Day 59: Austin, NV to Carson City, NV

• Distance: 100.68 mi
• Elevation: 2,375 ft
• Dedication: Jamie Roberts
• Ride group: Bryce, Shelby, and James
• Host: Patti and Mike Anderson

I woke up this morning a little chilly but otherwise well-rested after a night in the van! After a true #4KOK breakfast (a bagel, a banana, and a slice of cake) and a loooong pack-up, we were finally heading out of Austin back on US-50. It was a clear and cold morning but we quickly warmed up on a gradual but long climb to our first water stop. Our groups got very spread out so we waited there for a while before getting back on the road and descending into a valley. While we were waiting we heard a sonic boom– later we learned that the real-life home of Top Gun is in Fallon, NV! We saw a lot of cool planes doing practice drills throughout the day, especially toward the end of the ride.

The descent was almost as long as the climb, which was nice, but as soon as it was over we had a brutal headwind that didn’t let up for the rest of the day. I was so, so glad to be in a group with Bryce, who is one of the strongest cyclists on the team and was not only capable of but willing to pull our group (i.e., lead and cut down the wind resistance for everyone else) for 80+ miles. Even with his help, though, we were constantly pushing for most of the ride and going much more slowly than we would have on a calm day.

Water van really pushed us today with some long stretches between stops. Around mile 50 we had our second stop at an interesting restaurant/convenience store combo that was actually closed for the day but opened just for us! After refueling there we had more of the same: mostly flat but super windy miles through the desert.

During those miles I had a lot of time to think. My mind continued to wander to Jamie Roberts, who we dedicated today to. I’ve mentioned Jamie before but for anyone new, she was a rider with Team Portland in 2014 who was killed by a driver two weeks into her ride. Today’s dedication was written by one of her teammates and was so much more than a cautionary cycling safety tale; he talked about the person and teammate Jamie was and the lessons Team Portland took from knowing and losing her. He included one quote that really hit home with so few days left in our trip:

Do you want to leave soon?

No, I want enough time to be in love with everything…

And I cry because everything is so beautiful and so short.

Marina Keegan

Stories like Jamie’s are powerful enough to give me goosebumps even when I’m biking through the desert. As difficult as the wind made the day, I couldn’t help but be grateful to be alive, experiencing this phenomenal journey with my teammates.

Our next water stop was unique in that it was stocked by other people! Our host for tonight, Patti, is a long-time supporter of the 4K and really went all out for us. Patti reached out to me weeks ago with so much information about our route and the local area. She had some friends in Middlegate and got them to set up a water stop for us, complete with a tent, chocolate milk, fresh fruit, and hard boiled eggs. I ate just a little too much and felt pretty gross in the heat when we rolled again but it was worth it.

James racked at that stop while Shelby, Bryce, and I pushed on in our little paceline. We were making such good time that we passed the lunch stop before water van had time to chalk it on the road, so we did have to backtrack a little but it was worth it: host van secured Chick-fil-A donations for lunch! We didn’t have much time to enjoy it, though, because it was getting late, we really wanted to hit a century, and we wanted to get to Patti’s in time for dinner. The biggest complication there was that our route for the day was 189 miles, which we obviously did not hope to accomplish, but meant that even riding “just” a century would leave us with a 1.5-hour drive to Patti’s. We set out from lunch planning to rack everyone at 5:00 to get to Carson City by 6:30.

It was very tough, but my group ended up hitting 100 miles at 4:59. In our last 20 miles we had a decent climb and then mostly downhill but we were still fighting the wind the whole way. We passed some salt flats and an interesting stretch of 50 where people have stopped to spell out things with rocks. At one point someone had written out the preamble of the Constitution!

There was another group who left lunch wanting to complete a century, but were not able to do so before our proposed 5:00 cut-off. At that point they were less than 10 miles short, though, and we weren’t going to tell them they had to rack at that point. Host van dropped my group at a convenience store for ice cream while they went to meet and rack the second group. We then had a very cramped ride to Carson City!

We didn’t end up arriving until after 8 PM. This was a top-tier host for us: they brought in a portable toilet trailer for us, had a bike mechanic at their house ready to fix our bikes, and prepared a huge spread of food for us. Patti stocked the showers with amenities and had plenty of 4K memorabilia around the house. After eating and showering I was about ready for bed; I felt bad that I couldn’t socialize more with Patti after talking to her virtually for so long but she was very understanding!

After dinner we had a quick team meeting to share some sad news: TJ Allen, who I mentioned in my last post, passed away last night. I don’t believe any of us had actually met TJ in person but many of us felt connected to him. Maggie in particular has shared so much of her journey with TJ, coordinating team videos to wish him well and collecting stickers to mail to him from stops along our route.

I have functional wifi for the first time in days so I’m eager to catch up on blogging, but I do have a very comfortable bed that I am eager to sleep in. One perk of having a hole in my sleeping pad– I was able to claim one of the five available bed spots tonight. I’m looking forward to a better night’s sleep than the past two nights!

Until tomorrow,

Lauren