Day 56: Caliente, NV to Ely, NV

• Distance: 136.52 mi (a PR for everyone on the team!)
• Elevation: 5,102 ft
• Dedication: Uncle Tim
• Ride group: Bailey, Rose, Glenn, Mike, and Maggie
• Host: St. Bartholomew Episcopal Church

If you had told me at 4 AM this morning that almost the entire team would complete today’s 137-mile route before our scheduled dinner at 6:30 I wouldn’t have believed you. Between needing to pack up the campsite and outfit our new van with bike racks in the morning and the heat, elevation, and overall difficulty of the day, the odds were not in our favor. Not to give away the ending of the story, but: we did it!

I rolled from camp around 6 this morning with Bailey and Rose. It was a cool morning with beautiful views as we exited Caliente and started heading north toward Ely. We were on the Great Basin Highway all day– seriously, we took one turn getting out of the campsite this morning and two turns to get to our host in Ely, that’s it. This road eventually began to take us northwest and became US-50, otherwise known as the “loneliest road in America”, which we will more or less cross the entire state of Nevada on.

Our first water stop wasn’t until mile 30 but most of the team stopped at a gas station in Panaca around mile 15. I had a slow leak in my rear tire, so I re-inflated at the gas station and then changed it at the water stop– only my second flat of the trip! It certainly didn’t make our first climb of the day up to the water stop any easier, but for a 7-mile climb at 3% grade it wasn’t all that bad. Rose, Bailey, and I climb around the same speed and do a good job of pacing and waiting for each other.

We picked up Glenn at the first water stop and, after eating some lemon merengue pie straight from the pie tin, pushed on for another 25 miles. Glenn was also dealing with a slow leak and decided to carry one of our floor pumps in a very creative way:

The whole team was running like a well-oiled machine (which is kind of ironic, because most of our chains are in desperate need of cleaning) and we were feeling great up until mile 80. My team had additionally picked up Mike and Maggie so we were moving just a bit slower, and right before a water stop we got hit by a very bizarre storm that the rest of the team missed. We didn’t really get rained on but we endured a brutal crosswind for a mile or two that really drained us. Bailey also tweaked her knee trying to push against the wind and dealt with some pain the rest of the ride.

One considerable flaw in our plan was the food situation. A church in Panaca donated lunch to us but wanted us to eat it there at 1 PM, only 40 miles from our starting point. On a normal day that would’ve been fine but we did not have time to cover 100 miles after that and still make dinner at our host in Ely at 6:30. We had the runners go get lunch and sit down with people from the church and then bring food to the riders, but we seriously underestimated how long it would take for food to get to us. And, as I’m sure you can imagine, there aren’t many roadside amenities in an area this desolate. We did have an emergency pre-lunch stop with some fresh fruits and veggies courtesy of the host van just before hitting 100 miles, but at a certain point snacks just don’t cut it.

After hitting the century mark things started to go downhill, mostly because we had to climb a very, very big uphill. Mike and Maggie had both racked by that point; Rose had briefly racked but then got back on her bike. We were approaching a 6-mile climb at 4% grade at mile 107 for the day and were getting delirious. Bailey got a puncture in her tire around the same time Rose started to lose it a little (she was uncontrollably laughing, which was so funny in hindsight but a little concerning at the time) so she decided to rack again and gave Bailey her rear tire instead of having her put in a new tube. From there it was just me, Glenn, and Bailey with a hard climb in front of us before lunch.

The climb broke me. Exhaustion, heat, hunger, and emotions finally caught up to me and I just lost it. My legs honestly didn’t feel too awful considering how far we had already biked but it was still one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. At one point Bailey mentioned some of our consistent dedications, including Bo and Uncle Tim, to motivate us and from then on I was crying on and off most of the climb. We kept coming around turns and seeing more of the climb and no lunch stop, which was so discouraging. The vans were circling around to check on us so we had plenty of water and knew that food would be at the top, but it seemed like we would never get there. My Garmin tells me how much of a climb I have left and I was lying to Bailey and Glenn about how far we had from the start, always shortening our remaining distance by half a mile to try to keep our spirits up.

We finally spotted the water van and pushed up the last little bit of the climb. When I saw the van I checked the time, and when I saw that it was almost 4:45 I started uncontrollably laughing because my family usually eats dinner around 4:30, and I hadn’t even had lunch yet. The laughter quickly turned to crying, and by the time we reached the top I was a full-blown mess, shoving some sort of sandwich in my mouth in between sobs and poor attempts to explain to Maggie what was going on with me.

The sandwich quickly revived me but the thought of doing another 12 miles was demoralizing, even though it was mostly downhill. I tried to pedal as little as possible but also wanted to get to the host ASAP. My legs didn’t even feel like they belonged to me getting back on the bike and I wanted nothing more than to take a good post-cry nap. It was the longest 12 miles of my life, but finally we reached Ely and rolled into the church where the entire team was waiting to cheer us in. I was so excited to get there it was like my vision locked in on the church and I didn’t even look to make sure the road was clear to cross (sincere apologies to the driver I cut off haha). I think it was one of the most special team moments of the trip– seeing the whole team in front of the church to cheer for us and give us hugs when they could’ve been inside, showering and resting, meant so much to me. I’m not sure anyone expected nearly all of us to be able to (or even want to) complete 137 miles in a day, let alone with a 6:30 cut-off time (my group was the last to arrive at 6:35, I was so impressed). The team showed true grit and determination today, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more proud of anyone than I am of all of us.

The people with St. Bartholomew’s served us a great dinner and we had a host experience similar to the ones we had with churches back east– it’s been a while! They also invited BJ Almburg, an Ely native and endurance athlete, to eat with us and share his story. BJ won the Race Across the West in 2021. RAW is a non-stop 930-mile ride from Oceanside, CA to Durango, CO. BJ completed the race in 3 days, 2 hours, and 5 minutes. We think 137 miles in a day is tough (which, yes, it is) but it’s child’s play compared to what BJ accomplished, and it was so inspiring to hear from him. You can read a summary from BJ here that is very similar to the story he told us, and also read about his upcoming challenge to complete Race Across America from Oceanside to Annapolis in 2023.

After dinner we shuttled over to a Love’s travel station for showers, which were very nice! Back at the host we set up our sleeping pads in the sanctuary of the church. I blogged for just a bit before promptly passing out on my pad, nestled in between two pews in the church. It was a physical, mental, and emotional challenge, and how quickly I fell asleep reflected that!

Until tomorrow,

Lauren