Baker, Nevada

Along with Kirkwood, the ride to Baker is one I have heard about in association with North Route. When we rolled into town today we had almost doubled the population of the small town, which is only about 6/10 of a mile big. We woke up at 6:00 A.M. and had our crew chief breakfast at the high school. I decided to ride with Colin Schwartz from the University of Washington and Doug Meenan, a 2007 graduate of Northern Illinois University. I give props to Doug for coming out here and doing this journey with us. The guy has a real job, graduated from college when I was just starting high school, and I’m sure his body doesn’t work quite as well as some of us younger guys do.

The ride to Baker from Ely is about 62 miles, with two mountain passes and lots of head wind. We were the first pace line to leave today, and right off the bat we started with some incline. I was still struggling some with congestion, so these hills are even more of a pain to me. Although the elevation sucks, when we go up, we must come down. We hit two awesome declines today, both a couple of miles long. On the first one Colin and I hit about 49 mph which was a lot more comfortable than I thought it was going to be. After we got to the bottom of that mountain, we faced some more climbing, and then the fun began. Colin and Doug jumped ahead of me at first but after I gained some speed I sped right past both of them going about 53 mph which was an awesome rush. Never did I think I would be comfortable going that fast but after doing it, the faster I went the more control I felt I had with my bike.

After about 10 miles of downhill we turned off of Highway 50 and rode our last couple miles into town. A pace line of two guys were about 2 miles in front of us, and while dealing with some furious side winds we caught up to them. This journey isn’t a race by any means, but being the first pace line to finish is a good feeling. So after taking the lead of our pace line, we jumped in front of them and the three of us rode into Baker together as the first group to finish for the day which made me feel very accomplished especially after struggling on some of the inclines.

Once we got into town the crew members started shuttling us over to a local truck stop to shower. This town has limited resources; so having to shower there was interesting. After everyone got showered as a team we went over to Lehman Cave, Baker, Nevada’s number one tourist attraction (and probably their only one). We checked out a lot of cool things, and then we had some awesome ice cream.

For dinner we went to the community hall, which is about the size of a portable classroom we had in middle school, and had a fantastic dinner sponsored by the people of Baker. They made us some awesome turkey, delicious potatoes, corn casserole and so much more. It is so nice to see how excited people get when we come into town, and Baker, Nevada really showed that.

96 miles tomorrow, should be a blast.

 The summit sign like above turns into a cyclist favorite sign when climbing a mountain.. lets us know it is time to go down hill. This sign is from one of the two passes we went over on the way to Baker, Nevada.