Mileage: 28.01

From: Napa, CA

To: Mill Valley, CA

We started this morning around 8:30 am.  Our plan was to go through Sonoma today but we quickly found out how strict California is with bicycles on freeways.  California is also the only state that we rode through that has state highways as freeways.  We found that many of the state highways up in the Napa and Sonoma areas are freeways.  We realized this after riding 5 miles this morning.  This is probably why the bicycling directions on Google kept wanting us to take the ferry across the bay.  We decided at this point that we would take the ferry.  We had to backtrack the 5 miles that we rode this morning and headed to Vallejo.  We got to the pier a little after noon.  Our ferry was scheduled to leave at 2:00 pm.   This was our first of two ferry rides for the day.  We were on this one for an hour on our way to San Francisco.  We arrived and had to get tickets for our second ferry leaving less than 30 minutes later for Sausalito.  Once we boarded the second ferry, we left very quickly.  We arrived in Sausalito around 4 pm.  We had a short ride up to Mill Valley from the docks, all along bike lanes and bike trails.  We arrived around 5 pm.  We spent the evening with Kailani’s (Cbass’ girlfriend) parents in Mill Valley.  We had an amazing dinner and got a chance to share many stories of the road with all of them.  It was a great way to spend one final night before the last day of our journey.  Tomorrow we will be headed to Santa Cruz along Highway 1.  Anyone who wants to meet us at the end should meet at Natural Bridges around 4:30 pm.  We should be arriving sometime between 5 and 6 pm.

Mileage: 67.90

From: Woodland, CA

To: Napa, CA

We left this morning around 9 am.  We headed for Davis first on our way to Napa.  There were a lot of bike trails in and around Davis.  We took a quick break here before heading for Vacaville.  Once in Vacaville we stopped for lunch and also looked for a bike shop.  I have had a wobble in my pedals since the middle of Nevada and I also needed to get my rear tire trued.  Once at the shop, it was found that I had at least one spoke that was about to go had it not been adjusted.  My lower bracket was also pretty much gone on my  non drive train side.  They were surprised that my bike was still moving forward.  I had almost no pedal power on my left side.  They were able to get everything all tuned up in just over an hour.  The bike shop that we stopped at is called Velo Wrench Bike Shop.  Their website is velowrench.com.  They were extremely friendly and they really cater to touring cyclists.  Vincent, the shop owner, said that they even have a room for tourers to sleep in if needed and they often have food.  It was fortunate that we stumbled on this shop.  I would highly recommend this shop to other touring cyclists passing through if they need anything.  After we left the bike shop we headed for Napa.  We went south to Fairfield before going west towards Jamison Canyon.  We had horrible headwinds the entire afternoon after leaving the bike shop.  The headwinds did not die down until after we got out of Jamison Canyon.  Brian drove up from Fremont to meet us up in Napa since he will be unable to join us for our return party on Saturday.  It was great to see him.  We went out for a bite to eat once we got camp set up.  He did not spend the night but we were able to talk for quite some time.  I also got a call from my friend Mike, who said his brother has been tracking us and saw us riding in Napa on his way home from work.  It was cool to know that someone who has been following us spotted us on the road.  Only two more days to go!

Mileage: 81.98

From: Camptonville, CA

To: Woodland, CA

We got a very early start this morning, just after 6:30 am.  The beginning portion of the ride had us going up and down for a while.  In fact, almost right off the bat we had a decent climb up about 500 feet.  We quickly dropped below 2000 feet after that with a few miles of 8% grade.  We continued to go through rollers until we got down to the central valley.  We stopped in Marysville for lunch at an all you can eat Pizza buffet.  This was an extremely popular pizza parlor as it filled up quickly for lunch.  The food was good too.  We headed into Yuba City right across the river to the only bike shop in town.  We wanted to get a few minor adjustments made.  They were unable to work on our bikes as they were booked for the day.  We got the feeling that he didn’t want to go out of his way to help us out.  We decided to just head to Woodland.  It was a fairly long but flat ride.  We ate dinner once we got into town at a local family diner.  The food was good and the staff was extremely friendly.  There was no campgrounds in or around town at all.  We decided to stay at the Motel 6 in town.  We should be able to get a good start tomorrow on our way to Napa.

