Friday, June 16: Longest, hardest ride I’ve done since my little heart palpitation last May. And I’m real happy to report that I came away in fairly good shape. Deal was that we spent 8 hours on the bikes yesterday and didn’t meet up with Judy until nearly 6:30 PM. Then we had to drive to Nevada City, CA to get a place to stay because we were in the middle of nowhere at the end of our ride. Long story short, I was too knackered to even begin to write a blog yesterday. Hell, we didn’t even eat dinner until 8 pm Pacific time. Then we crashed like dogs back at the motel. 

So here’s a blow by blow of the day. Got up in our Boomtown Casino Best Western, ambled through the grottos of gambling crap, with some elderly folks up already, with cigarettes blazing and coffee steaming, playing slots. These places just amaze me, the muted lighting which is the same no matter what time of day, the colored gaming lights, the glitz, and the hoards of people glued to the machines. It’s a stunner to me. I never even had the slightest inclination to put a nickel into one of those things. 

So we went through several different gaming grottos to a little place called Mel’s Diner, who theme was American Graffiti and Happy Days. Nice place actually amidst all the gaming crap. Actually this whole Boomtown Casino is more of an indoor complex housing a number of eating establishments in addition to the gaming rooms and the hotel rooms. Had a nice brekkie at Mel’s and then we were off to Henness Pass Rd up in Verdi. Judy dropped us at yesterday’s end point, right where the road ramps up into the mts and turns to gravel. We made plans to meet with Judy in CA up on Rt 89 17 miles north of Truckee. 

Once we got rolling it was a climb from the get-go. I think we climbed for about 3-5 miles to a pass of 6700 or so feet high. Wasn’t a grunt climb, but just nice and steady. From there we rolled along on an undulating road with power climbs. We really never descended back down to our original elevation, but kind of maintained it across a high plateau up in the mts. I had formulated and downloaded the route from Ride with GPS. And thank goodness for it because there were just a maze of roads up there, almost every one of them without signage. Both Dave and I had the download. And as I’ve said in the past, you need paper maps - US Forest Service, gazetteer, OHV - in addition to the GPS devices. We carried the Forest Service and gazetteer along with our GPS. So we just rambled across this high mt plateau for a long, long time. Then, when we came to the jcn. with Rt 89…no Judy. We monied up and down the road for a bit until Judy finally came up the road in the van, having looked all over hell’s half acre for the OHV staging area I’d told her to meet us at. All it is is a parking lot with an outhouse. 

We ate, topped off our bottles and get ready for the toughest part of the day, about 54 miles of backcountry riding with 3 passes and about 8K in descending, LONG Descending. We had to do the first 5 or so miles on asphalt. Now we tried to ride berm, but it just became impractical after a mile or so, just to dangerous and slow. Then we found a parallel where Henness Pass was gravel, so we jumped on that. Unfortunately it was covered in snow pack a mile or two into the ride, and I’m talking like 5-8 foot driftovers on and across the road. Couple that with deadfall and we were off our bike bike hiking to beat the band. 

Probably did like a mile of that where we barely could even get on the bikes what with all the snow. At one point I saw the asphalt road off to our right and shouted out to Dave that we should bushwhack over to that to get the hell off of the snowed in road. Thankfully up the track about a quarter mile we saw that Henness Pass road reconnected with the asphalt road. Heck, parts of the asphalt road had snow 5-6 foot snow drifts across it making it single lane or less. It to had a bunch of downed trees, but nothing that totally blocked out the road completely. That took us to the Jackson Meadows Reservoir.

