60.1 mi / 5:11:15 time / 11.5 mph avg. / 3816 ft. climbing
Staying at Fallen Leaf Lake National Forest Campground

Today was the closest thing I’ve had to an Oregon day since we were actually riding in Oregon. Similar distance, similar total amount of climbing (ok, maybe a bit more), similar style of climbing (achieved it all with no single hill greater than 800 feet), I slept in and didn’t hit the road ’til late, got into camp at 4pm, and I even had a bowl of clam chowder! The main differences we that my base altitude was over a mile above sea level, and I had some really strong winds to fight. Oh, and Joel seemed to have gone missing.

The first 10 miles continued on that beautiful new asphalt. It was shoulder-less, but traffic was light and not a single logging truck was seen today. That might be just because it’s Saturday, but prior reports indicate the route should get better anyway. When crossing from Sierra County into Nevada County (yes, really!), the road suddenly turned to junk, but luckily that county didn’t last long. In the rich-looking town of Truckee, through which I-80 passes, and which is thoroughly obsessed with traffic circles, I bypassed the fancy-looking bakeries and natural foods stores and spas and instead stopped at the library. It was closed, but its WiFi was open, which is good enough for me. While sitting there, I first noticed the explosive winds. Really, it was like someone dropped a bomb every few minutes causing a burst of 25 mph wind to blast for 20 seconds and then stop.

The explosions became more constant as I headed into them towards Lake Tahoe. The road headed up the Truckee River, perhaps only a 1% average grade, but my speed was probably less than 10mph over that stretch. At least I had an 8-foot-wide newly-paved (actually not-yet-finished) shoulder all to myself, so I didn’t have to devote any energy to traffic awareness. And it’s pretty good to ride for two weeks and only now really whine about wind for the first time.

It was in this section that I began seeing all the kitted-out road cyclists on their pricey bikes flying by in the other direction. Yeah, good for you, you can ride your bike fast going downhill with a 25 mph tailwind! For some reason none seemed to be going my way. Speaking of cultures and tribes, just like I might be 90% of the way to being a dirty brown transient hippie, I paradoxically might also be 90% of the way to being one of these road-bike warriors. And again, I cling to that last 10%, because I really don’t want to have to put on the matching spandex, inexplicably emblazoned with the name of some European bank, just to go on a bike ride.

As usual, most ignored the loaded-down traveler on the other side of the road (my shirt only mentions an American bank, which I guess doesn’t rate with them). But that made it all that much sweeter when one guy yelled out “Nice!”, followed half a second later with “Oh my god!” as his brain finished processing what he was seeing. Close to Tahoe I dropped down onto the bike path, which more closely hugs the river. Totally different tribe of bike people there, though probably the most noble of all of us since they aren’t even aware that there are different tribes of cyclists.

Entering Tahoe City, I reached the lakeshore along with the crush of weekenders. Lunch was at Bridgetender’s, where I ordered a beer, a bowl of clam chowder, and a chicken Cobb salad. The soup was a good size, but the salad was absolutely ridiculous. The waiter said “I’d like to see you finish all that!” Unfortunately I failed him, leaving maybe 15% of the salad. I felt like an embarrassment to bike tourists everywhere. 🙁

Though as an excuse, I’ll say my appetite decreased mid-lunch when I discovered that my day might be less-relaxing than expected because the campground I was headed to (and all others in the area) were fully booked. I guess I should have factored in how many people would come to Tahoe on a beautiful September Saturday! My plan was to ride on and get to my general destination as early as possible to maximize my options.

The lake is pretty amazing, colored with deep blues and greens that I’ve never seen in a lake before. Emerald Bay is the much-photographed highlight, and there were swarms of cars there overflowing the parking lots to prove it. Most of the 25-mile route down the west shore of the lake had no shoulder and was packed with traffic. There was a bike path in sections, but it wound about stupidly and had lots of bumps, so I mainly stuck to the white line like all the roadies were doing. The lanes were actually wide enough for two cyclists and two cars to pass in opposite directions, and speeds were generally under 35 mph, so it wasn’t too bad.

There was one absolutely insane section when the road began dropping down from the 600-foot height above Emerald Bay. The land already had been dropping steeply to the Bay on the left side, but suddenly the right side disappeared too, similarly dropping 600 feet to Falling Leaf Lake. And directly ahead was the main body of Lake Tahoe. The road was perched right on the narrow spine, with no more than 5 feet to spare on each side. It was very much like the Hogsback near Escalante, Utah, except here there was water below wherever I looked, almost as if I was dropped from a parachute over a single, giant lake.

I decided to check out Falling Leaf Campground, just in case the Internet was wrong, but no, the sign said “Campground Full”. I decided to roll up to the booth anyway just in case the sign was wrong, but no, the woman in the booth confirmed it was correct. But, then she offered that I could stay in her site where she has her RV parked, she has plenty of room. Awesome! Well, at least I think so, I had actually started to think a motel wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world. But I was already here, I had a generous offer, and she wouldn’t even take any money for it, so that settled it. And yeah, she definitely has plenty of room, you could make just this one site into a hiker-biker site for 5, and that’s with her RV, two large tents, and birdbath already taking up a bunch of space. 150 sites of a similar size make this the hugest campground I’ve ever been in. I paid $1 for a shower, and holy crap, I didn’t get cheated at all on that. In the 3 minutes the firehose of a shower head must have blasted at least 50 gallons of water at me!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 16th, 2012 at 8:59 am and is filed under 2012 Bike Tour, bike. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.