Today was a hard day. On paper, it is one of the easiest stage in the desert stage, but it took some effort to get here to Austin. It rained, off and on, throughout the day. I got wet some half an hour into the ride in the morning. I contemplated staying the day at Cold Springs Station and letting the storm pass, but for better or worse, I decided to push on to Austin. Things went well until my first climb when I got wet again from another spell of rain. Then again about 10 miles away from Austin. Finally, I was 2 miles away laboring through the last steep climb when a thunderstorm came by and completely soaked me. I checked into the first motel I saw as soon as I got into Austin and took a warm shower. After some sleep and food, I feel much better now. Tomorrow I do 70 miles as opposed to the 47 miles I did today. I also have to climb a few hundred feet more. Thankfully, the weather looks good - clear skies with a max of 20 C. The day after that is even more strenuous in terms of distance and height. Let me take it one day at a time, I guess.
There are a few more items I realized I might not need during the trip and might want to get rid of - extra clothes, bungee cords and toilet rolls. I wanted to send them back from the post office today, but was too tired to make my way there. Maybe I'll do it at Eureka tomorrow. Other than that, my legs are tired, my knees hurt a bit but overall, I am doing pretty well. Just need to make sure that I am mentally strong to face and overcome the next few days!
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Today was my first proper desert stage. It was 47 miles to Middlegate and if I felt good, I decided to do the 13 miles to Cold Spring Station. I set out around 7:30 AM. The first 25 miles or so were perfect. It was nice and cool and the road was dead straight with a gentle downward incline. I was doing 20 mph average! On the way there were salt wells, which are quite an amazing sight - acres and acres of white salt, perfectly flat. The road itself was similar to yesterday - 2 lanes with rumble strips. So I had to always be cautious when cars passed and a lot of cars passed!
They call this the loneliest road in the world but it certainly didn't feel very lonely. There were certain periods of a few minutes when everything was silent, but most of the time you could hear the loud buzz of car tires on the road. The day stayed exactly like it was in the morning throughout the day. After the long flat, I climbed two relatively small passes and got to Middlegate around 11:30 AM. I had a nice grilled chicken sandwich in a very old wild-west looking bar (which is basically the entirety of Middlegate). Since I was doing good on time and felt good, I pushed onto Cold Springs station. It was 14 miles of gradual uphill that went pretty smoothly. Cold Springs station is also just a bar and motel, though it's much nicer looking. I initially booked a camp spot and pitched my tent, but considering there was a high chance of rain, decided to get a cabin instead. Tomorrow is supposed to be thunderstorms in Austin! Hopefully I can get there dry. Today was my first day in the desert and I got a taste of what is going to come in the following week. It was basically one long straight road over miles and miles of hills and shrubs. I kept a pretty good pace throughout but still took about 5 hours to cover 65 miles. I met a fellow TransAm cyclist on the way. We talked briefly before he went ahead. A few miles later, he had stopped on the side of the road and I got ahead of him. He said he had a partner with him but I didn't see either of them after that.
The roads here are just two lanes with rumble strips on either side and also in the middle. So, I always have to be attentive and stay as close to the side of the road as possible. It definitely gets quite tiring as the hours tick by. Luckily there's enough space for cars to pass within the lane. But it is still quite close and the margin for error is small. Just need to stay attentive! I have a bit of a dilemma on how to go about the next few days. I can take it easy and do the 47 miles to Middlegate tomorrow and then the 61 miles to Austin day after, or try to do the whole thing tomorrow. I would have done latter if the terrain was flat, but there is 4000 ft of climbing in those 110 miles! So I think I'll have to take it easy. I feel like I am having a bit too many easy days. Oh well, "don't try to make up time in the desert" is what I have been told. So maybe it is best to cool my heels and put in some longer days later. For now, I get a warm shower and a cozy bed in Value Inn (run by a very a nice Gujarati couple). Today was a relatively relaxed day. Just 39 miles, most of which was downhill. I could've pushed to Fallon today, but I already had a Warmshowers host here and I wasn't feeling a hundred percent in the morning. I got here by 10:30 AM. The ride was quite nice - one solid uphill, after which was a beautiful windy downhill road that led straight to Carson city.
Once I got here, I had a nice brunch and headed to my host's place. I took a nap and went off in search for some warm clothes for the upcoming week in the desert. My dad had sent me an article about Bike Smith, a bike shop that tuned touring bikes for free, so I thought I should check it out. They really are as good as the great reviews suggest. They were booked for a week, but still took the time to take a look at my bike when I told them I was touring. They oiled my derailleurs and made sure everything was shifting smoothly and didn't charge a penny for all the work. It felt so nice to receive these little tokens of appreciations from people along the way. My Warmshower host is another interesting person. His house is packed with scrap items that he picks up from various places in order to resell or tear apart. He has probably 20 bikes in the garage and a ton of other crazy stuff. He also had a lot of other interesting stories to tell and took me to a friend's place to pick up some bike parts. So pretty interesting, light day and a good start to my desert adventures. Today was another short (30 mile), steep ride. Looking back, I think it went pretty smoothly, though this wasn't what I was thinking while riding. The initial 4 miles or so were really steep and I was doing some 3 mph. It definitely felt like I had underestimated the ride at that point. I pushed through anyway, and the next 6 miles were better with a few flat sections and moderate slopes. After 10 miles came the highlight of the day - A beautiful view of Lake Tahoe followed by 4 miles of downhill. I was going at 30mph! Then a few more ups and downs until I finally rolled into South Lake Tahoe at around 12:30PM. I had a huge lunch of Thai Curry puffs and Panang curry and checked into a Motel 6.
