Day 130 – 148: Surviving the high desert

After renting a car and spending some time with dear friends in the Central Valley of California, we dropped off the vehicle in Reno, Nevada and began making our way eastward across the “Loneliest Road in America”, Highway 50. This segment almost exclusively kept us in a high desert region of the Great Basin proving to challenge us with heat, elevation, intense sun & procuring enough water.

September 26 – October 14, 2024

• Day 130 – Reno to Carson City – 26 miles/1100’ climbing
• Day 131 – Carson City to Dayton – 22 miles/600’
• Day 132 – Dayton to Dayton (no typo) – 37 miles/800’
• Day 133 – Dayton to Fallon – 45 miles/700’
• Day 134 – Fallon to Middlegate – 54 miles/1500’
• Day 135 – Middlegate to Austin – 66 miles/4400’ 
• Day 136 – Austin to Spencer Hot Springs – 22 miles/1300’
• Day 137 – Spencer HS to Petroglyphs BLM – 14 miles/1200’
• Day 138 – Petroglyphs to Eureka – 48 miles/1000’
• Day 139 – Eureka to Illipah Reservoir – 41 miles/2800’
• Day 140 – Illipah to Ely – 39 miles/1400′
• Day 141 – Rest Day in Ely
• Day 142 – Ely to Sacramento Pass – 48 miles/3100′
• Day 143 – Sacramento Pass to Great Basin National Park – 21 miles/2400′
• Day 144 – Great Basin NP to remote camp – 21 miles/400′
• Day 145 – remote camp to Milford – 71 miles/3800′
• Day 146 – Milford to Minersville Reservoir – 19 miles/600′
• Day 147 – Minersville to Cedar City – 47 miles/2200′
• Day 148 – Rest day

Total trip miles: 4,200 miles
Total trip climbing: 195,000 feet
Dustin’s hair length: 7 inches
Flat tires: 4 (all on our front tires – Surly Extraterrestrials*)
* OEM tires we knew were not cut out for this type of touring

We had a restful few days in California (where temperatures hit triple digits) with Mike, Linda, Tim & Stacey. We stayed out in the “guest house” camper and enjoyed reconnecting with these longtime friends while doing some work on the bicycles. Thank you for the great conversation & hospitality. After driving the I-80 from Nevada to California and experiencing 7 lane wide high speed traffic we are glad we decided to rent a car for this expedition – California driving is insane!

While visiting our friends we were able to take advantage of their well tooled garage and work on the bicycles a little bit – Dustin’s pedal had been squeaking for quite some time and he was able to rebuild the pedal with a kit we’d ordered ahead.

We also reweighed the bicycles, first time we’ve done this since leaving Fairbanks and dropping off Katy. As a percentage of rider’s body weight Patricia is “winning” by a longshot 😉 The following weights are fully loaded, with all water bottles full.

Dustin’s bicycle weight: 122 lbs (143 lbs leaving Fairbanks)
Patricia’s bicycle weight: 108 lbs (113 lbs leaving Fairbanks)

As we will soon learn on this segment of the trip “pack-mule Dustin” definitely pulled his weight in extra water…

After a few days we returned to Reno, Nevada to continue the trip and hopped on the bikes to pedal 25 miles out of town right after we dropped off the rental car. Getting out of Reno was quite a delight as we had dedicated bicycle lanes almost the entire way. We camped just north of Carson City at Washoe Lake State Park where we were surprised to find showers! 

While sleeping at Washoe we were awakened at 12:15am to a dilapidated camper pulling into our site and bellowing exhaust into our tent. Patricia got out of the tent and informed the driver that the site was occupied and he was extremely apologetic and offered to move out. At this point the engine was off and it really was no bother to us so we offered for him to stay. The next morning we met “Captain Pete” who offered us food as renumeration and we had a good chat with him – turns out he was a merchant marine captain and now tours around in his camper.  

Just ready to roll out Patricia noticed her front tire was flat – this was flat #4 of the entire trip. After fixing the flat, we’re getting quite efficient at this now haha, we made our way to Carson City where we heard they were having a Murals & Music Festival. We were able to catch some live mural painting occurring. 

We had lunch at a nice picnic spot in town and were getting ready to head out of Carson City to find camping for the night when Dustin’s front tire was flat (#5 of the trip) – that’s TWO flats in ONE day! Grrrrr. We again fixed the flat tire and rolled on. So far all of our flat tires have been on our front wheels which are running the original Surly Extraterrestrial tires. Our rear wheels are using a touring specific German manufactured Schwable Marathon Plus. It doesn’t take much more convincing we will be changing all the tires to the Schwables before heading into Mexico!

