s Crush Hour in Nevada!

Just outside of Middlegate we detoured on Highway 722, also known as Old Highway 50. Few cyclists take this route because of it extra climbing involved. After doing it, I can’t see passing it up. Carrol Summit was beautiful. Along the route I saw lots of hummingbirds, a pair of Grouse and swallows.

I found an American flag lying on the pavement….it had been run over at least once. I carefully folded the flag in a triangle and will take it to Denver. My patriotic action on Memorial Day.

About 6,000 feet up, the canyon closed in and became a beautiful riparian corridor with willow and some of the largest birch trees I have ever seen…their girth was nearly 3 feet at chest level.

I was disappointed to see how many people had brought their toys up into this beautiful canyon…ATV’s, motorcycles and jeeps. Seems like every vehicle was hauling a toy and a trailer. I saw five RV’s parked at one pullout, all with generators humming…I will stop ranting now!

The downhill was a blast, and the basin was LONG! We must have ridden 30 miles across the basin. Along the way, a river had overflowed it’s banks. We saw some yellow headed birds…tanigers?

We stopped at the Mountain Motel, which had recently been renovated after being closed for two years. The manager, Alice, was over 70 but still spry as can be. The motel was clean, yet very simple. The beds and pillow were new and we slept great!

-Rick

Today’s destination doesn’t even appear on a map, but cyclist from around the country all know about Middlegate Station. More on that at the end of this post.

Today was to be our easiest day so far, and we deserve it! The previous five days we covered almost 400 miles and over 22,000 vertical feet of climbing. We did some grocery shopping at Raley’s and headed east on Highway 50, the so called “lonely highway”.

It sure wasn’t lonely today. Plenty of cars passed us, although you could never say it was congested.

Nevada has installed a very severe rumble strip along the highway to keep tired drivers from going off the road…the idea is that it would wake you before going completely off the shoulder. It is totally unrideable for cyclists. So you have two choices…ride the 10 inches to the right of the rumble strip, or ride the road. We chose the road. Besides the rumble strips, the pavement conditions are excellent.

Nevada drivers are very courteous. We only got a couple of horn toots, even with us being in the roadway. But there is plenty of room to get around.

About 10 miles outside of Fallon, we ran into a tourist riding the same direction. Our new friend, Ted, is from Turlock and taking a very unusual route to Washington, DC…across Nevada, dropping into Utah south of the Adventure Cycling route, up into Colorado, north to Glacier NP (yep, that’s Montana!), crossing the border into Canada and up to Banff, transversing the Canadian plains, entering the US in Minnesota, south to Missori and hang a left to get to Washington…whew! What a route!

While riding today, a golden eagle stepped out into the shoulder of the road; not flew, stepped! He was about 20 feet in front of my wheel when he flew off. We are getting some close up views of critters.

More on Middlegate Station…it’s a bar, a restaurant, a motel, a campground…basically, it’s everything to all people in this very desolate part of the country. I personnally believe it should be named “friendliest place in America”…no matter if you are on a dune buggy or a bicycle, a horse or a truck, everyone communicates, laughs over a beer, breaks bread together. It’s a great place.

Jerry was going over the breakfast menu…last year on our Pacific Coast Trip, when we ate a Denny’s Jerry would add all the items together and give the breakfast a score. So, if the meal had two eggs, three strips of bacon and two pancakes, it was a seven. Our riding friend Kiara, who we met on that tour, got a big kick out of Jerry’s scoring system.

Imagine Kiara’s surprise when I called and told him the “Monster Breakfast” at Middlegate Station added up to a 15! I believe it made him even more envious of our trip this month!

Altogether we knocked off 50 miles today, with a couple of low passes. We also met some cyclists that were riding from Virginia to San Francisco…the whole enchilada! They called themselves the “Spandex Clan”, but individually they were Brooke, Andy, Steve and Marsha. We wish them luck on their last leg!

-Rick

Rick has been doing a great job of reporting our daily journeys. On behalf of Dick and myself, thanks Rick!

Well, here we are at Middlegate Station Nevada with nothing between us and Fallon 50 miles to the west or Austin 65 miles to the east. Yet we have internet access! Go figure. Today just happens to be the annual BBQ at Middlegate Station and the place is packed. We got the last room in their 6-room motel.

