We're back in Nor Cal for some cooler weather for the Summer. It still gets warm here so when it headed to 100°F we went up to Lake Tahoe Tahoe for a ride on a couple of the higher altitude trails. We've always ridden our mech bikes here, but since we sent them to Arizona, we brought our ebikes to the lake.
To avoid the typical Summer traffic into Tahoe City we go up to Squaw Valley to park. Squaw Valley was the host of the 8th Winter Olympics in 1960 and is still a popular winter resort. The base of the resort where we park is at over 6,200 ft elevation. Their ski lifts extend to over 9,000 feet.
Bad pic of gondola lifts out of Squaw.
From Squaw we headed down their paved bike trail to the Truckee River Trail.
Looking up the trails in Squaw Valley out over the meadow to the ski peaks beyond.
It's an easy coast down to the river with no e-assist needed. The river was a popular destinstion, even for a weekday.
Dozens of rafters were headed down river from Tahoe City. This easy float trip can be an all day outing with frequent river front stops, swimming, and water fights.
We were trying to minimize our power usage to be sure we had plenty for the climb back up to the car. With our mech bikes the first trip to the lake was always the hardest with the added elevation and all. We were both at 100% charge at this point.
We spotted several,of these newer bike maintenance stations along the way;
A nice set of tools and a pump to keep you on the trail. Several of these were installed a few years back as an Eagle Scout project along Sacramento's American River Trail. Unfortunately they have been vandalized to the point of being useless. I wish these installations a better future.
The river trail is generally up hill to the lake but fairly gentle, with a few notable exceptions. By gearing down and sticking to Eco mode, we made it to the Lake with 99% charge. There are plenty of ups and downs along the lake as the West Shore bike trail shoe horns between homes, Lakefront Drive and the Lake. This is the view after another steep downhill;
A good view across the Lake to the Nevada side. The Lake is roughly oval, 20 miles across x 30 miles long. It's the biggest fresh water lake in the Western U.S. Air temps were are very comfortable 87°F at the Lake.
We continued on to our Lake front lunch stop; snacks and fruit over looking another beach, and some incoming weather;
Winds were picking up with thunder heads building over Mt Rose in Nevada, another popular ski resort.
After lunch, we continued riding along the West Shore trail. The altitude was staring to get to my wife so we turned around about 5 miles before the trail ends at Sugar Pine Point State Park. You can cycle around the Lake, but traffic can be problematic in those sections without a dedicated bike trail.
The ride around the Lake is 70 miles. There's an annual ride that does this loop with rolling road closures for a 2 mile section of the route to protect the riders.
We passed the take out for the river rafters at River Ranch Resort. Beyond River Ranch the river grade increases turing into some white water for some miles:
Not too challenging in the Summer, but all the rafters avoid this miles long section and the following water falls.
We headed back up to Squaw Valley using just what power we needed to overcome the elevation and the weight of the ebikes. We got back to the car with 92% on my wife's bike and 93% on mine. Very surprising considering that we'd covered 25.5 miles with 1,082ft elevation gain. Our average speed was barely 9.4 mph. Slower with lower gears pays off.
We loaded the bikes and headed home to find the interstate closed by a truck accident just after our exit to home. Traffic was backed up for miles so we took the last exit and headed back to a nice dinner and live music in the town of Truckee. By the time we were done, the interstate was open again for an easy drive home, with a beautiful sunset over the Sierras.
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