Day 08 - Fallon to Middlegate Station

                                        Wednesday May 31, 2017

This morning we had a leisurely start as we only had about 50 miles to ride today. However, it was suggested that we be packed up and off the grounds by 10am, as that's when they were going to start flooding the campground. Fallon's way of watering the grass and trees.

After breakfast in town, we continued east on US50, again pushed by a nice tailwind. Though the road surface was OK, back came the dreaded rumble strips. We were back to riding the white line.

The first area of interest today was a large playa (without a name?), which will be the lowest elevation we see in Nevada at about 3920 ft. There was a lot of rock art along the road over the playa, mostly people spelling their name with dark volcanic rocks on the white muddy evaporites (sorry no photos of these). Near the end of the dry lake was a decent sized dune field, called Sand Mountain. The ride all day was very scenic. We ended up with 50 miles at a wind aided 15.3 mph. We had about a 1000 of climbing today.

We reached Middlegate Station by about 2pm. This is a very interesting place where locals, motorcyclists, bicyclists and the stray tourist stops for food and sometimes to spend the night. It has the only campsites with water for 110 miles between Fallon and Austin. The camping is reasonable (free), showers are $3, domestic beers are $2 and the food is good. Inside the ceiling is plastered with paper currency, mostly US $1 notes that people have written their names and other things on. One wall is covered with patches from various organizations, like the California Highway Patrol, NASA, etc.

Camping out back here tonight are Ian and I, the young couple Nick and Kristen (did I mention that they were riding with guitars on their bikes), plus two Swiss male riders on fat tire MTBs who rode in late. They are just into a 2 month ride from San Francisco to Seattle, via Durango and Moab, on asphalt and dirt. They are obviously in great shape, probably in their 30's and are travelling lighter than us. They left SF two days after us last Friday and caught us with a 110 mile ride today from Carson City. They did get here via a slightly different route, up through Lake Tahoe.

Tomorrow will be interesting, as all 3 pairs of us cyclists will ride the 65 miles to the next town to the east, Austin.

Also staying at the campground tonight, and using it as a basecamp, are 3 geologists (2 students and a prof) from Angelo State Univ. back in Texas. They are doing some detailed mapping nearby. Ian and I had a nice talk with them.

Mike

Day 07 - Carson City to Fallon

                                                  Tuesday May 30, 2017

This morning we got on the road by 8am. It's easier to pack up from a motel room, than from a campsite. 

The first 35 miles today were a very pleasant ride along US50, generally slightly downhill with a few short climbs. The shoulder was wide, the asphalt was smooth and the wind was at our backs. We passed through the towns of Mound House, Dayton and Stagecoach before reaching Silver Springs where we ate lunch at a Subway. Just before reaching Silver Springs, coming the other way, was a single older female touring cyclist. We waved, but should have turned back and talked with her a bit. She wasn't riding very fast into the headwind.

The next 18 miles after lunch were totally different. The road surface changed to a rough chip-n-seal. The shoulder narrowed to about 3 feet wide, and in the best Texas tradition, they put rumble strips right in the middle of the shoulder. We had to ride to the left of the white line. Luckily traffic was not too heavy. Lahontan Reservoir was along this section of road (see photos). Once we got beyond this stretch, the nice wide shoulder returned before we reached Fallon.

We rode 65 miles today, and thanks to the tailwind and overall loss of elevation today, we averaged a nice 15.3 mph. We are staying at the Churchill County Regional Park campsites. Grassy campsites and showers for only $7 a person.

Fallon is a decent sized little town. The Wok Fallon chinese restaurant we ate at for dinner was pretty good.

Then about 7pm, just like a few evenings ago at Cooks Station, in rolled the young couple that is also touring in our direction. We got their names this time; Nick and Kristen. We still don't know much more about them as they had to set up camp, shower, etc. before dark.

Tomorrow is Middlegate. About which we have read a lot.

Mike

Day 06 - Crystal Spring CG to Carson City

                                            Monday May 29, 2017

We met two very different types of people at the campground last night. 

