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Ha, I figured the title will lure you in! Well, it is true, but partially true. After our successful completion of the Tahoe classic monster ride last weekend, I had a nagging feeling. In our small group of three, Mr. Mud appeared to be the strongest one and was almost always ready to roll, but he always had to wait for me, always the last rider. In other words, he was not riding at his own pace. I wanted to give him that chance because in my mind, riding with a group is fun, but being able to ride alone at one’s own pace can be very satisfying as well. I also enjoy riding solo because it’s very relaxing and I get to do a lot of soul searching.

So I offered to shuttle him. With the memory of the ride still fresh, I suggested we should just do it this weekend even if that meant we only had one day because he had to work the other day. It took some convincing and even threatening — “this offer is only valid for this weekend and then will expire forever”, and in the end, he took the offer. We almost backed off though when the alarm went off in the morning because neither of us wanted to get up, but up we got.

It was not as early as we had liked when I dropped him off at Mt. Rose.  However, as luck had it, his first encounter with another soul was when he almost reached Spooner Lake State Park while descending the fire road. That was when the Flume Race was just starting.

Maybe it was the strong wind that had deterred people? At Mt. Rose, the wind could easily have been 20mph if not more. I felt it too when I was at Stagecoach. But as we both experienced, the wind did not seem to affect much on our rides.

One negative factor that Mr. Mud had to deal with was his extremely worn middle chain ring. As a matter of fact, before he even left the parking lot at the start, we both heard the chain skipping on that ring. He pushed on nonetheless. For the most of the ride, the middle ring could not be used unless there was no strain in the chain at all.

Despite this major problem, he finished the whole ride in an impressive 8 hour 40 mintue time! That was a huge improvement from the 10 hours 20 minutes last weekend when we all rode together!

MTBguru link

As for me… I had some good reasons that I shouldn’t ride. While not all should be revealed, I did develop a very bad cough that first came up violently on the long drive home from last weekend’s ride. It became a nightly cough that kept getting worst. By Thursday, I was barely getting any sleep and my lung muscles were very sore due to the deep coughs. Finally, I decided to knock myself out with Nyquil and ignore the problem. Yeah, I used drug!

Actually, I wouldn’t have any problem with waiting (as a SAG support should do) because I have many books to read on my Kindle and work on my laptop I could attend to — I don’t waste my time when waiting for any thing. However, I found it hard not to ride… when I was already in Tahoe.

First ride, Stagecoach loop: down Van Sickle, traverse Power Line, climb Cold Creek and Star Lake Connector Trails, and then descend Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT). As a bonus, I ran into Mr. Mud, just as I had planned, when he was climbing TRT towards Star. I gave him a very supportive kiss and we went separate ways.

MTBguru link

After that loop, I moved the car to the bottom of Mr. Toads awaiting for Mr. Mud’s return. Again, I couldn’t help but hop on my bike. Thought I would just ride the road up to the top of Armstrong Connector Trail, but when I reached it (after some hard laboring from the continuous climb because I was already very tired by then), I saw the sign for Armstrong Pass 4 miles away. I couldn’t resist. It was a very enjoyable climb despite my slow pace. Finally, I turned around at the pass around 4:30, unbeknownst to me that Mr. Mud already returned to the car 20 minutes prior.

The descent was so fun! The descent from Armstrong Pass, aka Strongarm, was not an advanced trail, but still has its fair share of rocks, so I was very happy to reach its end without having putting a foot down. Next was Armstrong Connector, also my first time. I stopped cold at the top of big rock when I saw a woman who was just walking her bike down its right side around a tree. Her riding partner was already set up at the bottom of the rock to take photos. After seeing that it was rollable, I backed up a few feet and rode it. They cheered. I should have stopped to ask about getting the photo, but ended up keeping on riding because I had been feeling the urgency to return to the car knowing that Mr. Mud might have returned. After all, I was the self appointed SAG and I went off and played hooky!

