Alaska

In August of 2010 I spent two weeks in Alaska traveling with my wife. This was by no means a bike-related trip (I got to hike on glaciers, sea kayak next to glaciers, see whales, hike to secluded lakes, etc.), but you know how the mind of a cyclist works. I couldn't help thinking about what it would be like to travel through Alaska by bike, and I couldn't resist taking a day to squeeze in a century.

Alaska would be a wonderful place for a bike tour. Anchorage is surprisingly bicycle friendly, and it would be easy to fly in and start off right from the airport. Outdoor activities are huge in Alaska and there always seemed to be a campground around the corner, making it easier to ride a comfortable distance every day and to change plans on the fly when necessary. There are plenty of off-the-bike activities to take part in: hiking, fishing, kayaking, rafting, and even glacier hiking or wildlife cruising in certain locations. On top of all of that, daylight hours are extra long during the summer, which was one of my favorite things about Alaska. All that sunlight would give you a chance to get long rides in during the day and still have plenty of daylight left for setting up camp and/or squeezing in an extra activity. You really get the chance to make the most out of your day. The bad news? The weather's not great (says the guy who loves deserts) and the bugs can be bad. It's a small price to pay for all the benefits.

My century took place in Denali National Park. The National Park Service has a good guide to cycling in the park here. There is essentially one road in the park, which is only paved and accessible to personal vehicles up to mile 15. From there on out it's a quiet dirt road traveled mostly by the shuttle buses. In other words, it's a perfect place to ride.

The day before my ride we took the shuttle bus tour for some wildlife spotting and some hiking. We saw tons of wildlife (3 bears walked right by our bus), but it was too cloudy to see Denali (a majority of park visitors don't). The great thing about the bus system is that you can buy a ticket for one bus, get off whenever you want, and hitch a ride back on a different bus. Some of the buses have bike racks, so if you do a little planning ahead and you don't have all day to ride, you could take the bus out to anywhere you wanted and ride back to the park entrance area.

On the morning of my bike ride I decided to try to catch the free shuttle bus out to mile 15 so I could get as deep into the park as possible. Luck was on my side from the start as I was the only guy with a bike, so I had no problem making it out to mile 15 with my bike.

Speaking of my bike, I got stuck with a rental that was about two sizes two big and not in the best mechanical condition. It was either that or a girl's bike, which my pride simply couldn't handle. My advice: rent a bike in Anchorage instead of near Denali if at all possible. I'm sure the selection there is much better.

As for the ride itself, luck continued to be on my side early on. The sky was almost perfectly clear and we could see Denali from the bus. I had convinced myself the day before that I was never going to be able to see Denali itself, so the whole experience put a huge smile on my face and I couldn't wait to get riding so I could see it the way everything is best seen: on a bike.

After taking a few pictures from the bus we made it to the end of the pavement, which is where the free bus ride ends. I unloaded the bike and set out in a great mood, trying to ride at a good pace to get the best view of Denali I could before the clouds inevitably rolled in.

Eventually the poor bike fit took its toll on me. I developed pain in my right knee, and eventually favoring that knee led to pain in my left knee. There was no way I was going to miss out on my one chance to ride a century in Alaska, so all I could really do was push through the pain, stand up a lot, and/or spin easy gears. This led to the slowest century I've ever done, but I suppose what that means is that I had more time to take in the scenery. That's what cycling is about: pushing through tough times and somehow coming away with a memory of how fun the whole thing was.

The pictures below show only a small fraction of the beauty I saw all day. Imagine riding on a quiet dirt road, mile after mile of mountain after mountain. It sounds perfect, yet somehow it felt even better than it sounds.

A clear view of Denali from the bus ride out.

Zoomed in. It's hard to get a feel for how huge Denali actually is.

A picture of me in full tourist mode with Denali in the background.

Another look at Denali. This is the first picture from the actual ride.

The rental bike, which was too big and not in the best condition, but it got me through the day.

The bike and Denali.

No bears today.

