Bishop, Evo style

well, not having internet since coming back from bishop, i have not put in my update of the trip over to get my bike fixed (and will soon find it to break again 17 miles out of rachel and 180 miles from the next bike shop.

So, day starts off from hawthorne nevada, we get some great tail winds for 70 miles or so. and then bam. 41 miles to tonopah and we got headwinds, rain, sleet, trucks running us off roads, homeless guy with cart in the middle of nowhere, ya we pretty much saw everything most people see in a year in 1 day. anyways, we struggle, and i mean struggle through the heads winds for the next 35 miles, then on the small grade up to tonopah, i start to feel that i am going slower, than i should be. so i peek down at my back wheel, and man is it even wobble, going back and forth, rubbing my brake, then my side of my bottom back of the frame. it was an uttermess. So the next 5 miles i am struggling worse than the straight heads winds from before. and took about an hour instead of 15 mins to get up the 5 mile grade.

arriving into tonopah, we head to a mexican resuturant and chow down on some great chimichangas, and a boat load of chips (i do not think we ate much during lunch since we were expecting to cover those 112 miles pretty fast with the tail wind). during dinner a couple comes in and asks us about our trip, seeing that we are dressed in our biking attire, and we explain what we are doing. we go on chatting and the wife, cindy who we also find out was the ex mayor of the town, hooks us up with a room for the night (i wont go into details of the place since alex pretty much said all that)

ill just skip ahead.


so needing a ride to bishop, we ended up going to different auto body stores and playing a lot of phone tag with the numbers we were provided. finally, out of all the calls, one lands with jack. a jolly man from bishop, who drives to tonopah, to make errands and drop off car parts. After talking with him, he said that he would be more than happy to take me and he'll be there in a few short hours. bam got a ride to bishop. now i need a place to stay in bishop since i am not going to be able to get back the same day since the next ride out would leave around 8:30 am. so i hit up old trusty (couch surfing) and send a few messages out, and about an hour later, rob and josh send me a message back. score, a ride down and a place to stay, things are working out great.

so good ol jack comes and picks me up as promised, we make a few quick stops, before we make the 110 mile trip. man was it a great drive, scenery and talking like we were good friends that just seen each other for the first time in years. he would point out all these great places to hike along the road, and were the wild horses were, all that good stuff. I asked him about moutain goats in the area, and told him alex and i saw some on the way down from hawthorne. he looked at me in astonishment, saying that in all 30 years living here he has only seem them twice, and was even more amazed that we saw a herd of them, near the base of the interstate. man did i feel good about that, it was a good exchange, since i was not able to spot any wild horses in the area.

well we finally arrive to the bike shop in bishop (i had called prior to this and told them i would be running late, and they told me they would remain open. yes how nice of them) and go up to the front door to find it closed and looking like it has been for a good 10 mins, and we arrived 2 mins before 6. promising them we would get there before 6:10. well that was a good stiff arm rejection, but i had no choice but to come again tomorrow and miss my ride back. but hey, who says hitch hiking aint an adventure.

well ill fast forward a few, rob and josh were great hosts, and let me crash at their place and i woke up and got on my bike and road to the shop. got there about the time it was opened and told them what was wrong, and they fixed it pretty fast, so fast that they did a poor job on the wheel since it did not hold longer than the 100 miles i went. so yes i would not recommend going to the bike shop, but sadly its the only one in town, you wont have much of an option, just good luck, they dont really care to much about customers.

well i ride out of town a few miles and try to catch a ride. i stood there for about 2 hours and not a single ride was going out to tonopah (its seriously that lame, nobody drives out that far because there is nothing to drive to in the town). so finally i decided to bike 30 miles to the last town, and make sure that if people passed me they would be heading out to tonopah direction. still nothing, i had about 3 cars pass me this time. so i decided to just rough it and ride all the way back. all 110 miles of it. so i take off, and man the winds were not as strong as previous days, but they were still slowing me down. i did happen to pass by this old abandoned hotel and casino (casino was burned down) and sleeping in that hotel was defiantly going through my mind, but it was about 3 and i had enough energy to move on, but if i ever come back i will probably have to camp in one of those rooms hah. so i finally get over the over pass and down the mountain. once i get to the bottom of the hill, there is about a 20 mile stretch to the highway 6 and 95 intersection, were i would still have another 41 miles. so right when i get down there, the wind picks up so hard, that i dropped to about 4-5 miles. it was a very miserable ride. but i finally made it 2 hours later to the intersection, and tried to bike 1 mile to this abandoned shelter knowing that i probably was not going to make it tonight. o yes, i forgot to mention that going down to the intersection of 6 and 95 i had side winds, when i got to the intersection i had full head winds, and probably the worst headwinds on this trip, i dropped to 3 miles and had to get off my bike and hold it against the closest pole since i could not make it any farther due to the wind.

well i decided that i was for sure staying the night and might as well spend the next few hours trying to catch a ride back. so after about 20 mins and two cars passing me, i finally flagged down a ride. for the life of me i cant remember her name, but it was pretty badass like constance or constantine or something like that (if your reading this, i am sorry, i am totally blanking. its not every day you hear a name different than john, jessica, sam, bla bla bla)

finally i arrived in tonopah, george bushed and all, i think it took about 8 hours to do it all. but hey i made it and i have learned a few things.

1. nevada winds suck
2. i will never bike in nevada again
3. nevada winds
4. i am not going to bishop to get my bike repaired
5. i will return to bishop to backpack (heck its between sierras and white mountain?)
6.ill just drive highway 50, just so i can do it.


sorry for the long post, but you wont be getting many of these, or this could be my last.


cheers!


i took like 5 pictures, sorry i am not alex.