Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Tahoe Rim Trail, Lake Tahoe, Nevada
Spooner to Kingsbury to Spooner

September 17, 2005

Today I had a great ride at Tahoe with Dan (Dan'ger), Tim (UncleMTB), Kip, Kyle (K-max) and Richelle (Dust bunny). We did Spooner to Kingsbury roundtrip. It was about 40 degrees when Dan, Kip and I set out and although we bundled up quite a bit, we all warmed up quite quickly on the initial five mile climb of about 1,800 ft. which started at over 7,000 ft. The last two times I've done this ride I really felt the altitude on that initial climb. But this time, after about two stops at the beginning, I seemed to catch my second wind and the climb was not so bad. Most of the time the weather was quite nice but in the open it was often quite windy and sometimes a bit cool.

As we neared the end of the climb near the bench Kyle  and later Richelle and Tim showed up. As always the ride down the other side from the bench was a lot of fun: steep scree slopes followed by a mile or two of buffed swooping singletrack and then scores of rock "stairs".  It helps to ride with really good people because I made all but two of the gnarly drops on the way to Kingsbury. And one of those I even attempted twice for a photo. I'm amazed at how fast we went and how easy some of the ride out seemed to be. Dan asked me how long we had to go and I said quite a ways with several climbs. Just then Kip and Tim came at us so I asked what was wrong. They said we had reached Kingsbury!

After a brief rest stop at a bogus "vista point" we headed back to Spooner. But something was wrong because Dan was nowhere to be seen. Apparently he suffered some sort of altitude related sickness and he had to take it really slow on the way back. Walking on trails really hurts my knees so I would bike ahead for a while and then wait for him to catch up. I kept telling him he only had to make it to the bench and then it was five miles downhill. Meanwhile, I was feeling a bit guilty because I was having quite a good time and making a lot of uphill stuff I'd never made before. I've finally learned that my "new" Stumpjumper 120 can do just about anything. Eventually Dan made it to the bench and once pointed downhill he was back in his element. So he did pretty well on the five mile descent, which I think may be the finest descent I've ever gone down. Dan was feeling quite badly when we finished and he was trying to hook up with K-max to rest at his place. Hope all is well Dan'ger and we'll have to do this ride again when you feel better. However, as the photos demonstrate he was doing amazingly well on the ride out. 

Click on an image to enlarge it

Dan bundling up	Dan on the climb	On the climb	Kyle near the top	Richelle near the top	Richelle falls
Dan  near the top	Kyle, Richelle  Kip, Dan	Lake Tahoe	Above the lake	Tim, Kip, Dan Kyle, Richelle	Near the bench
Lake Tahoe	Kip, Tim	Kyle	Dan	Dan gets a flat	On the  trail
Lots of this	Dan making it	Dan on gnarly drop	Kip near Kingsbury	Tim, Richelle  near Kingsbury	Dan near Kingsbury
Richelle Kyle	Dan	Kip	Tim	Lake Tahoe	On the  trail
Lots of this	Near the bench	Lake Tahoe	Dan heading home	Dan heading home	Me taken by Dan

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