Day 84…. I didn’t mention in the last post that I ended up staying in Reno for longer than planned due to getting sick from food. Since I have food allergies and chose to eat at the hotel breakfast it ended up turning out to be a costly and time-consuming mistake. Normally I will have hard-boiled eggs and bacon from the hotel. Well they had sausage patties and within a couple of hours I was extremely sick and completely drained of energy. After eating and leaving the hotel 3 days ago I was starting to heading into Tahoe and started getting side cramps and other signs I was having a reaction to the food. Since my energy levels were zero I turned back and found a park to rest in all day until I could find a place to stay that evening. Luckily the park had a covered picnic area tat I could sleep in all day until the hotel opened up for check in. It took a lot of probiotic and hemp CBD oil to help calm me gut and get me closer to normal.
Come this morning… Time to leave Reno and head into beautiful Tahoe. The climb into Tahoe is very daunting. With 4738 feet of climbing in 23.5 miles. The day would be a long, slow, strenuous day. This ride is the most I have ever climbed in a single day. While I felt pretty good this morning I can’t say I was at 100% for this. While heading up the summit I have succumb to traveling at 4-5 mph. The weight and bike style set the pace. If you try to fight it the bike will win.
The temperature is a bit cooler than Reno but even at 70+ degrees the upper portions still have snow. I even saw a few people skiing.
Since I had been sick for the past few days I was having issues eating the amount of food normally. Typically my intake is 200-300 calories per hour plus a lot of fluids. Today I was having trouble eating 100 calories if I was lucky. When I with in 6 miles of the summit the ski resort has a nice parking lot. Great spot to stop and rest. Since I was stopped it was time to dig out a long sleeve sweater. Being soaked in sweat and the temp being cooler I was getting chilled. Warmer, relaxing and eating a sandwich on the side of a mountain, life doesn’t get much better.
Food in, time to finish the summit. As the air gets thinner the break become a little more frequent. The last size miles took over an hour. For some reason each time I make a summit all the pain, exhaustion etc go away.
The best part of a long climb… The long descent.
In total the ride took 8 hours. I was glad to be in North Tahoe, NV and stopping for the day.
