Day 46 & 47 - Middlegate to Carson City, NV

Yesterday was a rare treat on Nevada’s Route 50 with only two small, front-loaded summits followed by salt flats. Riding 50 miles into Fallon was almost a rest day after the previous few day’s rides. I pitched my tent for possibly the last time on the tour and woke up early to pedal into Carson City. 

The “loneliest road in America” became a highway today and I had to keep one eye on my mirror at all times. 63 miles of heavy traffic, but on welcomed flat road. Water stops every twenty miles as I rolled on like royalty with ice cold agua. I had originally intended to ride to Reno as a gateway to northern Lake Tahoe where I’d meet for a family vacation in the second week of July. Getting too far ahead of schedule I’ve just decided to ride back into California as spending nearly a week in Reno is playing with fire. Give me a day or two at a casino and I will come out ahead. Six days and I’ll be a frothing degenerate betting on cornhole futures in Zimbabwe. For this very reason I headed on down to Carson City to spend just a night or two before I make my last hill to climb Carson Pass. Roughly 4,000 feet of elevation to climb to the summit, but from there you shed 8,500 ft down to sea level! That sounds like a blast, so many free miles for me to cruise down. So that’s the plan for now. Enjoy Carson City tonight and hopefully use the book to pay for my hotel room. Carson Pass awaits as the final challenge. 

Day 44 & 45 - Eureka to Middlegate, NV

Wow there is just nothing that comes easy out here. 71 miles to the next town of Austin was a monster of a ride that saved the formidable Austin Pass for the tail end of the day. I don’t know what else to say that would differentiate it from the rest of Route 50 West through Nevada, just know it was a slog. Getting into town I met up again with my Irish buddy I hadn’t seen since Baker a few days back. We were able to form a Nevada support group for each other comparing our miseries, and there are a many. He left out around 5am this morning while I needed some extra rest to recover from the sprinkler debacle at my last camp. I snoozed deeply having scouted out the sprinkler heads in the evening.

We’d end up at the same spot tonight 65 miles later, through the standard agonizing headwinds, in good old Middlegate, NV. This is a place more akin to a compound than a town, but has an RV Park, saloon, and tiny motel. Pretty much everything the cyclist that hasn’t showered in three days craves. Ended up closing the bar down here hanging with all the locals. After 50 miles tomorrow I’ll finally be back into a place where 80 mile serviceless deserts aren’t the norm. You wouldn’t believe how nice that’ll be for me after what I’ve gone through.

Day 43 - Ely to Eureka, NV

Hotel Nevada in Ely, NV was a lot of fun for a small town casino. I ended up staying two nights and funding most of the bill with their sports book. I had a great time at the bar becoming one of the locals and getting them to root on my bets with me. When it was time to leave little Ely I knew the ride to the next town would be another long haul. 78 miles of no services with four mountain passes of varying elevations. After 7 and a half hours pedaling I was eight miles up the toughest pass of the day as it was getting dark. I began throwing my left arm and thumb out while riding when a car was coming up behind me. It took only three vehicles for one to come to a stop, but upon seeing it was just a small sedan with three guys in it already my hope of hitching a ride drifted away. That is until one of them offered to come back with a truck and scoop me up! They tossed me a beer and I sat roadside for just 25 minutes before sure enough they were back in a dualie. Just like the rest of the folks I’d come to meet in Eureka these were some incredibly nice people. They dropped me off at the city park and told me the backdoor across the street was to a bar that would be serving hot food for another thirty minutes. I grabbed a good meal prior to going and setting up the tent. The small park, which was free to camp in, had bathrooms as well as the first patch of green grass I’d seen in over a thousand miles. I should have known what this meant. Because of the makeshift icebox  I made with a gallon ziplock bag in a pannier some clothing was slightly dampened at the end of the day. I left them out on a picnic table to dry, but at 2:30am I heard the sprinklers come on. They directly hit my tent. Around 5am the tent floor was starting to soak through as I feel wetness at the feet of the sleeping bag. It still sounded like it was raining, but I had to get out and drag the tent to a safe zone. Everything I had left on the table was well within the blast radius, 100% soaked. I found a laundromat in town and am standing around now waiting for them to dry out. Another long stretch into Austin today, and there’s another city park there to camp at. This time I’ll be hunting for sprinkler heads assuming a before-dark arrival.

