Night One Monday 8:00PM to 4:00AM
East Truckee CA to West Lovelock, NV
We did our staging and rearranging of the van at my friends Mike and Sandy Horn’s in Truckee. We also found a great eatery for pasta and pizza (Pizzeria Classico) that filled us to overflowing with plenty of complex carbs for our nights ride. We made our way to the hand-off point just east of Town under the Hiway 267 over crossing on Glennshire Road. We made ready and after a phone call from Team Two saying they were running late Jon, Greg and Allan took the first leg our through the Glennshire subdivision. Allan had forgotten the difficulty of some of the hills and also that he was at 6,000’ + in altitude, and soon found himself back in the van. Jon and Greg forged on towards our route joining Interstate 80 where we descended into the Truckee River Gorge and began the two thousand foot drop to Reno.
Allan rejoined them in Verdi and the three of them rode on into town through the Casino area and east into Sparks. About a half mile before rejoining I-80 Allan rejoined me in the van to gas up and get ready to ride with me for the final 30+ miles. We escorted Jon and Greg until we were somewhere east of Fernley where Allan & I took over in the very dark desert with the cold surrounding us like a cloak. We made our way east on the shoulder of the Interstate over one rise then another as we passed the end of the 40 mile desert and the junction of US 95 where it joined the Interstate. I was feeling the altitude and the miles as we passed 30 miles of riding, but I knew we were getting close. Allan had insisted on riding to my right the entire time when I had hoped that we could do some drafting along the way, but in the dark that was probably not the best of ideas even though he and I had the best head lights and blinking rear lights of the team. Quietly we rode on East until we arrived at the appointed mile marker along the freeway.
Where was Team One, they should have been there to meet us. A phone call let us know that they were riding the 5 miles west from Lovelock to cross the highway then begin their 120+ mile ride East. I thought this pretty crazy but as I was to find out through out the ride, they didn’t mind putting in mega miles and also rode mostly as a group of 6 not in smaller groups for faster shorter legs per person. Who knows?
We made our way towards Winnemucca in the dark where we arrived just after sunrise and about 25 minutes before the Griddle opened. The Griddle in Central Winnemucca is a tradition in my travels through Northern Nevada, and I looked forward to a good breakfast there. I had arranged for Jim Hansen a long time close friend who had moved to Winnemucca a couple of years earlier to join us for breakfast and it was not surprise when he arrived with his wife Debbi. We had a better than Denny’s breakfast before we headed out to Battle Mountain where Allan had booked us into a Super 8 Motel for the day time. Jim invited me to go on over to their place to spend the day and then drive me over to Battle Mountain, but I figured this was a team effort and I should stay with my mates.
We arrived in Battle Mountain somewhere around 8:00 and went straight away to the rooms which the management said we had to be out of before 1:00 because her “UNION” help would stay past 2:00 and she needed to the rooms ready. We were out of the rooms but the funny thing is the staff didn’t even get near our rooms and they were still there at 3:45 when we headed east for our next night time riding.