These squirrels were everywhere.

The dirt road.

My favorite picture of the road.

As I got closer to Denali the clouds began to roll in.

Mountains everywhere. I could have taken hundreds of pictures.

Mississippi

In May of 2010 I did a century in Mississippi, my 12th state. I did a solo out-and-back on the Natchez Trace just outside of Vicksburg. The Natchez Trace is a wonderful place to ride, at least in southwest Mississippi. It's closed to commercial vehicles, traffic is light, and the pavement is smooth. Best of all, I was able to complete 100 miles without a single stop sign. It doesn't get much better than that.

You are here. I drove from Vicksburg and stopped at the first parking area. I headed southwest for 50 miles, then turned around and came back.

Typical scenery along the way- smooth roads surrounded by trees.

When there weren't trees there were fields.

It was a sunny day with a high of 90 degrees. Beautiful day for a ride.

Update: I rode across Mississippi as part of my ride across the country in 2015. Here are links to the relevant days: 18, 19, 20. You can find more pictures plus Strava links to the route.

Missouri

I headed to Missouri in March, 2010 for a solo ride. My route took me through the Mark Twain National Forest, which is southwest of St. Louis.

Here's my route map in Mark Twain National Forest. Compared to national forests out west, this doesn't seem like a national forest at all. Most of it just seemed like any old country road you'd expect to see in rural MO. Nevertheless, it was a very nice route.

Tons of rolling hills + twisting & turning roads = never a dull moment. The time was flying and I was having fun.

Looking ugly before the ride.

Mark Twain National Forest.

Just a taste of some of the rolling hills you can expect if you come ride here.

This part actually looked like a national forest.

The countryside.

Up...

...and down.

The roads were in good shape for the whole route.

California

California is home to the favorite century I've ever done, the Alta Alpina Challenge, which I did in June of 2009 while I was living in Reno, NV. The stats say it all- 8 climbs, 198 miles, and 20,000 feet of climbing. On top of that, the scenery is absolutely beautiful. What more could you ask for in a ride?

The Alta Alpina Challenge map. Some of it took place in Nevada, but more than 100 straight miles were in California.

By far the hardest ride I've ever done. 198 miles, 20,000 feet of climbing.

Climb #1: Kingsbury Grade, AKA Daggett Summit.

Kingsbury Grade was definitely the easiest climb of the day. I was fresh, the climb is relatively short, and the grade is nice and steady without any steep spots. I played it very safe and went a lot slower than I normally would, hoping that I could save some energy for the next 7 climbs.

Climb #2: Luther Pass. I don't remember much about the climb, so it must not have been too bad.


Climb #3: Carson Pass.

It's hard to see the sign in this picture, but the elevation is 8574 feet. This was the toughest of the first 3 climbs so far. I'm not sure what it was about Carson Pass. The elevation profile doesn't look all that bad, but for some reason this climb seemed to take forever to finish. The climb is absolutely worth the effort, though. The view of Red Lake near the top is stunning, and the descent is fast and not technical at all.

Here I am ascending Carson Pass. So far, so good.

A view from the Carson Pass descent.


Red Lake, as seen from the Carson Pass descent.


Blue Lakes Road is well known in the area as a wonderful place to ride. I couldn't agree more. I was too busy enjoying the ride to take pictures. Here is the only one I took. Blue Lakes counts as climb #4, but it's not a pure climb like the others. There was more up-and-down involved.

After finishing Blue Lakes we headed back to Turtle Rock Park, where it all began, for the lunch stop. Let me tell you, it's never a good thing to be right next to your car after you've already ridden 100 miles with ~10,000 feet of climbing. The weather wasn't great and I felt like I was going to bonk soon, if I wasn't bonking already. Here I am eating some turkey on a bagel and drinking a Pepsi (a performance-enhancing drug, if you ask me). At this point I was considering quitting.