On the following day we rode 37 miles and ended up camping at the same campground…it was an adventure. We had pedaled 25 miles eastward when Patricia heard Dustin release a series of expletives – the shifting component of his right brifter (brake/shifter) had broken *again*. We had just replaced this component in Washington for a hefty penny and now it had failed again. The part that has broken (twice now) is an internal mechanism that we ourselves can not repair. We were 35 miles from Carson City but this would mean backtracking or 350 miles to the nearest bicycle shop if we continued eastward – the bicycle could still be ridden but Dustin would not be able to change gears on the rear cassette. 

Thankfully we still had cell phone reception and were able to investigate our options – it was a Saturday and the bicycle shop in Carson City would close at 4pm and then not open again until Tuesday. We decided to backtrack to Carson City after calling the bicycle shop to verify that they could repair it that day. It was now 11am and we needed to ride 35 miles to get to the bike shop – Patricia looked at Dustin and said, “We need to hitchhike or we’re not going to make it”. Dustin reluctantly agreed and for the first time in our lives we stuck out a thumb hoping for a ride for two people, two bicycles and a plethora of bags. 

It only took 7 minutes before a pick-up truck stopped and offered to take us 10 miles down the road – “We’ll take it!” knowing it would save us about 1 hour of pedaling. When this driver dropped us off it took less than 1 minute and Pat offered to take us all the way to Carson City and drop us off right at the bicycle shop – we were so thankful! 

The Bike Smith in Carson City, Nevada got Dustin’s bike on a stand right away and offered a downtube shifter part from an old Trek 1200 to solve our problem. They fixed the bicycle & gave us a ton of advice about future solutions (bar end shifters) all for the price of “a postcard” from somewhere down the road. 

After two rides from generous strangers and two adept bike mechanics we were back on the road. These people changed our frustration to immense gratitude. We once again pedaled out of Carson City and headed back to the same campground we had stayed at the previous night. 

The Great Basin

The majority of this segment was riding through high desert (elevations 5,000 – 7,700 feet) – once we left Fallon, Nevada we stayed above 5,000 feet for the next two weeks. Almost all of Nevada is covered by the Great Basin – the largest area of contiguous watersheds with no outlet to the ocean. This area is characterized by high desert (limited water) with hot summers and cold winters.

So far the ride on highway 50 didn’t seem that lonely but we were told once we got east of Fallon the amount of traffic would decrease significantly. Fallon is home to the Fallon Naval Air Station and TOPGUN training area – we were treated to several jets flying overhead as we cycled eastward. We didn’t get any pictures of these jets because we’d often hear them and then see a tiny dot in the sky having already passed us. 

About 50 miles outside of Fallon we stopped for the night at Middlegate Station, once a Pony Express stop, now a motel/restaurant/RV park. It didn’t look like much but for a couple weary travelers in the desert Middlegate was such a welcomed oasis. They allowed us to camp behind the restaurant where we dined for the evening. After both eating an entree for dinner we were still hungry and Patricia went up to order another meal – the chef said, “No, you don’t want that – you want sugar” and proceeded to make us a special off-menu complimentary dessert. It was such a wonderful heartwarming stop filled with kindness for the weary traveler.  

The next day we had a challenging ride that we weren’t sure we’d be able to make so we had several “bailout” options in mind. The day started with a 20 mile climb that zapped much of our energy reserves but we were able to push through and at the end of the day we had completed 66 miles with 4,400 feet of climbing with extreme temperatures and limited shade. The last three miles were a decent climb into the town of Austin so before the last push we broke into our cold water reserve Thermos. It felt so good to have made it into the town of Austin and take a shower!

Austin is somewhat of a modern day ghost town. At one time there were 50,000 people living/camping in the area and now the population is less than 150 residents. We arrived so late we had decided to eat out – there was only one place open and it had two options for dinner: burger or chicken wings. 

Knowing we were headed into the desert with no shade we decided to leave Austin in the afternoon to arrive at Spencer Hot Springs in the early evening for enough time to set up our tent and hop into the springs. We would be two days out in the desert without access to water so we packed extra water and hid it in the bushes on the side of the highway for the out and back overnight to the hot springs. It was an extra 10 miles on gravel roads for a trip to the hop springs but we’d heard it was worth it. 

We enjoyed soaks at sunset and sunrise in the hot springs when the outside temperatures were lower – it was delightful. We camped out next to the springs and had epic stargazing as well as being able to see the Milky Way. We also had some great RV neighbors that gave us cold drinks 🙂  

In the middle of the night the wild donkeys got super close to the tent and awoke Dustin from his slumber – we’d heard they were dangerous so he lie awake for quite a while worrying about our safety while Patricia, an earplug wearer, slept through it all. 