The first was a friendly guy I initially met getting water. He was very impressed by our ride plans. Later that evening he came by and brought each of us a cold beer. We gladly accepted and talked with him a bit more. His son and girlfriend work as entertainers (actors) on a cruise ship in the Mediterranean. He and his wife have a 2 week trip planned later in the summer to go on one if their cruises. He was interesting to talk with. Then later in the evening, he brought us some fruit and cheese for breakfast. He knew that we had nothing fresh with us. Awesome.

Then in contrast, this morning a lady with two dogs walked up and plopped herself down to start talking about herself and her son who is in trouble with the law. We had a hard time getting rid of her. You meet all types out there.

According to our pre-trip plans, we were expecting to get to Fallon tonight and then have a day off. However, Fallon is over 90 miles from Crystal Springs, which is further than we want to ride. So we decided to do a short ride into Carson City and get a cheap motel for that badly needed shower and laundry.

Tomorrow we will ride the 60 flatish miles to Fallon and skip the off day to get back on schedule.

The highlight of today's ride was the oldest settled town in Nevada, called Genoa. We ate our 2nd breakfast there. There were a lot of local cyclists along our scenic route which took us along Foothill Blvd, which runs along the base of the Sierra roughly parallel to busy US395. 

In Genoa, an older cycling couple asked if we used Warm Showers, because they hosted one in nearby Gardnerville. We could have made it there yesterday. Warm Showers is an online site were people let cyclists, hikers, etc stay at their house. No fees, except you have be willing to reciprocate and host people in your house. 

My disk brakes were fading on the big decent yesterday from Carson Pass and I was suspecting that I might need new brake pads. Being Memorial Day however, no bike shops are open. Luckily, Ian is a much better bike mechanic than me and knew how to adjust the pads closer to disks so that they would make contact and brake again. There is still enough brake pad remaining. He had been questioning whether he really needed to bring along that heavy extra long Allen wrench set. The answer is yes.

Stats for today's short, mostly flat to slightly downhill ride: 36 miles at 14.1 mph.

Cheap motel - check:    Warm long shower - check:      Laundry - check:     Nice Mexican dinner - check

Now for US50 across Nevada - the Loneliest Road in America 

Mike

Day 05 - Cooks Station to Crystal Spring CG

                                                              Sunday May 28, 2017

We woke up to a nice sunny day. We had breakfast at Cooks and talked a bit more with the young couple(?). We both had similar goals for the day, climb over Carson Pass and camp near Woodfords on the other side of the Sierra Nevada. We left before them expecting to see them again on the road, or at least at the campsite.

The climbing was hard today. The heavy bikes just don't want to go uphill. Luckily, Ian and I are very well matched with a similar cycling pace, even when climbing. We have stayed together throughout the ride so far. However, drafting is not really an option with heavily loaded touring bikes, partly because they cannot stop nearly as quickly as a lighter bike. But maybe even more importantly, if you are up close behind a bike with panniers, you cannot see the road ahead of it very well. So there is a much higher chance of hitting road debris, potholes, etc.

We didn't actually start seeing much snow until about 7000 ft in elevation. But if you look at some of the photos below, there was still quite a bit still present up high. All of the high campgrounds were still closed. We were expecting that there would be a gas station, or restaurant up along hwy 88 near the Kirkwood ski area where we could get some food and water. However, the few that we passed were still closed for the winter. Kirkwood itself is off Hwy88 a mile or 2 and uphill a bit. We decided not to go up and continued on up to the pass.

It was a relief to finally get up to Carson Pass, knowing that the uphills were finally over. As passes go, Carson Pass is a good one. It looks like passes should.

Our stats for the day; 49 miles, 36 up to Carson Pass and 13 fast miles down to tonight's campsite at Forest Service run Crystal Spring. Total climbing was 5200 feet according to Ian's Garmin, at 9.8 mph. This was more than we expected due to a few big drops along the route that made us regain elevation. I burned a 2nd match today. We are both tired, but not wiped out.

We never did see the young touring couple(?) again today? In fact, we only saw one other cyclist all day, a solo road biker who climbed Carson from the east.

Our campsite tonight is scenic, but basic. This means a 2nd straight night without a shower. We badly need to do laundry and take a shower. There was also very poor cell service again. That's why these posts are a bit late.

