Tahoe Roundup

Okay okay, so I went to Tahoe with Mikey B again (yes Craig, he used your bike and armor).

We left Wednesday afternoon from the house with the car all loaded up.  Lot's of stuff inside, and four bikes on top; two of them sorta heavy quasi-DH bikes...

Made it through Sacramento just before rush hour hit, and barely hit any traffic, so we were able to make it to Auburn just after 5p.  And we all know what's in Auburn that might make us stop for a spell....

We got up to Northstar and unloaded and got up in the morning and I went back down to the car for something, and ... and .... and I noticed something a little odd...

See how there's a little clean patch of car there in front of the rack tower foot.  Yeah, a little clean patch that is pretty much exactly the dimensions of the tower foot?  And remember those four bikes, and that two of them were sorta heavy?  Well the front of the car is to the left, and you can see above how far the rack slipped backwards during the drive up to Tahoe.  Yikes!!  I don't think it could have come off, but still.  Scary.  Needless to say, I moved it back up, and tightened it a bit more than it had been, and everything was fine for the trip back.  Phew!

Okay, so this is why we were there...

This is Watson Lake off the Tahoe Rim Trail on the west side of Lake Tahoe.  Just a little lake that we ride by.

And THIS is a view overlooking Lake Tahoe ... looking a little sorta southwest.  Beautiful stuff!

Tahoe City is the little >-shaped inlet just above my bike... that's where we're headed to our half-way turnaround point.  Then we took a slightly different route back; some new trails, some same trails.

Here's a view of the lake on the way back.  (This is where I was when you called me, Dad!)

And after a long hard day on the trail (and it really was a pretty tough one), it was a bit difficult to have to rough it back at the campsite.

Ooops, not sure how THIS picture got in here... just trust me, we were roughing it at a campsite, and NOT sitting in a hot tub near a condo.

After that first day of XC riding, we rode the bigger bikes at the Northstar bike park for a couple days.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  Chair lift up.  Go-fast-bike down.  ....... all right, you get the picture.

And speaking of pictures......... there aren't any of that.  (Except for that one earlier post with a pic that Pitt took of me about to go off the ramp.)  I never even broke out the video camera, darn it!  Pitt and a couple friends (Joel and Pete) came up for the bike park riding on Friday, and then we all went out to the brewery in Truckee for a big post-ride meal.  (Remember that place, Craig?  Pretty cool spot.)

Anyway, after the bike park for two days, we did another XC ride that we had done the previous year, that we had really liked.  We started on the Rim Trail at the back side of Heavenly on the east side of Lake Tahoe, rode south and came down the Saxon Creek trail, better known to mountain bikers as "Mr Toad's Wild Ride."  Man, that's a fun one!

Along the way, we rode by Star Lake, which I've posted a picture of before ....

We had to go over Freel Pass which is almost 10,000 feet up.

You can see Mike coming up to the pass on the trail down there, and Lake Tahoe is just behind him in the V.


And finally.  Our last day out, we hit Downieville to do the famous Downieville Downhill course.  Or sort of the course.... we changed it a bit and rode a little different route, but ended on the downhill course, and then in Downieville.  Really fast and fun.  Wow.

Here's a picture of a lake that we saw from up on a ridge.  Just beautiful.

And there you have it.  After the ride, we were hot, sweaty, dirty, and not just a little stinky (well Mike anyway; I smelled like roses).  So we got in the car, and drove a little downstream of Downieville, and jumped into the (cold!) Yuba river to get clean and refreshed.  Had a little snack sitting in the sun at the side of the river, and then got in the car and drove home.  Great trip!

And now (Julie...) it's back to work tomorrow. :(