Irony on the Loneliest Road
Published on Mon, 04 Jul 2011
My plan was to getaway at midnight so I could get in a good 9 hours of riding, half being in the dark. That plan didn’t come to fruition and instead I left the comfortable motel at 6am.
So after a super long stint of one night ride I was back to day riding. As it turned out, it wasn’t an unbearable thing as the temperature had dropped to a much more comfortable level than the past two days living too close to the sun.
Water is the most essential part of touring. Through these tricky long stages between services I was carrying 9 litres of water. You can certainly feel the extra weight (poor bike) so the uphills are now more arduous and the downhills are faster, ever so slightly.
After leaving the “Border Inn” motel I was soon isolated, bored and most definitely lonely. The road continued as I left it the previous night, straight as an arrow and barren. Bored, I began to play Eye Spy with myself – I got stuck on something beginning with “E”. Nevertheless I got all excited when I saw a curve in the road… how pathetic.
As predicted, there wasn’t anything around the bend apart from a rather unwelcome set of hills. The ascent began and three hours of hard slog later, I reached the summit. this particular downhill section was steeper than most and as a result it was over rather disappointingly, after pushing the 40mph barrier on the way down.
Rolling to a stop after the descent it appeared to be a suitable time for a break. There wasn’t anywhere to sit, but there was a cattle-grid. Somehow, I ingeniously managed to lie on it in such a way that I could get a quick nap in. I’m still unsure as to how I managed this but it wasn’t as uncomfy as it sounds.
Setting off 15 minutes later and my pace hadn’t resumed full steam yet. I got a very pleasant surprise in the form of another tourer riding up beside me. Could this be someone touring in the same westerly direction? Surely not… It turns out that Kathryn from Michigan, was indeed going west! And what’s more, was planning on hitting San Francisco the same time as me! I would have been far happier, but she was peddling hard, and I was peddling harder just to keep up!
We rode past a little funky looking bar but Kat didn’t seem to be slowing down. Naturally, I had to maintain the macho pretense and ride on but I wanted another 10 minute break and that bar looked so inviting! As though there were some cruel Flying Spaghetti Monsters looking down upon us, a gnarly hill loomed into view. We got half way up and I had to drop the machoness, I had to stop. Sweat was pouring out of me by the bucket-load. My eyes were stinging because my eyebrows weren’t bushy enough to divert litres of sweat from my brow to the side of my face. And so we stopped for ten minutes.
Whilst stopped Tim caught up with us. It turns out that I’ve got two cycling buddies to San Francisco! We talked for a bit, I dried off a little, and then we set off again up the not overly steep, but exceedingly long hill. And then came the rain. Oh how it poured. I checked my GPS, we were definitely in Nevada. The rain was the last thing I was expecting. I had waterproofs but decided against getting them out as the temperature was still hot. I figured that my skin is waterproof and so long as my body temperature doesn’t drop I won’t catch hypothermia.
It turns out I didn’t need to worry about my core temperature. We stopped at the top of the summit and waited for Tim to catch up. The evaporating water from my skin made me feel like a race-horse after the Grand National. We had a long downhill stretch ahead and I put my coat on so that my arms didn’t freeze and drop off at the bottom. As it turns out I’m already the stupid one of the group as I whizzed down the slippery hill, shifting my body weight to avoid the collections of water that were collecting. The last thing I wanted was to aquaplane, lose control, and die a horrible yet rapid death.
Surviving death hill was great but I had lost Kat and Tim now. Being heavier and stupider than them gave me a speed advantage on the ride down. I stopped in a small nature reserve to see if they would catch up but after 15 minutes they still hadn’t gone past. It was now getting cold, cold enough for me to don my jumper – apparently Nevada isn’t scorching hot. I carried on down the road and arrived at the outskirts of Ely. Since I didn’t have any way of contacting those guys, and no idea where they were staying, I waited at the KOA campground until they rode passed. An hour passed, I had consumed two packets of Doritos and endured further rain under some shelter, but still there was no sign of them. Just as I was about to ride back to check for signs of life, I saw them ride past the end of the access road – but there were four riders! I scrambled back onto the bike and rode hard to keep them in sight and catch up with them.
They all stopped at a Motel 6 and I rode up behind them and introduced myself to the other two. After a bit of deliberation and a bit of good ol’ British haggling on my part we got the room down to $15 each. I later found out this was the most Joe had paid for a room. He had been doing his trip on an incredible budget. Tim and Kat had one room, and Joe, Han and myself took the other. Once we had all dried off from the downpour it was time for grocery and beverage shopping. This is when I learned from the others the awesomeness of carrots as snacks. They work pretty well and are cheap too.
Back at the motel and we chatted lots and watched the 4th July fireworks from New York – it turns out the fireworks in Ely were disappointingly shitty. We attempted to make a monstrous load of spaghetti, and hats off to Joe and Tim the chefs of the night as they managed to make enough Spaghetti to feed the entire motel complex. We somehow got through most of it though thanks to the Budweiser, washing it down nicely.
Kat, Tim and Han started out their ride across country from Michigan and are riding to Portland. They are doing it for a cause after raising money at their university. You can find out more about it at www.pedaltofeed.com. Joe was doing it for similar reasons to me. He wanted to see how far west he could get and at this point he was more than likely going to make it the whole way across.
I love the irony of having just started riding on the self proclaimed “Loneliest Road in America” I meet four awesome tourers. All of a similar age to me and great fun to be around. Now I’m looking really looking forward to crossing Nevada, it’s already been a beautiful, scenic ride.
See the other photos in the facebook album.
