Day 4 – South Lake Tahoe to Fallon

Last night we had our dinner and a couple of beers (each) at the Stateline Brewery. Still in California but very close to the state border to Nevada. We were careful not to cross the border, because that was supposed to happen on the bicycles today.

You get to see a lot on a bike tour, and we talked about that San Francisco already seems far away. Some places you could wish to be able to explore a little more. Last Winter, I read a book about a number of settler families who left Independence in 1846 to seek good fortunes in California. They left Independence south west of Chicago late in order to cross the Sierra Nevada mountain range before winter and this combined with all sorts of obstacles and a very slow pace lead to the party being caught by snow and the survivors only survived by eating their travel companions. I had therefore hoped to see the Donner Monument north of Lake Tahoe, but we will save that for another trip. Also I think that many of the sites are so far distanced from the road, we would have travelled, so that you should probably come by car and bring some hiking shoes.

Instead we have met some Pony Express history along our way. The Pony Express was a mail system, where young riders rode their horses in a kind of relay system and could carry a letter (or more probably) from Missouri to Sacramento in 10 days, which should be about 180 miles a day. We are not going to beat that in reverse, so good that we have the internet. Some of the towns where the baton was passed on where Folsom, Placerville and Strawberry, where we have been through and today we added Carson City and Dayton.

The ride today

The morning started with another ascent up to Spooner Sumit but we were rewarded with a long downhill to Carson City. We had our third flat tire just outside Carson, but there after we enjoyed a south westerly wind meaning that it took us only app. 5 hours to get to Fallon, where we are staying tonight.

We continued to follow Route 50 which is also called the Loneliest Highway of (North) America . We concluded that to deserve this title it must be a lot more desolate to the east of Fallon. The lady in the reception said that after the highway got its nickname, a lot more people have come here, so that is a bit of catch for marketing department. She further informed us that Fallon is the site of Topgun – the naval air force training program. Apparently a Topgun II movie is in the making also with Tom Cruise in the leading role. He did not stay at the Fallon Best Western during filming.

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Tomorrow will be a big ride, if we make it. Our destination is Winnemucca and from now on and up to Yellowstone it will feel like jumping stepstones to cross a river. There are very few towns of a size to have a hotel and we will have to bring plenty of sugar and liquids.

Today’s soundtrack got to be ZZ Top Legs. We speculate that it is not legal to use earphones on a motorcycle. Instead the Harley Davidsons turn their radios at maximum to the harassment of quiet non motorized bikers. Every second time it is a ZZ Top tune.