Yesterday we awoke in Woodfords and I looked out the window and reported fog. I guess the coffee had not kicked in yet - what I actually saw was snow! I think abour 3 inches fell but as soon as the snow stopped falling we got on our bikes and started riding. 95 miles later we landed in Fallon in what turned out to be our easiest riding day so far. Conditions were perfect in that the wind was always at our back no matter which way we turned and grew stronger as the day progressed. All day we saw storm clouds around us but very little snow or rain fell on us. We coasted into Fallon at 20-25 mph with virtually no effort. Nobody talked about it, but I think we all knew there would be payback later in our journey (there was!).

Today was even easier with just 50 miles of riding and less than 2000 feet of climbing with a tail wind the whole way. We met a rider Ted Phelps who will be joining us for a few days and four other riders traveling west rolled into Middlegate Station shortly after we arrived. Our plan had been to spend the night at Dayton State Park half way between Woodfords and Fallon (we figured we needed some easy days after 21,000 ft of climbing the first 4 days) but the strong tailwinds just blew us by that place. Good thing it did – Ted had stayed at Dayton the previous night and reported the place overrun by mosquitos. It was all he could do to set up tent and quickly get inside to escape the buggers.

Speaking of insects, we got to see tens of thousands of Morman Crickets on the road today. The inside of my fenders are now lined with some of them.

Highway 50 not as lonely as we would have liked but maybe after the holiday things will return to normal. The roads in Nevada have been exceptionally smooth.

I have a voice recorder and I’m taking lots of notes so I’ll fill in details when I get home.

Having a blast and looking forward to more.

–jerry

After yesterday’s winds, we weren’t sure what to expect this morning. Jerry looked out the window at about 7 and commented on the fog up the mountain. That weren’t no fog Jerry…that’s snow!

Within a half hour, there was three inches on the ground and it was cold! Regardless, we took off about 8:30. Once we dropped down about 500 feet in altitude, the snow was gone, but the cold remained. We were bundled up, so it wasn’t too bad.

We had a great breakfast at Genoa General Store shortly after entering Nevada. We pushed north with a tailwind sometimes, headwinds other. We made our intended destination by 1 pm or so, way too early to stop. We had a quick lunch and I called my niece, who graduated today form RIT…congrats again Kate!

We pushed on with favorable winds through the Nevada salt flats to Silver Springs. The building formerly known as a motel was boarded up, so we were not staying there! Jerry took the leash off me and gave me my marching orders…head for Fallon and secure a motel room! We were pushing a lot of miles today, and we were looking for a good meal, decent beds, laundry and a hot tub.

I covered the last eight miles into Fallon at about 26 mph…not bad for a load weighing in at over 50 lb! The tailwind did most of the work!

Today we combined two riding days into one, covering 94 miles. We are starting to get a taste of Nevada. Tomorrow we will be knee deep on the lonliest highway in America…Highway 50!

Rick

I won’t waste your time with our 1,200′ ascent from PiPi…you read about my gripe yesterday!

We turned onto Hwy 88 and cranked up to 6,000 feet altitude with little or no shoulder…traffic was less than we expected on the start of a holiday weekend. We found our first snow on the roadside there. Somewhere along the way a bumblebee found it’s way between my base layer and my skin…Normally they are fairly docile, but not in this case! It was one whollop of a sting!

At 7,000′ the shoulder widened and riding became much easier. I ran into trucker and bicyclist Ed Carlson at one vista. He complimented us on our bright, visible colors and asked about our destination. Ed makes trucking runs between Placerville and Southern Cal, but I think he would rather be riding with us!

We passed beautiful Alpine Scenery, with half-frozen lakes. At Kirkwood, I saw gas was $4.689 and a small Gatorade was $2.00! Avoid that stop at all cost, no matter if you are feeding your car or your body!

Here the wind really started to whip up, making the edge of the flags snap. When I used to sail boats, that is the time to start to think about heading in. But we still had Carson Pass to ascend. At 8,600 feet, it is way up there! Jerry logged 41 degrees at the summit.

The wind was gusting at 40 mph as we decended, and blowing us around quite a bit. We got into Woodford Inn, grabbed some sandwiches and a couple beers and watched the forcast for Saturday…snow in the mountains!

We covered 58 miles and 6,650 vertical feet today.

-Rick

We woke up early to a beautiful sunny day. Our legs were tired, and we faced a lot of climbing today. The climbing started without much of a warmup, as we climbed about 2,000′ up Stony Creek Road to Jackson. It was beautiful!