Exhausting, shattering yet breathtaking
Published on Sun, 03 Jul 2011
The people of Delta somehow knew I was leaving this evening and they ever so kindly let off a metric butt-ton of spectacular fireworks. They obviously knew that what I was about to attempt was challenging, gruelling and mentally demanding so they gave me an appropriate send off.
As it turns out the folks of Delta didn’t give a shit about riders risking their lives – instead they just wanted to celebrate their independence and freedom. Again on the wrong date but hey ho. I do chuckle to myself when an American mentions that they enjoy their freedom. We are anything but free. The closest we come to freedom is when we have utter disregard for stupid laws and have the good fortune to simply not get caught. End of freedom rant and back to riding…
Mentally, I was prepared for the impending desolation, blackness and sheer silence. Physically, a few more hours of sleep wouldn’t have gone amiss but I could only sleep for so long in the motel reception. After packing up and riding through Delta and Hinckley I passed the sign that was to signal a distinct lack of services for the next 83 miles. My GPS had 7 miles on the clock and the night was young, it was 23:00 and the temperature was perfect for riding.
30 miles down, the lights from Delta had faded into the distance. There was no artificial light as far as I could see. The sky was so clear though that the glow from the moon and the stars were enough to illuminate the road. There were times when I wasn’t using the head-torch and just completely star-struck. During my break I took a few long exposures of the stars, it was a surreal feeling that I couldn’t see anything around me – made even more surreal when after 15 minutes of utter silence my thoughts were interrupted by a very close “Mooooooo”. At this point I figured I was on an open range with no fences and promptly got back in the saddle before ending up inside a cow.
Not much longer after my break and the road started on an incline. This was not welcome, I was quite happy averaging 18mph on the flat, windless roads. I battled up them, ensuring they did not defeat me, and I was soon rewarded with a couple of short downhill sections. There was another long climb. I could tell because one of the few cars that had passed me was much higher than I was before disappearing over the crest of the summit. It is insane how far you can see lights in the distance, in fact judging any distance in the expanse of nothingness is difficult and hard to work out. I saw a cars beam for a full 20 minutes before it finally passed me. With a bit of maths it meant that I could see cars which were 15 miles into the distance. Mind asplode.
An 8% grade decline was my treat awaiting me. I was soon notching up 40mph in the darkness. Thankfully there were no suicidal chipmunks, deers, snakes, foxes or badgers tonight. Nothing would come across my path which I would squish and subsequently take a face full of tarmac. In fact, the only thing I got from riding this long downhill section was cold. When it came to turning the wheels again my body was riddled with goosepimples and I purposefully left the bike in a lower gear so I could peddle faster and get my body temperature up again. Worse than the cold though was the view. All I could see was the silhouettes of mountain ranges all around – I was going to have a massive climb before the night was over – my heart sank a little.
I soon hit it, the climb was on. Lowest gear engaged and all I can do is peddle my heart out. It was 3am and I figured that I would be on this climb as the sun was coming back up. It makes its daily appearance just after 5:30am and this mountain wasn’t getting any shorter. This climb was tough, I was back to sweating and not being able to gulp in enough water. My throat would constantly dry up and I was now feeling physically fatigued.
After an hours climbing I took a break. I inhaled a banana and took on much needed fluids. With slight delirium setting in, I took this opportunity to take a little snooze. I lay on the side of the road with my backpack for a pillow and managed to get 15 minutes of shut-eye before I woke with a start as a car zoomed past on the opposite side of the road. Feeling ever-so-slightly refreshed I forced myself back on the bike to attempt the rest of the climb.
The sun began to creep up through the canyons I was riding though and illuminated the red rock which surrounded my ascent. The steep, continuously winding road seemed to never end but then I saw it. I spied the green sign which meant I was approaching the summit. This, combined with a yellow sign (indicating a 6% downhill) made me almost weep with joy. I had an enormous smile across my face which only grew as I began the descent.
With the sun just beginning to rise from its snooze, it ignited the top of the mountains like candles atop a cake. The scenery, the colours, the smells, the road… it was just magical. It felt like things were falling into place, I was on such a high that I had completely forgot how tired I was.
At the bottom of this descent there were 17 more miles to go. I could see a lone building in the distance. It seemed like it would be the motel I was aiming for, but surely I couldn’t see 17 miles away. Puzzled as to what it might be (seemingly only 4 or 5 miles away) I carried on riding to take a closer look. Five miles down and still this building hadn’t got much closer, this was insane. I was peddling hard and with the lack of sleep, I was questioning myself. “Did this building even existed? Am I moving at all?”.
I had to take a break with ten more miles to go – my body was simply not working properly, I was aching and in dire need of more energy. It was such a bizarre sensation to go from a feeling of sheer awe and inspiration to that of desperation and frustration. Forcing myself back on the bike again I mustered the last amount of energy I could from my legs. They were beginning to wobble, shake and burn but I could see the finishing line, I couldn’t give up with that in sight.
This was not pretty riding, I was all over the place. I was zigzagging across the road, my upper body was swaying – not staying rigid like it should. I was trying to eek out every drop of energy I could to get to this deceiving motel. Ragged and exhausted, I slumped over my handlebars as I rolled into the car park. I collapsed on the floor outside before pulling myself together and seeing if they had any rooms.
They did but I had to wait a couple of hours for it to be cleaned. I forced a rather large breakfast down and played pool whilst waiting for my room to be ready. It wasn’t too much longer before I got to go and collapse in the large comfy double bed. Air conditioning is a modern day miracle and although it was 105 F outside I was chilling nicely inside. Did you know that the overflow hole in a sink has a name? It’s called a porcelator.