After our sunrise soak & leisurely breakfast we cycled the 5 gravel miles back out to the highway hoping our stashed water would still be there and it thankfully was untouched. We pedaled just down the road to the BLM Petroglyphs campground for our next overnight. This campground did not have any water and hence the extra water carrying and stashing. 

At Petroglyphs we met the most delightful RV couple from California who invited us over for cold drinks. We had a great conversation and they kindly offered some of their food knowing we’d be without a grocery store for a stretch – thank you so much!

Eurkea (meaning “I found it” – referring to mining) was our next stop with still active gold mining going on in this area. We met the county assessor who relayed to us the benefits and challenges of a being a modern mining town.

From Eureka the next town was Ely, Nevada – we’d planned a rest day in Ely but we would not be able to make the trip in one cycling day so we stopped over at Illipah Reservoir for the night. It was 1.5 miles off the route but offered picnic tables, shade structures and a toilet so we biked the gravel road out to Illipah for the campground.

The next morning we awoke and put on an extra coat – it was chilly. Turns out it was 34F, the coldest temperature we’d had on the trip so far. We experienced approximately 70 degree temperature swings between daytime highs and nighttime lows in the high desert.

This area is called the high desert since we were consistently above 5,000 feet elevation. Actually, Illipah was at 6,800 feet so we had a cold night but warmed quickly in the morning from the sun.

We rode the easy 39 miles into Ely and were delighted to have stopped for lunch right along the Robinson Canyon where the steam locomotive from the Nevada Northern Railway Museum was making its run.

We took a day off in Ely for bicycle touring “chores” – groceries, laundry, route planning, catching up on the blog, etc. We attempted to go to the local county museum but it was “closed due to illness” – oh well more rest time! While we were walking around the somewhat hilly town we noticed ourselves slightly short of breath – Ely is at 6,339 ft elevation and we thought we were fairly well acclimatized, but maybe not.  

From Ely we headed toward Great Basin National Park with a stopover at Sacramento Pass BLM campground. At Great Basin two of the campgrounds were closed so we did a tough climb to the open Upper Lehman Campground. We were excited to snag a riverside campsite so we could rinse the grime from our bodies and clothes.  

The campground filled up for the evening and we observed many vehicles looping the campground looking for an open site. We flagged down a rental RV and offered for them to share out site – we were able to meet an awesome couple from Germany (former cycle tourers!) and we didn’t have to worry about the wayward RV parking with us in the middle of the night.

Riding out of Great Basin NP and toward Utah there was quite a long stretch with no services so we had to remote camp for the first and possibly second night. Remote camping is not our favorite because we worry about trespassing on private property and there is a lack of amenities – specifically no picnic table or toilet. With the limited gear we bring on our bicycles remote camping forces us to squat and cook at ground level – not so fun after cycling all day. 

On the plus side when we remote camp we often feel as if we are alone in the vast universe with amazing stars, less adapted wildlife, and almost no noise. On this particular night we could hear the coyotes howling, saw flocks of geese migrating, and had a glorious sunset. 

On the following day we had a choice to make between remote camping for another night or doing a long cycling day with significant climbing to make it to the next town. We powered through heat and headwinds to make it to Milford, Utah after 71 miles of bicycling including two long climbs. We were so beat by the time we arrived in Milford, a modern day mining town, that we grabbed a hotel for the night and went to the local diner. The Garmin said we needed to replace 2,750 calories so we went through the menu and picked the highest calorie offerings. After scarfing down our entrees we then ordered a chocolate malt which miraculously disappeared and then went back to the hotel room for more snacks.  

After such a big day and knowing we had the luxury of a hotel room we had a leisurely morning and cycled a mere 19 miles toward our next target of Cedar City with camping at Hanging Rock BLM on the way. We rolled into Minersville (can you tell we’re in mining country?!) for lunch and realized Dustin must have ridden over a thorn bush because his front tire was flat and when he went searching for the culprit he found 12 thorns – that makes flat number 6 for the trip.  

The next morning as we were packing up Patricia’s front tire was flat – the culprit? Thorns again! That’s flat tire #7. Again, front tire…the Surly Extraterrestrial Tires – we’re consoling ourselves with the fact that our new tires (Schwable Marathon Plus Tours) have already arrived in Arizona at our Auntie Shell’s.

We’re currently in Cedar City, Utah taking a rest day after a hard fought 5 hours riding into a headwind. From here we will make our way toward Arizona where we will stop and visit family & refit the bicycles (and replace worn out clothes!) before making our way to the Mexico border. We anticipate another few weeks to make it to the Phoenix area when we will post another update.

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