Steve's Mountain Bike Page
Turlock, California

Tahoe Rim Trail: Mt. Rose to Kingsbury Grade down Chinese Downhill
Lake Tahoe NV, August 26, 2006

A few weeks ago when I called for people to join me on a repeat of my longest ride ever, Mt. Rose to Kingsbury at Tahoe, about 34-35 miles, Bigboulder said it would be a shame to go all that way and not finish with the 5-6 mile Chinese Downhill, which starts at Kingsbury. Since it was supposed to be all downhill I agreed to tack that on the end of the ride. For a while it looked like we had a large group and there would be a fast group and my slower group. Well it turned out the former consisted of three very strong and talented riders: Bigboulder, TahoeBC and Mtb_Canuck, and the later included just me. I was a bit intimidated, but since this is a self-shuttled ride I figured I'd ride with them to Mt. Rose and then ride solo. But they insisted they would stick with me.

So Saturday (8/26) we set out from 8,700 ft. Mt. Rose and proceeded down the Tahoe Rim Trail, The Flume Trail, down to Spooner Lake, up the highway to Spooner Summit, then on to Kingsbury, and then down Chinese Downhill. It was a perfect day, perhaps 65 - 75 degrees the whole time, and clear blue skies. I'm slow to warm-up, especially at altitude, I felt I went out a bit too fast, and I was a bit worried about blowing up miles later. But I didn't want to discourage them in the first few miles so I just hung on. Although they could have easily left me in the dust, they were quite patient, and they occasionally waited to make sure I was not too far behind. Well, they pulled me along as fast as I've ever done each of those sections of trails separately. We got down to Spooner Lake in pretty good time and despite having already done 22 - 23 miles, I did Spooner to Kingsbury, including that brutal five mile climb at the start, as fast as ever. And we finished my "epic" more than an hour and a half faster than I've ever done it.

There were a few falls along the way. Bigboulder fell on his chest and scraped it up pretty good, Mtb_Canuck had a spectacular endo, which he danced out of, and I had two endos, one of which I managed to dance out of. The other one was no big deal since I was wearing armor. The top third of the Chinese Downhill is really nice singletrack, but not entirely downhill. By then the little uphills felt bigger than they were. The middle third, which was narrow, very steep, full of drop-offs, logs, logs with drop-offs, stunts, as well as deep sand, was the first real downhill I've ever encountered. I had to walk most of it and it killed my knees. After wandering though some ritzy neighborhoods we found more nice singletrack, which eventually dumped us right back at the Burger King, where we had left two vehicles. I felt surprisingly well at the end but I certainly would not want to do any more climbing.

I want to thank the guys for being so patient and especially Mtb_Canuck, whom I knew was watching out for me. And he also carried my bike over several downed trees when I couldn't do it myself.

Click on an image to enlarge it

Tahoe Meadow	Tahoe Meadow	Mtb_Canuck Tahoe Meadow	Rim Trail	Rim Trail
Bigboulder	Mtb_Canuck	Nice scenery	On The Flume Trail	On The Flume Trail
On The Flume Trail	On The Flume Trail	Mtb_Canuck, Bigboulder TahoeBC  Marlette Lk.	On to Kingsbury	I always get stuck here
From The Bench	The guys at The Bench	TahoeBC Bigboulder	TahoeBC, Mtb_Canuck	TahoeBC
Mtb_Canuck	Mtb_Canuck tries again	Mtb_Canuck	Bigboulders	Satisfied Customers

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