Mileage: 78.87

From: Loyalton, CA

To: Camptonville, CA

We got started a little after 8 am this morning.  We had about 20 miles of riding just to get to the base of Yuba Pass.  This ride was nice and fairly quick.  We took a quick break before beginning our ascent.   While taking a break we had a few other cross country cyclists pass us.  They were coming from Jacksonville, FL and heading to San Francisco.  We found out later that they were part of a group of 33 cyclists that are part of an organization called Bike and Build.  They bike across the US but also stop and help build houses along the way.  They were fun to talk to.  We chatted with some of them for most of the ride up to the pass.  We got up to the top and rested really quick prior to beginning the downhill.  Right as we were about to head down, another cyclist was coming up the summit from the west side.  We chatted with him for a while and he was telling us how he is planning to do a cross country ride starting in September.  The ride down was quick and very scenic.  We stopped for lunch in Bassets.  We did have one final climb at the end of the day in which we had to climb out of the canyon along CA-49 and over a small ridge.   There was a campground that we were headed for just outside of Camptonville.  We arrived and found it to be closed.  We continued down the road to find another one.  We eventually found a campground and set up for the night.  After arriving we re-evaluated our routes for the remainder of the trip.  We have not looked at any of the California destinations since the Tetons.  We found that our original plan to go through Williams and Calistoga not to be the most optimum choice.  Our plan now is to go down to Woodland and then Napa before heading to Mill Valley.  This will help to make the two days following tomorrow shorter by 10 miles each and eliminate almost all of the elevation gain that we would have had going from Williams to Calistoga.

Mileage: 56.43

From: Sparks, NV

To: Loyalton, CA

We had a very tasty breakfast prepaired for us this morning before hitting the road.  They took us back to Scheels so that we could start from where we finished yesterday.  Once there Cbass had to patch his flat and I went in and purchased a replacement tire for my rear wheel.  The tire was one of my original two and it was time to replace it as it was beginning to deteriorate.   In fact, I had another piece of trucking wire stuck in it but it had not gone all the way through yet.  We got on the road just before noon.   We stopped for lunch just 7 miles down the road.  We ate at Genghis Grill, it is a Mongolian Stir Fry place.  Cbass got his second flat on his way to lunch.  He patched up his tire and we were back on the road.  It was a much shorter day but with the late start we were aiming to finish around the same time.  We finally got into California around 5:45 pm.  We have been waiting for this point for a long time.  We still had one small pass to climb and then it would be 15 miles of flat valley on our way to Loyalton.   It began to get dark and we had to turn on our headlights for the last few miles.  We arrived a little after 9 pm.  We stayed at my friend Ryan’s parents house.  Ryan is one of my college buddies who now lives in New Hampshire.  His parents Mike and Sal were not home but they allowed us to stay anyway.  We really appreciated this and it was too bad that we were not able to see them.  Thanks for everything guys!

Mileage: 94.06

From: Lovelock, NV

To: Sparks, NV

Today we got going shortly after 8 am.   We stocked up on water and hit the road.  The first stop was a little over 20 miles out, and the junction of US 95.   There was a rest stop there.   At first we didn’t see any water there, but as we were about to leave, Dan found one spicket to fill up our water.   This was a good thing since we had a little over 35 miles before our next source of water.  The temperatures once again were heading for the upper 90′s.  It was a long stretch but we made it to Fernley around 2 pm.   We ate lunch and spent about 2 and a half hours here resting before continuing on to the Reno/Sparks area.   My friends Steve and Jamie were meeting us in Sparks.   We were going to be spending the night at her parent’s house in south Reno.   I got into Sparks just before 7 pm.  Dan and Cbass got through the canyon just after 8:30 pm.  Cbass suffered his first flat of the trip as he rolled into the Scheels parking lot.   It was a very long day and we were glad to be done.   We headed for their house after we got all of the bikes and gear packed up in the SUV’s.  Tom came with Steve and Jamie to pick us up and we met Judy later on.  They made us pasta and garlic bread for diner.  It was delicious! We landed up going to bed shortly after dinner as we were all exhausted from the day’s ride.

