Live for the Path

91 miles in 8.25 hours – Max Speed 32mph

I woke up, and had breakfast in the cafe at the Border Inn. I relized that I had not gambled at all in Nevada, so I put 50 cents into a video poker machine. I pushed the first two hands, then lost the next two. Oh well, next time. I set out into Utah.

They didn't say anything about the bribery that got them those games though. Oh well, one time zone down, two more to enter!

Longest stretch of the trip, but shorter than I thought it would be. I never had any water issues at all after day 5 or so despite the distances.

Goodbye Border Inn

Is it just me or does that sound like a KKK name? Grand Dragon of the Republic. Why are all their names so nerdy anyway? Did they stop playing DnD long enough to come up with all their names?

Immediately the road quality goes from good to crap.

Nice. Do painted cattle guards work as well as real ones?

Look closely and you can see some local fauna. Pretty cool. too bad he got run over by 1 of 5 cars I saw all day 5 seconds after the picture was taken.

Nevada had spoiled me with awesome roads. I chug along, and it is a lot hotter than it had been in Nevada, and also a lot clearer. I have a climb out of the shoot, and then an amazing decent.

Utah

Pass

My phone disagrees with the sign, and instead claims we are at the bottom of the ocean. Either my phone or the sign is wrong, I am not sure which.

Sweet

It was really picturesque, so I tried to capture it at 30 mph down the hill. I am not a role model, do not do as I do. It was a good decent and there was no traffic though.

Weeee!

WEEEEEEEEEEE!

Desolate

I then had a last climb and then a 40 mile stretch with only some rolling hills.

More Utah Desert

Trilobites! Nice.

Nice river

A much better picture of a salt flat.

THE DEVIL

I made it to Hinkley with no issues, and right before entering town, I ran into another tourer doing New York to San Francisco. He was from South Korea, and spoke almost no English. He seemed extremely excited to see me and tried hard to have a conversation, but every time I thought we were making progress, he would prove that we were not. Like I explained where Baltimore was, and I said that I was going there because it was my home and my family lived there, and he said okay. Then he asked why I wasn’t going to New York. Oh well. He was friendly and I spent the rest of the day thinking about what his trip must have been like and how he will think of America when he goes home.

My South Korean Friend

I got to Delta and checked into a super cheap motel and shopped and ate some dinner. I updated some stuff online and went to bed.

Clever using a triangular sign.

65 miles in 5.5 hours – Max Speed 38.5mph

I set off for a short day to a small restaurant/motel/casino/RV Park called the Border Inn, which believe it or not is on the Nevada/Utah border. I was excited not only about the relative shortness of the ride but because there was a restaurant in the middle of the ride as well. I started out and did what seemed to be a flat for a while before arriving at the first mountain of the day.

Hahaha

The view from near the beginning.

Historical Marker

Historical Marker

I went over the first of two passes, and conveniently, right at the top met a biker going to other way.

Pass

He was doing New York to San Francisco and we talked for a while. Then a guy who was driving an RV that was stopped at the top of the pass came out and talked with us for a while as well. I told him what to expect, and he did the same for me. It is always nice to meet other tourers.

Anyway, I had ridden through some rotten weather on the way to the pass, so I stopped in the restaurant which was right on the other side of the pass.

Rotten weather

It was called Major’s Place, and I went inside to discover it was not a restaurant, but just a bar. Oh well, I bought some Pepsi and chips and talked with the guy who ran it for a while. Out of nowhere a girl who looked no older than 12 runs in and says that her mom is having a heart attack. The guy calls 911 and checks on her. The woman ‘having the heart attack’ is running around, and it becomes pretty much obvious to everyone that she is really probably just crazy. Anyway the guy that runs the bar (think the stranger in the Big Lebowski) handles it very well, and eventually (remember – 30 miles from anywhere) an ambulance shows up and takes her away. I notice that the stranger has a Mayweather – De La Hoya shirt on and we talk boxing for a while. Eventually it clears up enough outside for me to decide to make a run for it.

Historical Marker

Oh good...

That's a lot of dead deer

I climb the final hill in Nevada, and it is a good one. Once I hit the top of it I have to make another run down the hill away from another storm.

Pass

Pretty

It is getting late

I make it to the Border Inn, get food, and ask them if I can pitch a tent near their RV Park. They say they have a special tent spot and it is $5. Not too shabby, so I take a shower and lay around, happy to be back in the tent.

Night approaches

See you tomorrow

81 miles in 8 hours – Max speed 37mph

I woke up in the morning and took advantage of my first free breakfast of the trip. The Best Western had one, and I was going to be damned if I wasn’t going to try to eat $95 worth of food. I think I came fairly close.

Anyway, after eating, I headed out and towards Ely. I knew that this was a tough day, both because of the length, 78 miles with no services, and because of the numerous mountain passes, four, including three over 7300 feet.

Once I got out on the road though, it was more of the same to start with. I had a pass immediately, and then had a fairly nice downhill before climbing up to the second, and smallest pass of the day.

Pass #1

Nevada

Route 50

More Nevada

Pass #2

That is when I noticed something bad had rolled in.

Yukky Weather

The next little bit was spent playing ‘dodge the thunderstorm’, which I did pretty well.

Eventually I got back on the road and headed up the third pass, which is about halfway.

Stupid Mountains

On top of this pass I made sure to eat a decent sized snack and have a Gatorade to try to prevent me from falling apart at the end of the ride again. And I also noticed the weather was improving.

