Bikepacking in Nevada
After coming back from Mexico and spending four wonderful days with Titan before his passing, I realized that I still had a bunch of time off of work that I should take advantage of. Once Spring hit, I knew we would be slammed at the bike shop and I wouldn’t have the opportunity to take any long trips again for a while (little did I know the bike shop would shut down two weeks after I came back to work… but that’s another story for another day).
I scoured the bikepacking.com website for a route that I could ride with StarDog that would be in season, not too rough, and not too far from home. There were a bunch of routes along the Southern border of the US that looked appealing, but the drive to get there was a bit too long. I thought about a route in Utah, but it seemed a bit too early in the season still. Looking at a map of the US, I couldn’t get over the idea that there must be something to ride just outside of Reno. The added benefit of riding there would be that Chelsea could come too because she lives in Tahoe!
After looking at maps, I started Googling and found Kurstin Graham’s blog Bikepacking Northern Nevada. Aha! The perfect resource. Kurstin manages a bike shop in Reno and has done a TON of exploring outside the city and has documented all his rides on his blog. I found a loop that he had done, doubled checked the weather and snow situation, and settled on that. I also checked in with Kurstin about the feasibility of riding the route with a trailer and he assured me it would be good to go!
Once you start diving in to maps of the area, you realize the possibilities for routes is ENDLESS. Seriously! I was excited to get a small taste. Star and I loaded up and left Washington. We spent three days driving down, taking new roads that we had never explored before. We had a wonderful roadtrip and met up with Chelsea as she got off work at Squaw. We left Tahoe the next morning and stopped at Trader Joe’s in Reno, got wayyyyyy too much food, and then headed out into the desert for our trip.
We took our time rigging up our bikes as we had three days to ride the expected 85 miles of the route. We finally got going and Star wasn’t too psyched to get into her trailer right away so we took a slow pace the first day and let her walk most of the time. Soon we were off the beaten path and didn’t see anyone for the next 24 hours. Towing the trailer felt ridiculously hard and we only made 15 miles the first day, which was absolutely demoralizing. We were both in great riding shape coming off Baja and couldn’t figure out what was going on. Well, it turns out we had a goathead in the trailer and were towing it with a flat tire! We also had done the majority of the climbing for the whole route in that first day, which contributed to the difficulty.
As soon as we set up camp it started to get FREEZING cold, so we were in the tent well before dark. Fortunately we were all able to snuggle up and stay warm, but it probably got down into the teens overnight. To our surprise, by the time the sun came up it was already plenty warm to get up and get our day started. We patched up the Burley tire (I had meant to put sealant in before we left but I forgot), and set out for the day. The miles started passing WAY easier the second day and we felt a great deal of relief. We weren’t sure that we would be able to complete the loop due to our first day’s pace, but it soon became apparent that we would have no trouble.
Our second day was sunny and glorious and Star settled in to riding in the trailer. The day ended with us arriving on the Playa and setting up our camp there for the night. It was another cold night, maybe even colder than the first, with all of our water freezing, and my contacts freezing in their case. We took a very slow morning once the sun came up as we only had about 12 miles left until we were back to the car. We had a leisurely ride back to our start point and de-rigged our super dusty bikes.
The ride was just what we needed! A nice mellow loop, with diverse scenery, no people, nice sun, and plenty of romping around time for Star. I definitely want to come back to this area and ride more. The only special considerations you need to take are that there isn’t anywhere to resupply food or water, and the potential for trip stopping mud is existent during wetter times of the year. There are also lots of rides in the area that take you to hot springs, something I’ll want to check out next time!