Day 42 - Baker to Ely, NV

Nevada cranked the difficulty level up to eleven on me yesterday. Two mountain passes each of around 2,000 feet of elevation gain followed by truly agonizing headwinds. What should have taken around an hour to ride took three over the last fifteen miles. This state, or at least this section of it, has been brutal thus far. Hanging out at the campground bar last night I was talking with a guy about the next rural stretch from Baker to Ely. He confirmed what my map said about there being one service stop, a restaurant, roughly halfway. A small tavern that sold beer and hamburgers. After bumming one pop tart from the other cyclist camping with me I set off with no food because Baker had only a restaurant and it wasn’t open yet. For 35 miles I fantasized about the juicy hamburger that was waiting for me. One and a half passes later I was finally there, but to my disappointment they no longer served hot food so I had to settle for a small bag of chips. Thankfully they still had an ice machine so cold water wasn’t an issue the rest of the ride. That left the headwinds and the pit in my stomach as the antagonists. When I had finally made it into town the casino hotel had no vacancy so I camped in the RV park and booked a room for tonight. When I get back in the saddle it’s another barren stretch of 78 miles with no services. Haven’t quite decided how to tackle it yet. A ride through the night is looking like a good idea at the moment, but for now it’s time for poker.

Day 41 - Milford, UT to Baker, NV

Well the ride didn’t go exactly according to plan with me chopping off 30 or 40 miles yesterday evening. About 5 miles after leaving the last town I’d see for awhile I got the second flat of the day. This time I just decided to use my last spare tire to replace it as the old one had taken a serious thrashing from a rock in Big Sur. I was thankful when somebody in a truck pulled over to ask if I needed help and gave me a couple bottles of water. After losing some daylight to that ordeal I began climbing into a bitch of a headwind. Reaching the top of the pass I had planned to cruise a bit longer, but upon reaching a historical landmarker with shelter and a picnic bench I called it quits there. 

Pretty good camping spot, but I didn’t get a whole lot of rest. The winds were relentless all night and without the ability to stake into the awful soil I had to keep pushing gear around in the tent to get it to keep its shape. Setting off early I had two more summits to reach and 70 miles left to ration out the water. Very little traffic and even fewer RV traffic to flag down for water (RVs are usually a safe bet for ice cold water for obvious reasons). Right before the second climb of the morning I came across another cyclist for the first time since about San Bernadino. He was hanging outside the only building I’d seen all day grabbing some shade. I rode on over and hung out for a good while chatting and comparing trips - he’s headed up to Alaska. Here at the place I’ve dubbed the “Cyclist’s Mirage” was an old artesian well dripping onto an uncharacteristically healthy tree for this locale. Because of it I ended up not needing to rely on any vehicular aid to get the job done today.  Never die in the desert, folks, let the ride provide or atleast know how to hitchhike. Upon reaching town I found a really chill campground with cyclist rates and a bar. I took one of the best showers of my life and then followed that up with many of the best beers of my life (plus about a gallon of ice water). Writing this here in the tent I hope for a better night’s rest for a much more tolerable ride into Ely tomorrow where I just may stay in a casino :)

Day 40 - Cedar City, UT to Milford, UT

I am finally back in the saddle today and have ridden 57 miles into Milford, Utah. The few days of rest felt fantastic. I car camped down old fire roads while exploring the Grand Canyon North and South Rims as well as Zion National Park. Then I got two real nights of rest in a motel. The drive around the Grand Canyon was a highlight of the trip as it’s so majestic it looks like another planet. Right now I’m sitting around Milford waiting for a few degrees to fall off the 100 degree temperature before I roll on and ride until sunset. The next 85 miles are void of any water stops all the way until Baker, NV. I have no way of keeping water even close to cold for that amount of miles in this heat so I’ll be trying to chip away 30 or 40 tonight and let the overnight low in the 50’s cool the water supply down enough to finish the ride in the morning. I’m off to overload the bike with water and food.

Day 39 - Ash Fork to Flagstaff, AZ

The last couple of days have been oddly difficult. I don’t fully understand why, but for certain the 60 mile rides both felt like centuries. I’ve chalked it up to the cumulative effect of not being fully past this illness along with a poor desert diet and not the best sleep. My legs don’t feel sore, tired would be more appropriate and they demanded a breather. My hands are both numb from having to carry all the extra water on my back. Around mile 30 yesterday I decided to ride past a northern turn towards the Grand Canyon and on into Flagstaff where I could grab a rental car. This morning I rode into GC National Park where I can now cover much more ground of personally unexplored beauty than I could have on the bicycle. Now the 40 mile out-and-back north rim loop won’t be such a set back to me and I can even do a day hike from there down into the canyon. After checking out the south rim today I’m super excited to park the car and travel in by foot. Best of all I’ve got a cooler full of food and water so I can spend a few days not worrying about the next meal while also getting fruits and veggies that the dust bowl gas stations didn’t have. I’ll drop the car off in Cedar City, Utah and continue the ride to Tahoe from there. I’ll be back in the desert then with 70+ mile stretches of no water stops. Tackling those rides with full strength will be critical! I’ll post again when I’m westbound back in the saddle.