Tuesday, June 13: Pretty tired today and that’s NOT because of cycling. Hell, that was the easy part of the day. Getting beta (information) about how to create this bridge between Dayton and Verdi was the tough part. 

Got rolling on our track today, riding it backwards so Judy would know where to go to pick us up - the drop off point from yesterday would be our pickup point for today. So we started in Dayton, NV today to do this 24 mile segment that ends on Alt Rt 95 were we started yesterday. This segment is all along the Carson River, and extremely flat - relatively speaking. Temps were just amazing today, with sunny skies and little in the way of wind. Got to our start point, River Road, which is this little unposted road that we past two times before finding it. Then, once we got going the gravel lasted about 1/4 mile and then went to asphalt. Now I kind of thought this may be the case, so we had an alternative plan which involved riding these dbl track sections that paralleled Rt 50 to our primary road, Fort Churchill. 

Well, I saw this dbl track that veered back towards 50 as we hit the asphalt, and pointed it out to Dave. He zoomed up this steep pitched gravel track with me behind him. Dave cressted over like a pro, and be damned if I didn’t biff it in the loose sand and gravel just about at the apex of the climb. Lost traction and tipped over and smashed my left ankle against the pedal when I biffed it. Hurt like hell! Got up cussing and spitting M-Fer’s all over the place, dusted off, and joined Dave at the dbl track paralleling 50. Took that to Fort Churchill Rd, then had to ride dbl track along Fort Churchill for about 2 miles until it turned to nothing but sand and gravel. 

This was a wonderful little track along the Carson River, with was a true river, not one of these little smidgen creeks that are called rivers out here. Nope, this guy was for real. So the road just meandered along the river for another 15 miles. Really a nice relaxing ride, save for these swarms of gnats that just engulfed us when we stopped for a photo session. Good lord, they were flying in our ears, in the nose, in our eyes. They were just horrible. So we really couldn’t stay long and enjoy the white water section in front of us. Had to get rolling again and get away from the gnats. 

Last section took us slightly away from the river and up to Fort Churchill Park, which was part of the Pony Express Route and there are some old buildings that have been renovated to show the layout of the old Fort Churchill. From there we functioned with Alt 95, got on some adjoining dbl track, and rode back down to the south to meet up with Judy at the Simpson Road jcn. Did the ride in under 2 hours and our riding day was over. Next stop was to the High Sierra Cycling shop in Reno where we were hoping to get some beta on the best way to get from Dayton to Verdi off road. 

Drove into Carson City, got I-580 north to get to the shop. Pulled in and was greeted by the owner, Mike, who was really friendly and gracious with his time. He had one of his employees come out and give us some really great beta on the way to approach the bridge we were trying to create. Probably was in there about an hour, where in addition to the route beta, they gave us the addresses of the local BLM office and the FS (US Forest Service) office where we could buy maps. Those were our next stops. 

Folks at the BLM were great, and while there we met a local, Dave, who overheard our conversation with one of the BLM folks. He then offered his beta on how we could do the traverse, which again, painted a better picture. Dave also told us to stop into the Dayton Fire Dept, where he used to work, to talk to the guys there for even more info. We left there with 2 BLM maps and some routes that Dave highlighted for us. Next up was the Forest Service office. 

Again, great folks who gave us a ton of info about the NoCAL portion that’s coming up. We bought 2 massive forest service maps there that cover over half of the riding we’ll be doing in NoCAL. Okay, up next we decided to recon some of what Dave had told us about, so we did the amazing asphalt climb up Rt 341, the Geiger Grade climb out of Steamboat, which scared the BeJesus out of Judy. There was some pretty cool exposure on that puppy. Now this was not part of the suggested route for Dave and I, but it was a way to get up to the summit and check out this Six Mile Canyon road that Dave had told us about that would get us from Dayton to Virginia City, and the Toll Road gravel route that would take us down from Virginia City into Steamboat. 

The Toll Road descent looks hairy, but doable, so we’re good there. But the Six Mile Canyon climb is all asphalt. So that was not what we were looking for to get us up to Virginia City. That’s when we decided to go to the Dayton Fires Dept. as Dave had advised us to talk to the local guys there about off-road routes up to Virginia City. We were introduced to Charlie, who knew the roads like nobody’s business. Well, when all was said and done Charlie had turned us on to this gravel route up to Virginia City. Looks good, I just hope we don’t screw it up with wrong turns. 

Now by this time we’re talking like 5 PM. Judy was getting B-hungry and a bit antsy. Her and Dave got a motel while I was talking to Charlie for the 45 or so minutes, so when done we headed straight back to Carson City to a Day’s Inn. From there we went to a Thai restaurant for din-din. Place was just awesome, where we each got an entree and then just did the group buffet thing. By the time we got back here we’re talking like 8:30. 

So this is where we’re at, and I’ll tell ya, this has to be the toughest part of NV to map out because of the high concentration of suburbia. Looks like we can get from Dayton to Steamboat with a minimum of berm riding. Then there’s this thing called the Steamboat Ditch, which some of the folks we talked to say is doable, and others say it’s not a straight shot, that there’s good areas and bad areas. So we’re just going to have to find out for ourselves on that one. Best case scenario is we can do Dayton to Verdi in one day, but me thinks this is really, really optimistic given the difficulty of some of the riding. Could take two days to create this bridge. 

Mike from High Sierra Cycling claims once we reach Verdi, just about smack dab on the CA border, we going to be in heaven, that the tracks are just endless and awesome. So we’re pretty geeked on that. Well, food coma is setting in big time. Until tomorrow