From there Henness Pass started up again, and it was a crumbling creekbed of rock and cobbles. Some pretty rocky stuff indeed. Eventually began climbing, and let me tell you, this one was a beauty, analogous to riding up a steep creekbed, along with a good deal of deadfall. Some of the stuff was so big we had to climb up onto the tree, then hand bikes over. This for me was a pretty challenging climb. Dave did amazing buzzing up through that crapfest. The thing seemed to go on forever. Finally got to the top, where we were greeted by more snow and deadfall. It was relentless,   stopping, bike hiking over snow, climbing over and under deadfall, it just went on and on. Large pools of snowmelt littered the areas where we could ride. By then I was begining to wonder of that crap would ever end, and if we’d make it out of there by dark. I mean it was a grunt. Then, way the heck up on the top of the mt we see a sign: Rt 49 - 27 miles. THAT was an “Oh Shit” moment for me, especially if that snowcover on the road continued

That snow/deadfall scenario lasted for miles. Finally we Henness Pass Rd turned into a little stretch of asphalt, what the hell out in the middle of nowhere. Dave happened to be talking with a couple who were in a jeep, and they informed us of the lay of the land, and the guy was totally impressed that we wanted to ride as far as Camptonville, which at that point was still 22 miles away. He said he’d mark the Henness Pass turnoff with a carrin so we wouldn’t miss it. That far our GPS’s were working awesome, so I figured that we’d hit it regardless of the carin. 

So we had to do a climb yet again, then descended and low and behold there was the carin along with two bottles of cold water. Made the turn back on to Henness Pass, and did a bucket load of descending on yet another loose, unconsolidated track that resembled a dried up riverbed. By that time my arms and hands were just mush from braking and steering through the maze of crap. And then came the final climb, the gut kicker, which went on for another 2-3 miles. After that came this descent, down the same dried riverbed of rock, that lasted longer than any descent I can remember. Had to be vigilant not to screw up what with my hands and arms just turning to jelly. 

Went through grazeland where the cows were on the road and in the  woods with cow bells on. The rocky track finally gave way to a dirt track, and then that finally turned into a gonzo asphalt descent into the town of Camptonville, which is nothing more than some houses and a bar. I came out on Rt 49, with a solid 8 hours of saddle time and 71 miles of cycling through the Sierra Neavada Mts. We litterally cycled across the whole Sierra range in a day. I was pretty trashed, and Judy was nowhere in sight. Dave had tried to keep her updated as we were riding, but either she, or us didn’t have coverage to connect, and I know she was probably getting worried about us with as long as we were on the bikes up there. 

So when I saw no sign of her at this little grocery/gas station I was pretty concerned. Then, not more than a few minutes later she rolled in from the west. But no sign of Dave, as I thought he’d be in the car with her. She made me a sandwitch, gave me an ice cold Coke, and I just sat in the driver’s seat half catatonic. We were both concerned about Dave, and Judy wanted to start driving around, but I told her we should just stay put because Dave knew the ride ended in Camptonville at the Rt 49 jcn, despite the fact the Camptonville actually resides just a half mile up on Henness Pass Rd. 

Couldn’t have been more than 15 minutes later and Dave rolled in. He’d finished well before me, and had stopped at the little bar up in Camptonville, just a half mile or so away from the grocery that I’d ended up at. Now I’d asked this guy at the grocery about lodging around Camptonville and he kind of laughed, telling me we’d have to go all the way to Nevada City, some 23 miles away. Off we went to Nevada City. Once we got there we finally had cell reception, and both Dave and I began calling for lodging. NOTHING. Seems there’s both a Blue Grass festival and a big cycling criterium going on there this week and everything is booked…except the Nation Hotel in downtown Nevada City, and all she had left was the honeymoon suite. I booked the room sight unseen. 

Well, we drive there and this place looks like it should have been condemned years ago. I mean this is the dump of all dumps, right smack dab in the middle of this sheik little town that’s definitely a rich, hippy community. We went in, and the place was just as dumpy on the inside as the outside. One look from Judy said it all. And I’m not even going to tell you how much this shit hole cost us. Honestly, that was highway robbery. It’s decor is like out of the 20’s, 30’s, etc. It reminded me of this seedy antique gallery with all sorts of crap everywhere. 

