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Instead of taking the short, dreary route to Sparks, via I-80, we went out of our way to do some more climbing. The day started with a long climb to Brockway Summit (elev 7200 ft), and a screaming descent all the way into Kings Beach CA, on the north shore of Lake Tahoe. Andy left a good 10 minutes ahead of me, but I caught up to him at the bottom. There's really not much to the town - a lot of motels, and one good bakery. A lot of our group stopped there, but it was too soon after breakfast for me. I just got some pictures, and went on. A little up and down to the Nevada border at Brockway, then we started climbing some more. From Incline Village to Mount Rose pass is 8.5 miles, but it took 1:50. Neil and Emily put a mini-sag stop about halfway up, at a particularly scenic switchback, because there wasn't anyone ahead of us, so there wasn't any reason for them to sit in an empty parking lot.
All told, the trip to the bottom took 28 minutes, and lost over 5000 feet of elevation. I wasn't there for more than a minute when Andy and Pat came whistling up behind me. I won't speculate on Pat's age, but her husband Bert is retired. Anyway, she's a strong rider. Sadly, Nevada is not nearly as bike-friendly as California. For the first (and probably last) time, Andy and I beat our roommate John to the hotel. Of course, John had crawled back into bed after breakfast, but he was at the pass before we left it, so he had some chance of passing us. I skipped the "100% attendance please" seminar on how to clean and lube your bike, and did my laundry. This was the first place we've stayed since San Francisco that didn't have guest laundry machines, so I had the hotel van take me up to a local shopping plaza. It was only half a load, but it was all my jerseys and shorts, and most of my socks, so it wasn't something I could put off another day. Dinner was at the Nugget Hotel/Casino in Sparks. They put on a really nice buffet - a bit light on the vegetables, but a nice salad bar, lots of entree choices, and a killer dessert buffet. Afterwards, I had drinks with Andy, John, Dan, Marnie, Daco, and Tom down in the sports bar. It was well deserved, and we all know we're not going to see a bar like this for many days to come. I didn't manage to connect with my cousin Mark, who lives in Reno, and who I haven't seen in something like 25 years. I'd been playing phone tag for a couple days, but I forgot to bring my phone to dinner, so I missed the call when he was actually somewhere in the same building. |
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From the pass to the first stop in Galena is 11 miles, but took
only 20 minutes. 20 minutes of non-stop screaming FUN! I only used
my brakes for the posted 20 mph switchbacks. Otherwise, I was with
the traffic the whole way down. Fortunately, there wasn't much
traffic; I heard there was a lot more about an hour later.