In Jackson we stoked up on a huge breakfast at Denny’s (Jerry’s favorite). We did a little grocery shopping, and while I wrote the last entries Dick and Jerry made 18 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches…yes, eighteen! Now we had enough fuel to get over the Sierra!

A note on routes…Jerry has spent a bunch of hours working on routes, and the hard work certainly showed. Most of the roads we have been on have been light on traffic and high on scenery.

After the chefs prepared our meals for the next few days, we climbed Sutter Creek road to Volcano. As the name implies, it follows Sutter Creek and was peaceful and green. Into Volcano for some snacks, and we were looking at the rest of the day climbing up Ram’s Horn Rd, Shake Ridge and Highway 88.

At our turn off to PiPi Valley, we realized the campground was an 1,200′ decent to the river. Cyclists always know what that means; a 1200′ ascent tomorrow morning…

During the night racoons investigated my packs but found nothing but empty zip lock bags…na na nana na! Fooled them!

-Rick

Okay, today was supposed to flat and easy…not!

The morning was great…nice, traffic free roads for the most part. The Central Valley can be beautiful with all the nut trees, vineyards and yes, even the stinky cows.

We hammered out the first 45 miles of the trip easily. We had mild tailwinds at times to make the work easier. The temperatures were mild and the landscape shaded. We had lunch in Oakdale, did some grocery shopping and headed into a moderate headwind.

We didn’t see a tree for about 30 miles. I found the sun to be relentless! The road was great, with little traffic. We anticipated about 750′ of climbing; it actually ended up to be almost 1200′…all in rollers, one after the other. I ticked off the miles one at a time, the headwinds actually got lighter, and we started to move into the oak woodlands between Highways 26 and 12. The shade was a nice change.

We stopped in Burson for some groceries and got to our campsite at Commanche about 5 pm. The lake was very full, but the campground was empty. We had a nice family next to us that; the little boy was in third grade and everytime he rode his bike by us he would yell “hey guys”, like he was one of us. He was impressed with our ride and gave me a polished pebble to take to Colorado. He said we could mix it in with any other rocks I saw…I promise to use my best discretion.

Total mileage today was 85 flat, easy miles…not! We start heading into the Sierra tomorrow.

Rick

I did a final loading of my bike today…repacked everything and took one thing out of each bag. I lost one pair of underwear, my GPS (this route is fairly simple!), the GPS charger, one base layer, some toothpaste and, believe it or not, dental floss. Hey, every 1/8 of an ounce counts!

Tomorrow we are meeting at Jerry’s house, about a mile from here. We are going over Mt. Hamilton and down to Patterson, a trip of about 70 miles. There is not a campground available, so we are going to live in luxury; Best Western!

I will be posting when library faciilites are available and time allows. Oh, yeah, and when I am not too lazy to do the posting!

Thanks Jerry, for setting up this site! So it’s adios to Dick, Rick and Jerry! Denver, here we come!

–rick

When packing for a self-contained bicycle tour I only take items that “weigh nothing and take no room�?. Like everything else related to bicycling, that means you pay more and get less. Yet in the end I always end up with 4 full panniers weighing over 40 pounds. No different this time – I’m currently at 42 pounds. I’ve been looking at what I can leave behind in order to reduce weight but every individual item weighs nothing and takes no room! So leaving it behind (and hating myself somewhere down the road when I need it) doesn’t gain me anything. Then I get philosophical. Between me and my bike and my gear I’m pushing over 250 pounds down the road. A few ounces here or there won’t make any difference. So there, I’m done packing!

This blog is a last minute addition – I don’t know why we didn’t think of it before – but I think it might work. No one is bringing a laptop computer but I’m sure we will be able to find internet access along the way. It’s always best to write journals in real time rather than relying on faulty memory weeks or months later. I’ll be taking lots of pictures and hopefully I can figure out how to upload some to this journal.

–jerry

Spent today getting ready for the tour. Lots chores that needed to be done around the house. Once those were done I also had a few errands to run. Then even though the bike was completely loaded I just had to double check everything again. Soo I unloaded the bike and I’m now in the process of repacking and reloading everything. Everytime I do this it seems the load weigh more and more. Finally finished repacking at 7:00 AM. Final weight was 42 lbs. Ready or not I’m ready. Gotta leave the house at 7:15 AM to meet up with Rick at Jerry’s house by 8:00AM. This should be an adventure. If I survive going over Mt. Hamilton tomorrow the rest will be a piece of cake.
–dick