Then a funny thing happened. I heard people talking about Ebbetts Pass and how difficult it is. I began to feel both curious and challenged at the same time. Is it as bad as they say? If so, I wanted to conquer it. I decided I'd just try one side of Ebbetts Pass, come back to the start, and call it a day.

The view on the way to Ebbetts.


This is the sign you see as you get closer to Ebbetts Pass. This is an intimidating sign, but the road actually remains flat for a while after this until you hit a cattle grade and the road shoots skyward. Until that time you're just riding along waiting and waiting, wondering when the pain will finally come.


Climbs 5 & 6: Ebbetts Pass (both sides).

The first side of Ebbetts was tricky. I rode along anticipating the climb, and when it finally hit I was ready for it. The turkey bagel and the Pepsi were kicking in and I was feeling good. The climb has some steep portions, but those portions are mainly around switchbacks and they don't last all that long. It turns out to be a steady climb with steep sections and not-so-steep sections, so it's almost like riding rolling hills without any downhills. Think of the not-so-steep sections as the downhills.

It started to rain towards the top of Ebbetts Pass. I was feeling good at the top and quitting was suddenly out of the question, so I headed down the other side. Both sides of Ebbetts are similar, but the back side (at least with the route we were using) was shorter. I made it down and back to the top without much of a problem, but by this time the rain and the cold were taking a toll and I was not looking forward to the descent back towards the final two climbs of the day.

The descent was cold and the roads were wet. I wasn't much of a descender at the time (I got better and better as my year in Nevada went on), so I was taking it extra slowly. I felt a little cheated that I did all that work to get to the top and I wasn't even going to enjoy the descent. Things started to clear up towards the bottom, which was good news for the last two climbs of the day.

Climbs 7 & 8: Monitor Pass (both sides).

Ebbetts took a lot out of me, and Monitor is no slouch. Its grade is mostly steady, but steep. It seemed steep to me after a long day in the saddle, at least. The turkey bagel and Pepsi had long since worn off and I went really slow up the first side, which made me worry about not having enough time to do the second side and get back before dark.

I was supposed to descend the other side of Monitor and be back at the summit by 8:00, but I figured 8:00 would be pushing my luck. I really wanted to get back by 7:30, but that would only leave 1.5 hours for a 9.9 mile descent and a 9.9 mile climb. Sounds reasonable, but my legs felt dead up the first side. I decided to try my luck. I had made it this far, so why stop now?

I did what for me was a very fast descent. I'm not sure if it was adrenaline from the descent, if I could sense that the end was near, or if I was just getting a second breath (or 3rd or 4th), or if the climb itself was easier, but I felt better on the ascent. I ended up making it back by 7:30. I must have put in a pretty hard effort, because one of the guys at the rest stop seemed really worried about me.

Here you can see the last rest stop straight ahead.

In my mind it was all downhill back to Turtle Rock Park from here, but if you look closely at the elevation profile you'll see that there is actually a little climb just before the finish. It seemed like an appropriate way to finish the day.

Again, the difficulty of the ride must have been showing on my face, because one of the guys at the finish seemed very worried about me. He was doing all he could to get me something to eat and I felt like he was genuinely concerned about me. I can't thank the people at the Alta Alpina Cycling Club enough for their great support. They picked the perfect route and all of the volunteers were very nice.

Like I said before, this was by far my favorite ride I have ever done. The scenery was beautiful, the climbs were challenging, and I felt like I overcame a lot of mental hurdles. To me, that's what cycling is all about- pushing yourself to the limit and doing things that you weren't sure were possible.

EDITS

Since I moved to Reno I've done quite a bit more riding in California. The California Triple Crown became my favorite event, and I have done the following doubles:

Devil Mountain Double (2011)

Terrible Two (2011)

Mt. Tam Double (2011)

Mulholland Double (2012)

Central Coast Double (2012)

Borrego Double (2012)

I have also returned to Monitor Pass and Everested the east side: Everesting Monitor Pass. 

If you're looking for a route across California, here are links to the first few days of my ride across America from 2015: 1, 2, 3. It's a solid route. I highly recommend it.