Fallon, NV to South Lake Tahoe, CA — 101.4 mi, 5,750 ft
Video script: So you know how only a couple of days ago we ended up doing that heinous 200 mile ride overnight that was definitely one of the hardest things I’ve ever done in my life? I remember at first having a huge adrenaline rush of “WOW we’re biking at night this is so fun” to then feeling so so so sleepy to then chugging caffeine and being insanely buzzed from that to then crashing again to then waking up and pooping behind a bush on the side of the highway feeling like I wanted to die. And I remember telling myself, it was all worth it because when else am I going to have an experience like this? I need to savor it. Turns out I would be having a very similar experience only a couple days later because today, we woke up at 1AM to (again) start our century bike ride in the middle of the night.
This was of course Drew and Nate’s “geniusness” and I say that in quotes. The motivation behind this idea was to again, avoid peak afternoon winds and heat. To be honest, I don’t really get it because we’ve dealt with much worse winds and heat throughout the summer but maybe this overnight biking thing that we only recently discovered has set a trend for our last remaining bike days. And I’m not really one to argue I’m usually just fine with whatever the majority of the team wants to do and everyone surprisingly seemed down for this idea. So, as Carmen mentioned in the previous blog, to maximize our efficiency once we woke up, some of us were going to sleep in our bibs. Unfortunately, the only one of us to end up doing that was also the only one who definitely didn’t need to do that, our most efficient morning riser, Nate Mustafa. In the morning when we were all running around the Fallon Youth Club, Nate in his bib and the rest of us in PJs, aarushi pointed this out and I thought that it was just really funny.
Puffy eyed and delirious, we all tried as quickly as possible to pack up all of our things that we had, just as usual, thrown all about. Once dressed and packed, we all gathered in FYC’s industrial kitchen to warm up our breakfast burritos in their industrial kitchen warmer machine and fill our water bottles to the brim with ice from the industrial ice machine.
Now I have to tell you a story that I wish I had on film. For context, none of us are truly morning people meaning that at 1AM we were all not in the happiest moods. Aarushi, our driver of the day, had declared aloud that she wanted to eat only half of her muffin and asked if anyone else wanted her other half. No one responded but she left her other half on the kitchen counter and went to do other tasks. When she came back she found out that Nate had eaten the other half of her muffin and got very mad at him. We then all maybe ganged up on Aarushi a little bit and told her that there were many more muffins in the carton that she could eat but she wouldn’t have it because she wanted her half of the muffin. I told her that she was not a serious person. She then exclaimed very passionately, “I’M A SERIOUS PERSON!” To which Drew responded with a rap to ragebait her further. This rap has stuck with us ever since.
Before we left, Caroline and I had to give a little upgrade to Mr. K. We placed Caroline’s elephant and Drew’s Max on our dashboard made from our design workshop and they are the cutest additions.
Something interesting about biking at night is that you can switch out your sunglasses lens for a night mode one that supposedly makes things look brighter. That’s why Nate looks like an owl here.
At 2:15 AM we were finally ready to go! Now the fun part about biking in the middle of the night is that there’s literally no one else awake but us. No cars to worry about running us over and it feels like the whole world is ours.
When we got to the first stop, our amazing driver had our new liquid diet all set up and waiting for us. For some reason, this summer the girls on the team have developed an addiction to Arizona’s. Turns out they are also a great source of carbs that are much easier to consume compared to endless cheezits and gummy worms. Aarushi had gone and bought four or five gallons of different Arizona’s as well as sodas for the boys. We were so back. Caroline was also having some allergies so Aarushi got her a nasal spray that Drew fear-mongered she would get addicted to. We then caught Drew throwing away chunks of his poptart into the bushes because he doesn’t like eating the edges. We are just a very strange crew.
As we kept biking, we eventually started to see the sunrise which, surprisingly, I’ve never been able to see all of yet this summer. The sky went from pitch black to suddenly pink and blue, the road was still empty, and I had my favorite people by my side and I remember feeling at peace.
As we kept biking, we sped past a sign that read CAROLINE WAY! I immediately demanded that we all turn around so we could get a picture of Caroline with the sign. Something that may have already been mentioned in the blogs is that most of the team has nicknames that the rest of us like to stim, meaning that we like to repeat it over and over again because it’s fun. Carmen is Bacon. Bacon Bacon Bacon. And Caroline is Care-O-lineee. Bacon and Caroline is Bacoline. And aarushi is arshi arshi arshi. Drew is D-rew but we don’t really tend to stim that one. Tatiana, Nate and I are boring. Anyway we derive a lot of pleasure from doing this for some reason. On that 200 mile overnight ride, repeating Bacoline over and over again was the only thing that kept me entertained.