Mike

Day 04 - Plymouth to Cooks Station

                                                            Saturday May 27, 2017

This morning at about 5am, we started hearing the noise of truck engines, and then squealing pigs. Of course !!  It was Saturday morning, Memorial Day weekend at the county fairgrounds. It seemed as if everyone in the county was bringing in their livestock to show?, to sell? Amazingly, both Ian and I tolerated the steadily escalating noise and slept until almost 7am.

Today we had our big breakfast in town, rather than first riding a few miles. The climbing started as soon as we left town. I can say with certainty that along the first 10 mile section of Fiddletown road, I set my personal record of shifts per mile. The road climbed in ramps and flats. False flats where followed by steep ramps. I often used my granny gear of 26 x 34, which I now call my "4 mph" gear. Our speeds ranged between 15 mph and 4 mph. I was constantly shifting to get the right gear as the gradient kept changing.

After Fiddletown Rd, we turned onto Shakeridge Rd. Here, signs were posted saying that the road was closed further up due to slumping caused by the wet winter (see photos). Luckily, we had previously talked with the lady owner of Cooks Station (tonight's campsite) and she told us that bikes were still able to get through the closure. We trusted her and had no problem making it through. Her information saved us many potential miles, and hours, of detour.

The last 4 miles today was the toughest part of the day, a steady grind up to Cooks Station. We arrived at about 2:30pm and immediately ordered lunch. Cooks Station is a cool little restaurant and store with very friendly staff and a lot of history dating back to the 1840s when it was one of a string of stations used along a supply route during gold rush days. We are camping behind it tonight. No shower, but water, food and flat ground for tents. No Verizon service for me, but Ian has great AT&T service?

Today's total mileage was only 26 miles, but we did climb 4300 ft. As a result, our average speed was a slow 7.6 mph. I think I burned one of my matches.

Cooks Station is at 5000 ft, but there is no snow around? The locals say that many of the storms this winter were warm with a high snow level. Here they got lots of rain, but only a normal amount of snow, which has already melted. Higher up, they got all snow. If you stand out in the middle Calif route 88 in front of Cooks and look east, you can just glimpse a distant peak between the trees, which is covered with snow. That's actually our first snow sighting. Tomorrow we'll see lots more as we plan to crest Carson Pass, with another 4000 ft of climbing, and drop down close to Nevada.

About an hour before sunset, we finally met some other touring cyclists. A young couple(?) that are riding all the way across to Boston from SF, pulled into Cooks. They will also be camping at Cooks.

More later.  Mike

Grafted walnut trees

On a previous post, I mentioned walnut trees that looked as if they had been grafted at the trunk. The result is a white barked walnut tree with a dark, and often wider, lower trunk and root system. A strange looking tree.

Anyways, I was not able to attach a photo of the tree to that post, because I took those photos from my Nikon point and click camera. For some reason the Blogger App will only post photos taken by my cell phone. This is an attempt to get around that issue.

So if you see a photo of trees below, it worked.

Day 03 - Rocklin to Plymouth

                                                          Fri  May 26, 2017

Our plans today were to ride only about 40 miles to a town called Plymouth in the Sierra foothills. We stopped for breakfast #2 (breakfast #1 was a quick oatmeal earlier) at a Subway after riding about 10 miles and made some calls about campsites.

Again today we met some riders from the Sacremento Wheelmen cycling club. They seem to be everywhere. Two of them helped us navigate the bike paths past Folsum Dam, which was roaring with water being released.

At a stop at the very small town of Latrobe (no services), I found on the side of the road a small palm sized stone with some strange writing on it (see photo). I considering keeping it, trying to determine if I wanted the extra weight, when Ian mentioned something about bad karma if I took it. I left it for someone else to find. I am curious what the writing says.

We made it to Plymouth by about 2pm, so we had a leisurely afternoon. We are camping on the Amador County Fairgrounds, the only camping site around. 

Today we rode 40 miles at 12.8 mph average. 2500 ft of climbing, with some pretty steep sections. It was harder than yesterday's 75 miles.

Tomorrow is a shorter 30 miles, but with 4000 ft elevation gain, from 1000 ft here to 5000 ft at Cooks Station. Cooks Station is the highest open camping that we have been able to find due to the snow, which we actually haven't even seen yet. This climb will be a test of our legs vs the weight of the bikes and gear. The following day will be up and over Carson Pass.

