06.11 - across the sierras

maurice is gone, off with deb and chris to the airport to catch that flight home.  i enjoy being by myself, but i also enjoy having the company and support.  maurice and i have travelled a lot of miles together over the last dozen years, climbed a lot of mountains.

i went a bit of the longer way today.  started out going along the nw shore line, passing through all the little villages, each with their vacation downtowns.  never really saw that in incline village.  passed into california, the state line runs almost down the center of the lake.  picked up the truckee river bike trail, flowing north out of lake tahoe to donner pass.  the bike trail ends at squaw valley, home of the winter olympics way back when.  got back on the road chasing the river down to truckee, at the foot of the pass.


that's where i learned donner pass road was closed to pedestrians and cyclists.  dilemma.  the only other way through the pass is i-80 and in california a cyclist is not supposed the ride on the interstate.  but, as i said, there was no alternative and i only needed to go 2 exits, so out and up i went.  turned out to be a non issue as i cleared the pass without ever seeing a state police car.

later, historic highway 40 ended and, again, i needed to get on i-80 since it was the only road through the gap.  this tme, however, i actually rode up to a state trooper who was on the shoulder helping out a a motorist.  he asked me how i was doing, but didn't say anything about me being on the road.  i'm guessing that since there was no other road available, they allowed it.  again just for one exit.

at the next exit i picked up rte 20, which i would be on for the next several days, crossing the central valley and heading into the mountains, eventually connecting with hwy 101.

20, and 101, are not very bicycle friendly roads, despite being state bike routes.  the shoulder, never very wide, comes and goes.  and there's always that damn rumble strip.  keep the one in the middle, fine, but the ones on the edge are a real danger to cyclists.  not much of an issue when traffic is light or going uphill, but a bit sketchy when the traffic picks up, combined with downhills where added speed makes it difficult to stay in narrow lanes between rumble strips and edge of shoulder, sometimes a guarddrail. 

i spent the night in a rather plessant state campground, lucking out with just about the last spot.

Mosquitos.  its been really nice not having any.  but guess what: they were on the western side of the sierras, just waiting.  actually, not bad though, not as hungry as tennessee.  still, i could get used to not having them around.

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