Last year, Scot Cooper and I rode our unicycles 72 miles around Lake Tahoe in a ride called America’s Most Beautiful [unicycle] Ride. We attempted to repeat that this year, last weekend. Due to a couple of mechanical problems neither of us or Beau made it the whole way, but we still managed to have a great time.
At 7:10am, Beau, Megumi and I started out from Harrah’s with about 2995 bikers. Gary Kanuch was with us like last year, on his kick-bike. Megumi’s goal was to ride the “hard half” of the lake, 42 miles, to lunch, instead of the “easy half” she did last year which was 30 miles. She rode steadily, but we pulled away as we had so far to go. For the first time this year, they actually closed the highway around the lake for two hours to allow cyclists to ride the most difficult part. This is the climb above and around Emerald Bay, from about mile 10 to 15. This section of the road was closed from 6:30am to 8:30am which was great for us.
Since Beau and I both had Scott Wallis seats, we managed to ride the first 14+ miles to the first rest stop above Emerald Bay without a dismount. That might be my longest ride ever without a dismount - the strange thing was that as we finally reached the stop, I still felt nothing - no soreness or pressure at all. Later in the ride I felt the normal “build-up” of pressure after a few miles, but not in that first 14 miles.
The day was clear but very windy so we were blown backwards, forewards and sideways from time to time on the curvy road. Although that made it hard, I think I prefered it to the heat we had last year. There was another rest stop at 25 miles, followed by a huge lunch stop at 41 miles. We made it there by just after noon and were met by many of my relatives as we were having a big family reunion that weekend at my Aunt’s house right in King’s Beach where the lunch stop is. Very convenient and fun.
We ate for an hour then took off. Surprise surprise, but in less than a mile, we saw Scot Cooper riding down the hill coming the other way. He had been able to repair his uni when the bike stop finally opened and rode 30 miles around the lake in the opposite direction to meet us. He turned right around to finish the ride with us. Alas it was not to be. After just a few more miles, I heard the dreaded pssssss of a flat. My second in something like 8000 miles. Somehow I didn’t have the mental power to change the tire on the road (or the equipment) so I called my Aunt who was just coming by to go shopping. A few minutes later Beau and I were back at the house sipping beer and eating icecream while Scot pedalled and Gary kicked around the lake.
With the strong winds I thought Megumi would be hating the ride, but she finished strong and had a great time even though she rode alone and was almost the last rider to make lunch. Scot drove the car back and we had a fantastic feast, then Scot played superman and did the whole drive home himself in 4 hours, ending a little after midnight.
One nice thing we noticed in the registration packet was that the newspaper they gave everyone had a big article on the ride with a full-page photo from last year’s ride - of just one cyclist, Megumi. She was also featured in another ad in the same paper.
Even with a couple of mishaps it was still a great ride. If not the most beautiful in America, then surely in the top 10.
I kept track of heart rate, elevation, speed etc and you can see the charts etc here at www.motionbased.com Here’s something the guys at motionbased clued me into: GPS dot racing! (requires IE6 or later with Adobe SVG plugin)
And I made an album with my photos, Gary’s photos and some of my uncle Rich’s: www.webshots.com
In case you’re interested, here’s my writeup/photos from 2004
This would be a great ride to do with more uncyclists next year!
—Nathan