Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Tahoe Rim Trail: Mt. Rose to Kingsbury Grade
Lake Tahoe NV, July 8, 2006

Take me to the video. Today I did an Epic 35 mile ride at Lake Tahoe, from Mt. Rose to Kingsbury with Dick and Kip. The ride starts at 8,700 ft., you climb for two miles, and then over the next 20 or so miles you go up and down a bit via the Tahoe Rim Trail and Flume Trail to Spooner Lake at 7,100 ft. After about 1.5 miles on pavement you start at 7,150 ft. Spooner Summit and climb about 1,600 ft. in the next five miles to The Bench. Then there are about seven miles of up and down riding on scores of rocks stairs and drops to Kingsbury. It is not an easy ride, particularly that long slow five mile grind after already completing about 22 miles. 

The weather was perfect and we had clear blue skies until just at the end when thunderstorm clouds started rolling in. As we were approaching Mt. Rose I related a story from last year in which I led some people down the trail from the parking lot and did an endo in front of everybody just about 50 yards into the trail on a gnarly little creek crossing. Well, the trail was especially overgrown and Dick did an endo at that same spot right in front of me! He cut his elbow and leg fairly seriously but after a while he collected himself and we managed to get going again. A bit into the ride I began getting sick and something I had for breakfast wanted out. Over the next two hours I struggled quite a bit and I had to stop several times. I wanted to throw up but I couldn't. Perhaps about 2 1/2 hours into the ride I started feeling better. 

Kip and I were quite experienced doing that grueling five mile climb from Spooner Summit (we did it last week) but Dick had never done it before. He was a bit too aggressive and it hit him hard about 2/3rds of the way up. For about the next 5 - 6 miles he was a riding zombie. I've ridden with him enough to know that he usually recovers after a while so we just made sure we maintained contact with him. However, I was a bit disappointed because he is the most talented rider of the three and I was counting on him leading me down the rock drops for the video. But Kip, who normally doesn't care for drops, took up the slack and he was quite a bit more aggressive than usual. As I predicted, a few miles near the end of the ride Dick perked up and he took over the lead, taking me down some pretty cool drops. Never having done this ride before he took me down the longest and gnarliest set of drops, which I'd never completed. Halfway down he stopped, jumped out of the way and I just continued on down, making it for the first time ever! It was a pretty tough ride but we all felt quite satisfied and not totally exhausted at the end. Thanks for the great ride guys! Since I had the helmet cam I didn't take as many photos as usual. Many photos of the Spooner to Kingsbury section were posted from my ride last week.

Click on an image to enlarge it

Mt. Rose meadow 8,700 ft.	Easy stairs no easy approach	On Rim Trail	On the Flume Trail	On the Flume Trail
On the Flume Trail	Small stream	Marlette Lake	Kip climbing	Dick climbing
Dick climbing	Near The Bench	Near The Bench	Near The Bench	Kip approaches The Bench
Dick on a drop	On the Flume Trail	On the Flume Trail	Lake Tahoe	Me courtesy Dick

Lake Tahoe. Click on the image for larger view

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