At some point, I turned around and realized Nate had replaced his night mode lens for literally nothing. He explained that he wanted to enjoy the sunrise in its true colors but keep using his rearview mirror so he just looked kind of funny.
63 miles in and at around 8AM we arrived at the fourth rest stop, a coffee shop in Carson City! As we biked in we all talked about how nice the area looked and how cute the shops were but everything was thankfully still closed because otherwise our very easily distracted group would lose all of the time we tried to save by biking through the night. We all got some drinks and sat in the coffee shop’s courtyard. I got a very delicious Thai Iced Tea Latte combination that Aarushi tried some of and decided her first coffee wasn’t enough and she needed to get this second one too. Afterwards, we decided we would do just the tiniest bit of sidequesting by going to a flea market that we saw was nearby on Google Maps. Once we got there, we found only an empty parking lot. We decided to continue on to visit the State Capital Building and wandered around the outside. Soon enough we decided to continue and meet up with Drew who was waiting at the nearby Wendy’s along the route. At this Wendy’s we each ended up ordering their homestyle seasoned potatoes which were basically these really delicious glorified fries.
Now, the big event of the day was this 2,000 ft climb up to South Lake Tahoe from Carson City. As we were just approaching these huge mountains, Drew’s tire popped! We had maybe our 100th tire puncture of the trip. After test riding for a bit we decided to keep biking toward the next rest stop that was right before the big climb and we could try to repair it there. This rest stop was at a nice park where we pulled out our sandwiches that FYC gave us while Drew and Nate continued their bike repair work. Here’s some funny videos of Drew biking back and forth on the street to see if their plug worked.
We ended up spending probably a lot of time at this rest stop trying to delay the inevitable climb. Drew and Nate left first before Aarushi could give us her motivational and completely original speech. The climb itself was honestly not that bad, but maybe because I was expecting the worst. I was also bike computer-less today since Aarushi’s was broken so by the time I thought I was only a mile in, I was actually like 3 miles in and the whole thing went by much faster than I expected. Aarushi was driving back and forth up this mountain to check on all of the bikers and to do a makeshift rest stop mid-climb for Tatiana who specifically requested it. By the time I reached the summit I realized no one was there and decided to keep biking down. This downhill was so so fun, barely peddling as I just shifted my weight to go around the twists and turns. Eventually, I made it to South Lake Tahoe! As I was biking down highway 50, the main road that goes through the area, I looked up to see the California border crossing sign and felt a surprising mix of emotions. I was just thinking about how it is actually so insane I started in Washington D.C., a place so so far away from home, and ended up all the way in California, my home state! It was unbelievable. I felt so proud and happy and confused and grateful. The second I crossed the border I actually felt so at home. I’ve actually grown up coming to Lake Tahoe at least once every year so I am pretty familiar with the area. The trees were so green and the lake was so blue and I was just so happy.
I met up with Nate and Drew who were at Jamba Juice and we waited for everyone else to come down the mountain so we could get a group photo together at the border. Because we had so much time to kill, we decided to try and look at the beach. Unfortunately, the beach we ended up next to required an entrance fee so we just stared longingly at the sparkly blue lake through the tall fence. We met up with Carmen and Caroline and all waited together next to the border crossing sign for Aarushi and Tatiana. Soon, they came and we biked a bit more to find a fancier border crossing sign that I had found online because the one on highway 50 was kind of lame and hard to take photos next to. Unluckily for us, the sign was on a trail that was for some reason closed off or under construction. We decided to do as we usually do and pretend that these signs don’t pertain to cyclists, only to pedestrians and cars. We then took maybe five hundred silly photos of ourselves because you only really bike across the country into California once.
Now, the rest of the day I guess I just forgot to film any part of it but it’s okay because nothing really interesting happened. We ended up biking the last 8 miles to our airbnb kindly donated to us by my awesome parents. We settled down and everyone proceeded to immediately take showers and fall asleep since I guess we didn’t really sleep the night before. Sometime around 10PM I went to pick up Chipotle for everyone which some people woke up for but others ended up just eating for breakfast the next morning.
Because I love Lake Tahoe, I convinced the whole team a couple of weeks ago to turn our singular rest day into two rest days so I’m really really looking forward to all the fun things that we will do as our last hurrah of the summer.
