Battle Mtn., Nv. Day 8

Hi everyone,
I am in Battle Mtn., Nv tonight after an interesting and beautiful day of riding. We began with breakfast at McDonald’s and only had a 55 mile day so didn’t start riding until about 8:45. It was a very comfortable 52 degrees this morning and some riders chose to go to the local rodeo before starting their day. Our cyclist from England and Switzerland were particularly interested in going. As I was preparing to take off, a cute older couple in a PT cruiser stopped and asked me where we were headed – this ride was far more than they could comprehend, but they wished us luck!

Our entire ride today was on I-80 because it is really the only way to get across this part of the state – we forgo the first rest area at 10.1 miles and went on to 16.7 miles. During this stretch there was one lane closed and that made it nice for us because we can ride on the closed lane. Since it is Sunday, there were no crews working and we had the lane to ourselves – I never saw so many orange barrels in one place.

Next we began our only climb for the day and that was a 4% for 3.8 miles. There is really nothing but the beauty of the mountains with a highway cutting between. You can see so far away that the sun shining on different peaks really results in a glorious picture. We crested at 5,159 feet and then enjoyed a 5.6 mile downhill. Right at the bottom of the hill we encountered a stretch of one lane for almost 6 miles – we could ride on the closed lane, but it had been graded and not yet resurfaced – thus a constant shaking of your body, teeth, and brain that also resulted in a loss of ride time. You notice a tire being changed – we had several on this surface (Bob Rodweller, this is your friend, Jay, and his son). Not sure if this was before or after young Brad decided to step into the sage brush for a bathroom break and was greeted by the scary sound of a rattlesnake which encouraged me to wait until the rest stop to use the facilities.

At 39 miles we had a rest stop and as we left, we could see off in the distance all kinds of rain happening. We rode hard to try to beat it, but opted to put on rain gear just in case and continued on. At one point it looked so threatening that we decided to go under an underpass and wait it out. Underpasses are very sparse here and while we were waiting, we discovered sparrow’s nests under the underpass – see picture. The sparrows weren’t happy with us, but we were impressed with their little homes.Deciding not to wait any longer, we headed out again and still could see the rain, but at one point the road was wet and it was no longer raining. So the gods were with us and we rode in and kept dry. Right across the street from our hotel is a little grocery store that we stopped at to get our daily fix of chocolate milk (the recommended recovery drink for our legs). We ran into a road crew guy who told us to expect more construction on I-80 tomorrow and that it is to rain for a week. We didn’t take it personally, but not sure he appreciated cyclists.
It was a good, but longer ride than expected and we ate dinner in a little Mexican restaurtant in downtown Battle Mtn. The sun was beautiful on the mountains as it was setting.
Now I must comment on certain things on the road – I know that my brother, Gary, would be horrified to know that I have probably passed about 150 bunji cords on the shoulder and didn’t pick them up. However, I did find that one of our staff must be from the same mold as Gary because he stopped and picked up three pair of new gloves, a saw, a pair of wire cutters, and a pair of pliers!!!
I want to acknowledge all of the comments and e-mails – I can’t answer your questions in the comments unless I make another comment – so I just want to say that yes, Perry, they do have $5.00 footlongs at Subways all the way out here!! And David is correct, the letter on the side of the mountain is to represent the first letter of the town.

Today’s hurrah goes out to nephew Kyle for calling me at 3:30 am on Black Friday to ask if he should be my personal shopper and buy this laptop for me. I have really enjoyed it!!

Thank God for the safety, health, and energy.