The Bacon Strip

Tour de Fat, Truckee, CA 2007

We filled up our bottles @ Stampede Campground and rolled on down towards Prosser right about moonrise with purple glow over Glenshire, our tires making that perfect white noise hum over the first of 13 more miles of dirt and Soma cruising along beside me, no PBR yet, but happy as can be as far as I could tell. It slowly got dark, despite the bright, nearly full moon. If I’d taken a picture, I’d post it, but I didn’t. Neither did I take one when I looked back @ Soma silouetted against the setting sun as we crossed Stampede dam. What can I do? Some moments are yours only while they last and won’t be revisited except when your brain decides to fire those neurons again some time late in life after the joints quit working when pudding and re-runs of Matlock are the highlight of your days. Trust me though, dirtbags are beautiful.

We hit Martis Creek Campground around 9:30 after 4.5 hours and 65 K of riding. Started in Reno sweating buckets, finished with arm warmers crossing Martis valley with the blue glow of the runway lights. The only place things got sketchy was crossing the bridge on 89 where it drops down. Traffic was kind of scary, and we’d not brought the best light setups. But my legs were nice and supple for the forced spin, and I kept up with Soma mostly until we got to the bridge, and I started thinking about cramping and swerving out into traffic, or over the edge… Mr. Martin, true to form, had hot dogs (gourmet) for us upon arrival, beer, and more dirtbags. He was generous enough to offer bivy space to Trent and Chris who crashed the party too. Thanks BRO! We owe you one!

Cut t0: Exterior Truckee (day) — The regional park becomes a mad house of bikes! Dudes in ’70’s track suits, chicks in gaudy tights, fishnets, fake mustashes, strange hats, swing bikes, tall bikes–some with brakes, some not! I wore my blue bike shirt. Saw a bald dude with what I’ve come to call the “shred-tee” The scraggly, three month chin hair bleached by hours in the sun caked with sweat. I stopped Jeff of Facility Bike Club and presented my card. Had a little chat about his blog, and the riding in Carson City. He and his consortium of alarmingly reputable shredders work @ the State and rail Ash Canyon AT LUNCH! I see a Carson City excursion in our future. They know how to shred! And that includes beer drinking!!! Nice to meet you and your wife and your little shred-monkies! I get a kick out of reading about their BMX adventures.

The Parade was super fun! TBSers there were Trent, Chris (anyone who buys a Bianchi MUSS on-the-spot and then shreds and hits the kegs is titts in our book), Smella, Gris, Tu-Tu, Scott(Truckee), CareBear, RosieToes, SteadyB, NOONINATOR(on a pimped out Vulture)!!!. Also my buddies from the Reno Bike Project were there signing people up for the parade and taking donations for the project. Not sure how much they made, but they are a bunch of fun guys, hell bent on getting more bikes under more asses in Reno.

By the time the sideshows were going on I was fading like, uhhhh, you know, something that fades real bad, and couldn’t handle sitting in the sun to watch. Jeff said it was rad and got some pics to prove it.

The theme of the party is bikes, and human power, and renewable power. Lauren from NevadaEconet was there making sure there wasn’t anything going to a landfill, Stages were solar powered, parking was shockingly mild, and bikes littered the grounds. I rode some freak bikes, my first tallbike and swingbike rides. The Gold Fronts need to come up with some kind of brake policy, you need to figure out BEFORE you start riding where the brake is (if it has one). There was a petition/contract to sign committing to 2 bike commute days a month (at least). I forgot to get back to that. I try to only drive two days a month, so I’m with you in spirit as well as in the bike lane.

So Smella and I came home fairly early. Soma went to party with Fresh Doug and the Chromebaggers then ride home on Sunday. The ride up there was sooooo nice. There was some adversity, such as heat, and dust, but to leave from home looking @ one side of the Carson Range and watch the moon come over the other, was spectacular. We weren’t carrying that much gear, so the riding was nice. I made it up Dog Valley Road in a standard mountain 1-speed gear, and switched back to my street fixie gear for the descent. Ended up being perfect.

All that left me wondering if I had the goods to bang out the Mt. Rose Loop next month. The ride to Truckee is just the first leg of that, to be followed by, Sawtooth to Watson to Brockway, to Incline to Rose, Skytavern, Galena, Whites, Thomas, and the roughest dirt road in Reno, windy hill and home. Gonna be a tough one. Stay tuned for details later in the week as well as my B-Day BBQ (8-12).

With that, I leave you with the words from a Shell Silverstein poem that jangled through my head as I spun up to Henness Pass:

“you just fought one hell of a fight, I know you want to and you got the right, to kill me know and I wouldn’t blame you if you do. But you ought to thank me before I die, for the gravel in your gut and the grit in your eye, cause I’m the ##$%@#$ that named you Sue!”

-M