It just might be the Most Beautiful Bike Ride

This past weekend, I road my bike around Lake Tahoe in "America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride." For the last 2 weeks, I've been anxiously watching the weather reports. Actually, a lot of what I've been doing, I've done anxiously. That's another story.
Last Wednesday night in Sacramento, we had an unbelievable rain storm. Thousands of lightening strikes, rain, hail, thunder all night. No one got any sleep. Amazing. I laid in bed from about 4-5a.m. watching the near-constant lightening.

Naturally, the storm made me a little nervous for the weekend in Tahoe. If it's raining down here, I can only imagine what's up there (West Sac is more or less at sea level -- I think the elevation here is 15 feet and 25 feet in Sacramento). I didn't really have to imagine, given modern technology, I could obsess! Check the weather pages daily, hourly, for updates. On Saturday, my Tahoe-ride buddy called and said it was snowing. Luckily, my weather-buddy showed up and I tapped her for all weather-related information. I guess when you're getting a master's in Weather (I know, I really should know what she's actually studying, but I never remember), you have access to lots of fancy weather pages that normal people don't (or don't know about). She said that rather than 38 degrees at the 7a.m. start time, it would be closer to 50 degrees in South Lake Tahoe. 50 degrees is colder than I'd like, but totally doable. I packed all my 'winter in Sacramento' riding gear and headed up the hill.

[I'd like to officially apologize to anyone who had to hear my rants about the Weather. While I don't like riding in the cold/rain, it's a good reminder to take some deep breaths and see what comes.]

A few shots from my [actually Trish's that she was kind enough to share with me] hotel room on Saturday evening.
Wet with looming clouds -- but from the room, we could see the lake, which was pretty cool.

Bike inside and ready to go.
Pile o' readiness.
Here we are starting off. Cold and cloudy, but not raining and not 35 degrees. And smiling. So that's good. This is about the time where I told Trish that it's time to stop saying she's 'not a cyclist' -- seems to me, she's doing it. I found out later that this ride is something Trish has wanted to do since she was 12 or 13. Pretty cool.
Self-portrait while waiting to get going (where is Jana??).
Jana showed up -- with a flat. New record for getting a flat: before even starting out. She got a new (used) bike, and had an amazing ride -- especially after the nice, young Aussie bike-tech fixed the flat for her.
First view of the lake as we made our way back into California (starting point was in Stateline, NV).
Top of the climb at Emerald Bay. A daunting climb, but everyone kicked butt going up this hill.
Here's the elevation map -- the Emerald Bay climb is that first one. The top, in case I shrank it too much to see, is at 6828ft.
Self-portrait at the top of the hill. Just after this, I saw Jana coming up, climbing strong, and the Trish behind her. What a great group of strong riders! Trish got to the top and took off some layers. I have a personal rule about not taking layers off at the top of a hill -- if I'm going to take them off, I do it at the bottom. Very hot climbing up, not so hot going down.
The bathrooms. Of course.
My bike hanging out antsy to get on the road.
And then Trish said we should go check out the "Vista Point" -- and what a vista it is.
Me at the vista.
Okay. So here we all are struggling through a 72 (or 100, for some) mile ride, thinking the going is tough. this guy reminded me of that saying, "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet" (or, as the print hanging in my dad's room throughout my childhood said, "I cried because I had no shoes until I met a man who had no class."). This guy is riding Unicycle. One wheel. Enough said.
When I was a kid, we lived in Chicago. I have fond memories of my best buddy Claire and jumping the "waves" in lake Michigan no matter the time of year. As we sat shivering at the lunch stop watching the clouds roll in, we saw these kids walking into the water. I remember the set of 4 parents commenting that Claire and I must have been cold-blooded. I didn't know what that meant, and sort of thought it set me apart as being special -- now I understand they were making fun of us and marveling at the very crazy girls going into the water.
These kids must have been numb.
"There's a storm across the Valley; clouds are rolling in. The Afternoon is heavy on your shoulders."*
Clouds coming in at the lunch stop:
Hmmm. What should I wear today? Spandex or a clown wig? Hmmmm.
Back in Nevada toward the North side of the lake.
Two states!
Trish coming in at the top of gigantic hill #2 -- Spooner Junction. Riding like a pro.
Again: the elevation chart.
Spooner junction is after an 8-mile climb. Not particularly steep, but quite long. And when you get to the top, you're at over 7,000 feet. I was feeling a little woozy at the top and because I had totally ditched Trish (sorry, Trish!) on the hill, I had some time to un-wooze before the screaming fast downhill (my max was 40mph, and I'm guessing it happened on this hill).
Everyone said that from mile 60 to mile 72 (the end), it would be downhill. They totally lied. Those hills on the last few miles that you can see on the profile are only small as compared to the Spooner hill. They didn't last long, but they were pretty unbearable because everyone was pretty dang sick of the up and down all day long.
You can tell I didn't take this photo because 1) I'm in it and 2) it has great color quality. KC came out for the end of this ride, which was pretty dang cool of her. She also caught me with a big smile at the very end. That's Trish right ahead of me.
We were standing around at the end and a helicopter came in. I'm really hoping it was for show. In the first 5 miles, we saw an ambulance and fire truck, and then saw a rider down. It looks like he fell and might have broken a shoulder or collarbone (just guessing from the way he was lying there). And then the helicopter at the end.
There but for the grace of god go I. Maybe I should pray more.
KC got a better shot:
I never did hear what happened.
Me and Trish at the end. I think the clown (above) modeled his wig on my hair. I love the big smiles here -- what a fabulous ride.
Thanks to all the nice riding folks out there, Trish, and Jana, KC for coming out, and everyone's encouragement. Also many thanks to about 75% of the riders who were from Team in Training and who had raised a lot of money for the Leukemia Lymphoma society -- very inspiring to see their jerseys (I guess I didn't get any photos). TNT riders came from all over the country and they all had their location printed on their jerseys -- pretty fun to see the geographical diversity.

*John Denver, Back Home Again