Went upstairs into our bridal suite, and I’m not freaking kidding here, the bridal suite. And it was musty, seedy dump, with an old Philco TV that didn’t work, with ratting carpeting, with two beds, one a bed where you pull the curtains across the sides. The furniture was antique and could barely support ones ass. I mean the cushioning on the chairs was nonexistent. My question to Judy and Dave was, “Who in the hell would book this as a honeymoon suite?” Judy just went on and on about the place, and I finally told her it was the only game in town and that I HURT way more than her dishing out the money for such a dump. 

Got the hell out of there and went to a place to eat, Frier Tuck’s, where we had great meals….at great prices. Damn, I spent more money on this day than any day of the trip. To me, Nevada City is a tourist trap with every kind of shop imaginable, all owned by 60’s California hippies. Want to blow a ton of money? Simple stay at the National Hotel and dine in downtown Nevada City.  Dave and I had two beers apiece and was all she wrote. We went back to the dungeon and went to bed, with this old 1980’s air conditioner on full blast, but doing little in the way of cooling our room off. 

Saturday, June 17: Man, I just was so sore, so tired, so wasted that I couldn’t sleep well last night. That, and the shit air conditioner made for a terrible night. Judy got some free, weak, awful coffee from down in the lobby - which looks like the front room of the Adams Family house. I joked that maybe Gomez and Morticia would greet us in the morning. I did some map work while Dave worked on trying to get my Ride with GPS route downloaded onto his Garmin, and Judy went for a walk in the downtown. 

Tell you what, I did NOT feel like riding today. Man was I sore and tired. But we just have to keep the ball rolling here, PLUS the temps are supposed to go into record territory in the next week, so we have to get the hell out of the Central Valley of CA. So we decided to get even 30 miles in for the day at the least, or the full route, 53 miles for the most. Big problem today, and for tomorrow is that we’ll have to go asphalt all the way. There’s barely any gravel or dirt out this way. It’s amazing if you look at the recreational gazetteer. NOTHING. So this was a bit the bullet day. 

We got rolling out of Nevada City a bit on the late side, around 9 AM, on our way back up into the foothills to Camptonville. Got on the road at a very late 10:30. Started doing berm on Marysville Rd, then then, out of nowhere we saw this guy on single track riding parallel to us. Dave talked to the guy and turns out there is single track all the way down to New Bullard’s Bar Reservoir, about 3-4 miles of track. It was nice and shaded. For Dave this track was E for easy, for Pete, it was challenging trying to negotiate the tight turns without buffing over some fairly steep embankments. I just took it kind of mellow so I don’t end up in the hospital again. 

At the damn we said goodbye to trail and HELLo to asphalt, and lots of it. All in all we ended up descending from 2700 feet up in Camptonville, to 300 feet where we ended up north of Marysville. So we did this longish climb out of the reservoir, and then slowly worked our way down elevation into the Central Basin of NoCAL. The temps just got hotter and hotter until we finished in 100-degree heat. I did well for the most part, but I have to say that the last 4-7 miles was really starting to get to me. Was definitely key to get this day in the bag considering the ride I did yesterday and the heat today. 

The topography really changed from yesterday. This out here on the periphery of the basin is hilly scrub type high plateau, but it’s almost at sea level. It’s mainly ranch land, and that’s one reason there’s no dirt or gravel out here - it’s all private land. No BLM out here. I think we did about 2500 in gain today, and a solid 2500 in descending. The gain mostly came from climbing out of the reservoir for 3-4 miles. Now the last 5 miles was into this stiff headwind, that coupled with the heat made for a miserably hot experience. I mean the wind was hot!

We finished at the junction of La Port and Rt 70, for a total of 43 miles. And again, I was totally ready to be done. Man I was just about at my heat toleration point today. We’re already talking of starting earlier tomorrow, because the forecast is for 110 tomorrow down here. This is akin to hell! 

Time to get a bit to eat and relax for a bit. Until tomorrow