Oh, talk about soul searching, I did a lot of that while “getting lost” on the endless turns and berms on Sidewinder. There was nobody around. Just me, the trees, and the trail. It was surreal.

MTBguru link

When I got back to the car, Mr. Mud had been back for an hour and 20 minutes, but he graciously shrugged off the long wait. We cleaned up again at the KOA shower, and had a relaxed dinner in a Korean restaurant in Folsom.

This trip officially concluded our Tahoe riding this year.

A few random things:

1) Didn’t turn this into a group ride due to the silliness of driving all the way to Tahoe for just one day of riding and our lack of hard commitment.

2) Bought a USB battery pack for Mr. Mud’s Garmin 800 before the trip. It was helpful.

3) No instant upload because I was fancying Korean food, and unfortunately, there was no Internet.

4) Experienced the worst tummy cramp myself today; thankfully, after the ride on the way home. Was so painful that I imagined giving birth (at least, I groaned like it). Mr. Mud said I should stop taking Accelorade because tummy ache had become a norm for me associated with big rides.  Well, we are done with big rides for a while for now.

5) This may even conclude big rides for us this year in general — we’ve gotta shift our focus to some other things in life now, for the people in the know, e.g. house remodeling and traveling.

6) Tahoe trashes drive train! I did not hesitate in riding down the rock steps down TRT, but boy, my big ring banged on those steps left and right! I don’t think I can make eye contact with the big ring tomorrow — it must be in a very sad state right now.

7) Somebody does not pay attention to the indicators on the dashboard and when we arrived at Mt. Rose, the low gas indicator had been on for a while and the gauge was nearing the red bottom. I optimistically “remembered” it would be all downhill going towards Kingsbury, and it turned out anything but. I literally held my breath at every hill and wondered if the car would poop out. The stress probably took five years out of my life.

8) P.S. The coughs returned the night we got back, so I still have the chest infection!  No big deal now. I have all the time I need to baby this thing back to health.

9) Learned following from Mr. Crash’s Strava ride comments:

1. Eric Ellis   Looks like you had a great ride Mike. To clarify the “Super Punisher” is from Spooner to Toads. “Punisher” is from Kingsbury Grade to Toads. Rose to Toads is just Rose to Toads 🙂
2. mudworm ~   I had been wondering about those terms, and glad to see them explained here. Thanks, Eric. “Rose to Toads is just Rose to Toads.” Classic! 🙂
3. Mike ‘MrCrash’ Solis   Good to know, Eric! My familiarity with Tahoe is pretty weak – couldn’t tell you half of the landmarks of that ride.Did a quick search – looks like someone (Ron of SBTS) did Rose to Toads last year, and coined it the ‘Uber Punisher’:http://forums.mtbr.com/california-norcal/rose-toads-uber-punisher-solo-ride-732446.html
4. Eric Ellis   His ride was “uber” but it was a Rose to Toads.
5. mudworm ~   Hmm… solo Rose to Toads = “uber.” I think I’ll pass the message on to the hubby, Mr. Mud, that he just did an uber ride. 🙂

Some photos from the day:

I waved goodbye to Mr. Mud from Mt. Rose parking lot.

Sun was already high over the Mt. Rose Meadow.

Mr. Mud continued on the climb to Star Lake after we passed each other.

See the problem in his middle chain ring? (The little chain ring is fairly new.)

All photos from the album:

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IMG_4941.JPG	IMG_4942.JPG	IMG_4945.JPG
IMG_4946.JPG	IMG_4949.JPG	IMG_4950.JPG
IMG_4955 – Copy.JPG	IMG_4955.JPG	IMG_4956.JPG
IMG_4958.JPG	IMG_4960.JPG	IMG_4962.JPG
IMG_0772.JPG	IMG_0773.JPG	IMG_0774.JPG
IMG_0775.JPG	IMG_0776.JPG	IMG_0777.JPG
IMG_0778.JPG	IMG_0779.JPG	IMG_0780.JPG

• Post ID: 2330
• Categories: Mountain Biking
• Tags: tahoe
• Comments(8)
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