There may not be any cell service at Cooks Station , so maybe no report tomorrow. 

Day 02 - Solano Lake to Rocklin

Thurs. May 25, 2017

Day 2 of our ride: walnut trees, and a rider who would be the envy of almost any other senior cyclist.

After breaking camp, Ian and I set out on the road at about 8:30 this morning in perfectly mild California weather. An easy 6 miles brought us to the nice little town of Winters, where we stopped for a huge cafe breakfast. There we got into group texting banter with Jim, Bob and Tom who were also on a food break during their morning ride back in Texas. I can guarantee that our omelettes and pancakes were better than their corner gas station burritos.

After Winters we continued our mellow ride through an area with endless orchards which we had trouble Identifing. The trees looked like they had been grafted to a different, darker colored stump? They had roughly 2 inch long oval, or egg shaped, fruits on them. We thought they were some type of nut, but were not sure.

Finally we saw a farm worker on an ATV near the road, so we stopped to ask him what type of tree it was that was being grown over what seemed like an entire county. I interpreted his answer as "I don't know, I just work here". To be fair, he did not speak English well. I got him to nod and agree that they were nut trees, but apparently he didn't know the word for the type of nut. A few minutes later a county worker we saw confirmed that they were walnut trees. The green fruits we saw would later dry up into nice walnuts.

Later we rode thru downtown Davis and Sacremento, which were both nice with outdoor cafes and historical displays. Along the Sacremento River boardwalk and trail we timed it perfectly to watch the double deck (cars above rail), "I" street swing bridge, rotate open to allow a boat to pass. There aren't many of that type of bridge left.

After the Sacremento River, we switched to a trail following the American River. This trail was amazing in that it continued for some 20 miles without major road crossings, just river bottom terrain with occasional glimpses of the river. Unfortunately, because of this isolation, Ian and I did not get a proper lunch today. It was also along these two river sections that we started to see members of the Sacremento Wheelmen cycling club. They were completing a Thursday 60-70 mile breakfast club ride to Davis. They helped Ian and I navigate through some tricky bike path intersections and some of them escorted us all the way to our departure point from the river bike path. Among this group was a rider who would probably be the envy of any other senior cyclist. He was 91 years old and still riding well, completing 60 miles that morning. Paul Meyer, he has almost 20 years on you !!!

We ended our ride at my middle son Dillon's apartment in the city of Rocklin. 75 miles total today at 13.8 mph. Pizza and beer for dinner for our starved bodies. Another good day. Even though we rode 25 more miles than yesterday, both Ian and I felt that It was an easier ride, both due to a mellow pace and also the flat terrain, as we basically just crossed California's Central Valley. Tomorrow we start climbing.

Mike

Day 01 - SF to Winters

Today we began our ride to Pueblo,  Colo. Ian and I got a fairly late 10:30am start from the visitors center in Golden Gate Park, next to the bridge with same name. Thanks so much  to Tracy for agreeing to drop us off and then drive back to St George by herself.

The bikes felt extra heavy at first and it was cool enough for a long sleeve shirt over the cycling jeresy. The first 6 miles were along the SF waterfront of parks, cyclists, walkers, piers and wharfs to a ferry terminal. There we caught a ferry to Vallejo, quite far across to the northeastern part of the Bay. By then it was lunch time and so we immediately stopped at a local diner and had a big meatloaf lunch. So in the first 2 hrs, we cycled about 7 miles.

After lunch we finally got going along a route that had more climbing than we expected. Also quite a few traffic signals in places. The nicest part of the ride was quiet and rural Pleasant Valley Rd at the end. We generally had a good tail wind and it got plenty warm enough on the climbs to break a good sweat. We covered 49 miles at about 13.5 mph.
We got to our campsite at Solano Lake County Park, outside of Winters, at about 5:30pm. It has very poor cell service and many wild, somewhat noisy Peacocks. Ian and I ate and showered went to bed fairly early.

We met no other touring cyclists today, but many curious people asking where we were headed. Tomorrow will be flat to Sacremento, then the climb of the Sierras begins.