Saturday, September 22, 2012

Nevada: September 21, 2012

Bright and early Bill was on his bike and gone. He and Dennis are planning to ride 500 miles today to get them close to Yellowstone Park. We got photos of all of us before our day on the road began....



There are several bike sculptures like this one around town.  At breakfast we decided by vote that we would ride around the lake counterclockwise today. The real advantage to this is that the first 12 miles are the same route we will ride when we start the OATBRAN ride on Monday. It is also an advantage to NOT ride UP the steep grade we experienced in the first 15 miles yesterday. And we will not be on the dropoff edge--many places have no guardrail, reminds me of Going to the Sun Road!





We climbed gradually up to this scenic lookout at Memorial Point. I stopped here yesterday with the guys... it is a bit of a problem getting across the road to the scenic overlooks--they are all on the opposite side of the road since we are going counterclockwise...



We planned to meet Dianne's cousins at Tahoe City for lunch. They drove in the car and chose a restaurant--all we had to do was show up! There was a bit more climbing than I remembered from yesterday.... it's all different when you are being propelled by a motor! We descended into Tahoe City, not sure what our top elevation was, but Dianne and I both experienced some breathing difficulty from climbing in higher altitude than we are used to.


At lunch I took this photo of Lehua, Dianne, Joni, Damon, and Roz. We had a great time and the food was fantastic. It sure was hard to get back on the bike after that!






After lunch we had a great long climb that I certainly did not remember from yesterday! I had to stop a few times to get my breathing under control... The road was rather treacherous for cyclists, as the woman at at the welcome center had told me. The outside edge was sheer dropoff right at the edge of the white line, and in some places we were literally up against the wall on the inside edge!

We "lost" Damon on the last part of the climb, took a long break at the overlook, and rode the bike path most of the rest of the way to the hotel. It was a bit over 74 miles total riding, but Dianne and I were groaning about the climbing the rest of the day! We did this ride to acclimate to the altitude and the climbing.... I'm sure we'll be very glad we did it when Monday morning arrives and we start the ride across the state. But right now it hurts!

3 comments:

Julebow said...

Thank you for allowing me to follow my sister Dianne's adventure and all the great pics and comments, julie

Julebow said...

Thank you for allowing me to follow my sister Dianne's adventure and all the great pics and comments, julie

Julebow said...

Thank you for allowing me to follow my sister Dianne's adventure and all the great pics and comments, julie