Fordham/CitySquash Cross-Country Bicycle Ride
Day 2 Placerville, California to Carson City, Nevada
Fordham Coach Bryan Patterson and several players are cycling from San Francisco to New York to raise money for CitySquash, a not-for-profit after-school enrichment program based in the Bronx at Fordham University.
Coach Patterson is sending reports to DailySquashReport.com from the road.
June 7, 2011
Jack
wakes us all early again which is great because if he didn’t
we’d never have gotten up – “Wakey wakey
ride and
shine – 5.30am!!Breakfast and tents and all stuff packed up and we are off on Day 2.
Man out of Placerville is a grinned. It’s all up hill for around 5 miles, not steep, but just that tough cycle which you know that you can do. Quote of the day comes from Jack “Now those are the kind of hills I like” – WHAT!! Who Likes hill? The only ones that I like are down hills. Both Angel and Felipe have decided to Ride. They have now found their second legs.
Our back up van is terrific and always there for water and snacks. We pitt stop in Pine Valley, and get to talk with Pam Hosking who is definitely a cyclist. She’s just done Portugal and is about to do Scotland coast to coast, and then doing the Alps Loop. She’s also a cardiac nurse! Sadly she tells us that our route is closed due to late winter snows, and boy you can actually see the snow, lots of. She really is great and advises us to drive – sorry all but we had to do it – to detour round to the Carson Valley gap. But as she said once at the top “it’s all downhill” to Carson City.
However she did advise us to make a detour and see Lake Tahoe, in fact she insisted that we do this. Going up one of the passes we encountered a wagon train, thankfully going the other way otherwise we would have been screwed! They were going so slow.
Snowballs at over 7000 feet was the order of the days for Felipe and Angel, and I got the worst of this, actually maybe Andriy did. At Echo Lake we took Pam’s advice and all got into the van and drove to see Lake Tahoe. She was right, what an incredible Lake, so beautiful and blue. I think that we were all awestruck. Quick turnaround and back to Echo Lake. Then onto the Carson Valley Gap and what a gap, but she was also right in that once at the top “it’s all downhill” Great ride down fast, and as Jack said a little scary! But hey you’ve got to live a little.
At the bottom it literally was straight on, on hills into Carson City. We crossed the State line into Nevada and can now gamble (kidding). Man the difference in altitude and scenery was immense, snow just a few hours earlier and altitude over 7000 feet, and now a pretty flat valley, scrub land with scatterings of households. What a difference.
We finally made Carson City and detoured around the City, spotting the Carson City State pen. A huge facility so I stopped and took a quick pic, where upon one of the guards in a corner tower shouted for us all to move on!! I get the feeling OR ELSE!! Not sure what that black thing he was aiming at us was though.
So we finally made the camp site and food and sleep. We were all proud of both Angel and Felipe who had ridden so much of this route, but the dark horse is Raymond, he just keeps going, taking as many photos as he can and then catches us up!!
Tomorrow is a huge day and I’m not sure that we can do the distance – it’s a long way from Carson City to Austin!!
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To The Fordham/CitySquash Cross-Country Charity Ride:
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