Across NV in Five Days

As it turns out, the last "decent" bike shop was really the last bike shop, period. There were no bike shops to be seen after that. So it was wise to wait for the shop in Carson City to completely fix Ben's bike eventhough it meant leaving at 10:30 a.m. By midday Art and Ben rolled through Silver Springs, where it was 95 degrees! But they made it to their overnight destination, Fallon, NV, and vowed to rise by 4 a.m. in order to beat the heat the next day.


On Thursday, the boys stopped for lunch at Middle Gate Station on the way to Cold Springs Station, NV (pop 40, because someone just had a baby), where they were the only guests at the local motel. They were quite pleased with their room in the converted trailer, that had AC and a fridge. Art was also happy to have convinced the proprietor to give them the low Bike-Across-America rate of $51/night. That day, the ride had been 63 miles with a few gentle rolling hills -- overall not too tough. Every few minutes a car would drive past, as if to prove that the loneliest highway in America was true to its name!

Again setting out early in the morning to avoid the heat of midday, on Friday they rode 51 miles to Austin, NV. The small town (pop 372) was half way up a steep hill, but still they managed to arrive by 11 a.m. Turns out that there was a wedding party in town, and two motels had no vacancy. Fortunately, there was a third motel with a room available, and at the edge of town they even found a 24-hr laundromat.

On Saturday, they rode 68 miles to Eureka, NV (pop 700) and on Sunday, they rode through a windy pass into Ely, NV. After a grueling climb, Ely lay at the bottom of a hill, so they thought the last 18 miles would be a breeze. But instead of riding 18 mph and arriving in an hour, the headwind was so strong that pedaling downhill as hard as they could, their average speed was 10 mph and it took them almost two hours! In the end, they rolled into town at 1:20 p.m. and in time for lunch.

On Monday, they rode to their final overnight stop in Nevada - Baker - where they found a room at the Silver Jack Inn. There was no cell phone coverage so Rick, the motel manager who used to grow pot in Pescadero, let Art use the motel phone. Unfortunately, he could not talk long because the Lectrolux Restaurant was opening to serve them dinner, then closing again so that all the workers could attend a party later that night. Baker is on Hwy 487 and as they turned off Hwy 50, Art had asked Ben if he was sad to leave the familiar road. Ben said "No way, it was so boring!" Just wait until they get to Kansas!

Tuesday is the long, hard ride to Millford, UT -- 83 miles with three big hills to climb and absolutely no services. Hopefully they won't turn into carrion along the way. Apparently there are plenty of crows in the desert, circling overhead just waiting for their next meal to come along. So every now and then, Art said that he looks up at them and shouts, "Crows, not today!"