The last two days have been tough not just on my legs, but on my body too. My butt hurt pretty bad yesterday when I had the padded pants on and was a little better today, with boxers and shorts. What really troubled me today were my hands. The gloves seemed to be digging into the spaces between my fingers and my hands get really weak after a few hours of riding. It got so bad today that I wasn't able to shift the front gears towards the end of the ride. I even took the bike to a shop to make sure the derailleur was ok, and it was. It's just my hands. Need to take care of them. South Lake Tahoe is a beautiful little city. I went down to the lake shore (which is like a beach) and bought myself some ice cream and dipped my weary feet in the cool water. So, a pretty good day all around! Tomorrow I will leave California for the deserts of Nevada. Learning from my previous mistakes, I decided to leave early today. I planned to leave by 6:30 AM, but it became 7:00 AM by the time I packed my things and said my goodbyes. Still, not too bad. I knew today was going to be all uphill so I shed some weight - the jacket, duct tape, broken mirror, and cycling cap.
My plan was to reach Pollock Pines around 9:30 AM. That way I could have brunch there and get to Kyburz before the heat set in. Though it was pretty tough, that's exactly how things turned out. The first half was a solid 2000 ft climb over some 15 miles. Then quick Taco Bell brunch. At that point I had 2000 ft up, 1000ft down and 21 miles left. Easy, right? Turns out, no. As soon as I left Pollock Pines, I descended fast. I was hitting 30 mph! That speed helped me get over small hills on the way. This went on for 10 miles. The next few miles were hard work, but I was still keeping a good pace. Finally, just before turning away from Highway 50 to the campground, I checked to see what was left - 1000 ft up in 2 miles! That was pretty crazy! Just looking up at the road scared me. I ended up having to get off my bike and push it the entire 2 miles! It took a while, but I made it by around 1:00 PM. The campsite here is a nice little spot. Though there aren't any public showers here, the manager graciously let me take a bath in her own shower. I set up tent, had a cold breakfast burrito, and am ready to head to bed. All in all, pretty good day, especially after the scare yesterday. Today was one of those hard days. I wasn't even sure I'll make it all the way!
Let's start from the beginning. I set out by 8:00 AM. By the time I stopped for lunch, I had done 45 miles. I was feeling great. Most of the trail until then was flat, and 20 miles or so from Sacramento to Folsom was on a really nice, shady bike trail. Little did I know about what was coming next. At the 116 mile mark, a hill came up. Pretty tough, but I made it. I was looking forward to the downhill, but it never came. The rest of the 15 miles were really hard. It was 2:00 PM when I started the climb. The sun was blazing hot and the road had heated up too. Pretty much all of that stretch was on the highway, so no chance of shade either. I was creeping up at a constant 4mph pace. I overheated multiple times and went through a good 5L of water. After many hours of toiling, I finally rolled into my second WarmShowers stay at 6:30 PM. That's 4.5 hours for 25 miles! Oh well. I'm done now. Peter, my host, gave me a nice Mac and cheese and veggie dinner. I was also able to take some pictures along the way. Tomorrow is a lot more climbing - 4255 ft up as opposed to 2785 ft today. But it's only 35 miles, so just a lot of climbing. My plan is to lose some luggage (my heavy jacket and some smaller things) and leave early so I can get to the campground by lunch. Got through my first day! It was so good to be back on the bike after a while. I felt great through most of the trip. The only real problem was the heat. I didn't check the temperature, but it felt really hot all through the ride. All exposed parts of my skin now hurt. Need to take better care of that!
The route was quite nice. I tried navigation with Google maps and it worked really well. It suggested a slightly different route than the ACA maps - shorter and through smaller roads with a lot of turns, but the voice navigation guided me beautifully through all of it. I think I'll use this more often now, wherever I have internet. I must say a few words about warmshowers and my hosts. TL;DR they're both awesome! I am staying with Martin and Ashlin tonight and they are both lovely people. We had a lot of fun talking about previous bike trips and they gave me a ton of great advice on the TransAm route ( part of which they did last year). After a nice shower, they made me a delicious pasta dinner and we spoke about our lives, careers and interests. They also had similar glowing reviews of warmshowers hosts that they stayed with during their trips. Overall, it's a huge help for travelling cyclists to be able to meet likeminded people en route and get a nice shower and bed for the night. Tomorrow seems like it'll be much of the same - flatish farmlands and high temperatures. One more day of seasoning before the long hard climb to Lake Tahoe! Just left uncle's place. I don't think what I'm about to do has still fully sunk in. I stayed up pretty late last night, getting everything in order. Still, I was up by 6:00 AM today. In general I feel pretty good. My bike is very back-heavy, and that's a little troubling, but everything seems to be packed up nice and compact, so that's nice.
Today is going to be a lot of commute - 1 hour on the Caltrain and 1 on the ferry. After that it's a 4-5 hour ride to Davis where I'll stay with my first Warmshowers host! Should be fun :) |
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