Mileage: 76.32

From: Winnemucca, NV

To: Lovelock, NV

We tried to get an early start today to get as many hours of headwind free riding in as possible.  This did not matter this morning as we had a headwind from the start.  Luckily it never really got too strong all day, it just remained moderate and constant.  It was a long day with not much in the way of stops for us to relax and beat the heat.  Our first stop was at a rest area that we were able to rest for about a half hour and fill up water.  We ate lunch at about the 30 mile mark and planned to stop again at the only other gas station between Mill City and Lovelock.  On our way to the gas station we saw the first road sign with mileage to a California city.  Sacramento was over 200 miles away.  We are beginning to see more familiar terrain as we approach California.  We spent more than an hour at our final resting place for the day.  The other two tried to nap while I made a phone call.  We hit the road again around 4:30 and arrived in Lovelock a little after 6:00.  We got another motel for the night, our third and final of the trip.  It was nice once again to have a room out of the heat.

Mileage: 53.58

From: Battle Mountain, NV

To: Winnemucca, NV

With the really hot temperatures yesterday, we wanted to get an early start this morning.  We were unable to start as quickly as we wanted to when we realized that Dan had a flat tire in the morning.  We got his tire fixed and then realized mine had just gone flat.  It was over an hour of delays that were unfortunate due to the temperatures.  We were able to get a good start though considering all of the problems right off the bat.  There were hardly any winds early on which allowed us to get about 25-30 miles down the road before facing headwinds.  I had forgotten that there was one additional pass that we had to clear today, but this one was less than a thousand foot climb.  We got to the top of Golconda Summit, and this is where we met the headwinds.  We were getting blown all over the place on the way down.  We stopped at a hole in the wall bar to replenish our water and take a break.  We only had a little over 15 miles to go from this point.  We arrived in Winnemucca just after four.  We were lucky that the winds were not as strong as Battle Mountain in the afternoon.  We set up camp and headed downtown for dinner later on.  On our way back I suffered another flat tire.  It was the second time today that I had trucker wire stuck in my tire.  Luckily I was ale to change this out prior to bed so that I didn’t have to worry about it in the morning.

Mileage:

From Elko, NV

To: Battle Mountain, NV

We tried to get an early start around 7 am but we had some bike issues early on.  Dan damaged his valve while pumping his tire up and had to replace the tube.  We hit the road and then I realized that my rear break was rubbing.  We had to take everything off my bike to make sure that the wheel was sitting ride on the frame.  We finally got going and we had extremely favorable conditions early on.  In fact we made it to Carlin in about an hour and were averaging just under 20 mph.  We took a break here as this was the only town on the way to Battle Mountain.  After Carlin, we started our climb over the final pass before the Sierra Nevadas.  It was a relatively easy pass as it was an average grade and only about a 1500 foot climb.

At the Top of Emigrant Pass

The ride down was nice and we stopped at the rest stop near the base on the west side.  We refilled water and waited out a thunderstorm prior to proceeding.  We have hit more thunderstorms in the state of Nevada than any other state.  The only difference is that these storms last about 10-15 minutes instead of hours.  We continued to have favorable conditions until about 5 miles past the rest stop.  We all of a sudden were hit by very strong headwinds the rest of the way.  It was almost 100 degrees and it was slow going.  We finally reached town and immediately got food and liquids.  We got a motel for the evening as there are no RV parks or campgrounds in Battle Mountain.  With how hot it is right now, it is probably for the best anyway.

** I have gone back and added in the photos from day 48 to the present. **

Mileage: 52.82

From: Wells, NV

To: Elko, NV

We started today around 9am.  We had a pretty short day to Elko ahead of us.  We actually started off very strong as much of the ride was flat or slightly downhill.

Ruby Mountains

Nevada Desert

We took one break about 15 miles out of Elko.  Prior to breaking our average speed was just shy of 17 mph.  After our break we were hit with pretty strong headwinds from the gust fronts of the thunderstorms.  We once again were caught in a brief thunderstorm right before getting to Elko.  Once in Elko we ate at a grill called Wingers.  It was pretty good and they had some interesting flavors for their wings.  After eating we headed over to our hosts for the evening.  We met Michelle and then her husband Paul later on after he got home from work.

Michelle

They were more than welcoming and we had a great time talking about our trip. Michelle’s brother Joe was over as well and he told us all about his experiences in Argentina.  He has lived in Argentina for the past five years.  They kindly fed us dinner as well, which was quite tasty!  We had a great night.