Pass #3

Blue skies!?

I continued on, and then reached my final pass, which is the tallest pass of the day, and of Nevada to this point.

Historical Marker

Pass #4 plus yucky clouds.

I noticed again that more storms were rolling in, and chugged hard down the hill to the town. It was a pretty cool town, but I didn’t get any pictures because I was staying on the far side of town and I was just trying not to get rained on going through the town. Though I just had to take one because I thought it was especially creepy.

Creepy.

I checked into a Motel 6 for the night, and did some laundry, and visited some stores and a bank. All in all a very productive night.

72 miles in 6.83 hours – Max Speed 36.5mph

I had looked up the ride today, and despite the 72 miles with no services, I had heard that it was not a hard ride. Well, I knew that I had to get over Austin Mountain before I got into the ride proper, and it was a beast. I headed up that beast, and made it the three miles to the summit after a 45 minute ride.

Looking back at the town of Austin from the mountain of Austin.

That was a good one.

What goes up must come down. Unless it escapes Earth's gravitational field. Luckily I haven't yet.

I then had a short downhill, and then another immediate uphill. Dammit. I got over Bob Scott pass, and then had a glorious downhill.

As promised.

I had a short glide, and then another uphill! I got to the pass of that hill, and realized that I had done the first 20 miles in 3 hours. Not good.

Too many hills.

Aborigines?

After that summit though, the ride finally flattened out, and I pumped out the next 45 miles.

I then had another hill to climb to get into town, much like the day before. And just like the day before, I again bonked. I grunted and groaned, but eventually got into town, and looked around for a cheap motel.

Exactly.

I wonder what the other towns on the 50 think of this claim.

There were two on the main street, but they were both closed down. That left the Best Western as the only choice, but when I went in and asked, they said it was $95 with taxes and all that. Yikes.

I went back outside, rode around town a little more, and then, defeated, went back to the Best Western and got a room. I went up the street and had the biggest chili dog I have ever seen (it was really a hot dog and bun buried somewhere under chili). Going to the grocery store I ran into my two friends from the day before and we talked for a while longer. Eventually I headed back towards the hotel and wished them luck. I never saw them again.

65 miles in 6.33 hours – Max Speed 29mph

I got up at 7, and headed back into the building at Middlegate after doing the morning things (brushing teeth and stuff) that I do. I had a good breakfast, filled up my water bottles, and headed out towards the great nothing. Oops, I mean Austin.

Historical Marker

The ruins that the sign spoke of.

Nevada

Nevada

I reckon that I'm climbing.

Well, aren't I clever? Looks like I was right.

Note: these didn’t last – the wind does really strange things as you go through passes as I would learn

Why would you go up a pass and not shoot the sign at the end?

Historical Sign

Hah. I found this on my camera. I don't have a mirror and my eye was hurting so I used my camera to take a closer look because I can zoom in on pictures after I take them. You can also see why when people ask me for eye color (at the DMV for example) I just sort of stand there confused - green, gray, blue, and hazel are all ok answers. I usually say blue but I think gray is probably the most accurate.

Nevada

Anyway, this ride was one that I knew would be tough, as I had 2000 feet to gain over the day. This was also the first real day where the mountains of Nevada started. I chugged through the mountains and was doing pretty well until around mile 60.

Then the climb up Austin Mountain began. I bonked. It took me forever to go the last five miles into town.

Made it!!

Historical Marker

And yet the climb has just begun. Note that I stayed at the bottom of town, closer to 6400 feet.

I finally made it and checked into a cheap motel. I grabbed dinner at a place called the International, which is a famous old restaurant. While I was waiting for my food I met two more cyclists who were filling up their water bottles. After dinner I talked to them for a while outside. They were heading on, and I wished them luck and said that maybe I would see them tomorrow. I went back to the room and got to sleep.

50 miles in 4.16 hours – Max Speed 31mph

I got up at around 8 and laid around for a little before showering and splitting – Francis and Brian were having a zero day in Fallon, so I left them and moved on. I went back into town to get breakfast, and then started the 48 mile ride to Middlegate with no services.

The town of Salt Wells

This ride was extremely remote, but the temperature was perfect, maybe 75. The remoteness was wonderful as well.

People use the rocks on the side of the road to write out messages.

Nevada

The night before my dad told me that he thought that most of the water in Nevada was good for drinking. I don't know why exactly he thought this, but I laughed, as this pink gross stuff is the first water I saw the next day.

You may be wondering what exactly a 'sand mountain' looks like.

Well there you go. Note the RV's in the lower right hand corner for scale.

Pass

Okay. So there were a ton of these, and I really enjoyed reading them, so I made sure to take pictures of good enough quality so you could read all of them too. Ignore them if you wish, but I think they are interesting.

Historical Sign

Pass, with Nevada in the background.

I got to Middlegate at around 3pm, and sat around and chatted with the locals for a few hours.

Tying my noble ride to the hitching post.

Middlegate

The highlight was definitely playing Jeopardy with them when it came on TV. I then pulled out my computer, and updated my blog for quite a few hours while everyone else played instruments and sang songs. The town was very cool and a good time. And the campsite was the right price… free! Thanks to everyone there for showing such hospitality.

Sorry for no pictures of the inside of the bar and of the locals. I think it is sort of rude to go into someone’s dwelling (which the bar more or less was) and to take a lot of pictures.

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