Today started out with a tour of the world class climbing gym across the street from Harrahs in the Whitney Peak Hotel called Base Camp which can be found HERE. After this ride up the escalator:

Can you see me in the mirrors at the top of the picture?

I toured their indoor and outdoor  facility. The climbing wall outside has one tier that goes up as high as 160 feet, the highest in the world, and looks down on the famous Reno Arch! As for what they have under a roof, occupying the entire second floor of the Whitney Peak Hotel there are kids climbing walls with thick padded mats. In addition, there is a  medium size exercise room with machines, mirrors and a  small assortment of free weights and cardiovascular equipment. They have a sauna, changing rooms and showers. All open to the public for reasonable monthly fees.

On my way out, I caught these two guys playing some pretty mean drums

My lunch meeting with Mary Beth was five miles away next. On the way, I stopped at Virginia Lake a lake once fed by the mighty Truckee River, all that is keeping its levels up now is the run off from city streets. But it is pretty as these photos show.

I am told it gets crowded with walkers and cars any time after noon or so. But an early morning run from Harrahs with a lap or two around the lake could be fun. Continuing on Lakeside, the traffic had been tame enough that  the absence of bike lanes didn’t seem to matter. About a half-mile after the lake they appeared as I kept riding. 

At the Pedalers Cafe, located near the southern edge of the city, Mary Beth and her partner Andy Hill showed up on their bikes. We talked for a bit when Janet Phillips, the President of the Tahoe-Pyramid Bikeway  showed up. She had come in her car and felt embarrassed that she had not ridden in. We went inside of the cozy little deli, ordered and then we talked.

Janet, who had been the driver behind making the TP Bikeway real, told us it grew out of her work with water departments  throughout the area. We talked about the trail surface being dirt and how it was compromised because of certain seasonal conditions. When I asked her about crushed limestone, she said that it would be too cost prohibitive to bring that in since there is none to be found in Nevada.

I told her I would add her bikeway as a spur to our San Francisco to Washington DC route at   BikeRoute.com since it connects Lake Tahoe with Reno. As such, the wider tires found on most touring bikes should not have a problem with that kind of surface. It would also give riders coming from Sacramento a scenic option once they leave Tahoe and head for Reno. It would give them an alternative to US 50, Spooner Pass and its very long descent into Carson City, 30 miles still south of Reno.

She wanted to know what the National Bicycle Greenway was all about and what I was doing in Reno as well as what was up next for me. Hard core road bikers, all three of them, they all listened attentively as I explained to them how the recumbent bicycle industry had kept the National Bicycle Greenway vision alive since my recumbent bike ride across America in 1986. I told them about my speaking engagement in Cincinnati in September at Recumbent Cycle Con  and how I was hoping that I could do for the River City what I will soon be wrapping up as  a Virtual Tour package for Reno.

I told them how, in  a perfect world, I may be using a crowd source platform to raise funds so that I can complete similar city profiles in all  of our other 18 NBG Biking Cities . They all had great insight and asked excellent  questions. What an honor to have such a captive audience for the five or ten minutes I spoke to them

As it turned out, Mary Beth’s partner, Andy Hill, who loves Reno cycling, has lived in many of the great biking cities of America including Portland and Davis. In Davis he was the  former room mate and business manager for well known bicycle frame builder Kimo Tanaka. As in tiny world, I see Kimo a lot whenever I am in the Davis Food CoOp. He works at Ken’s Bike Shop, next door.

I even got Mary Beth to sit on the Advanta. Andy did too,  but I didn’t get a photo since I was busy making sure he didn’t get tripped up on it.

They told me a different way to get to Whole Foods where I needed to go to get some coconut oil for my skin, The heat here requires that I overdose the stuff on my face, arms, legs and feet. I continued up Lakeside which beyond the cafe offered the steepest hill I have climbed yet on the Advanta. And you know what? The bike flew up the three hundred or so yards of a 10 or 12 per cent grade with no problem. Nor was I even pushing that hard. 

And this was after I made a wrong turn  to the bottom of, first a regional park where they have concerts in the outdoor amphitheater, and then  a neighborhood. I had to climb back out of both dead ends but I did take some nice pictures.  This despite the fact that it was quite smoky in the skies here in Reno as there are several forest fires going on all at once in the nearby Sierras. As a result the photos do not show how clear and beautiful this part of the country is.

Once I did make it to the part of Lakeside where I needed to be, the street I had to turn left on once I reached the top of the hill was called, of all names, DAVIS!! It sped down the hill and like Andy and Mary Beth had said, it curved and turned and left me at a T-intersection where I needed to make a left. And as they said if I kept flowing with it, Whole Foods would appear after I went under the freeway. And it did!! 

I had a new much more scenic way to get to this immensely popular store. And I had gotten to it from the completely opposite direction!!

I stopped at Velo Reno,a bike shop I had heard good words about on the way back. It was in a shopping center on Lakeside. And sure enough, both the owner, Richard Paul and his employee were both humble servants. I didn’t stay long but Richie, he seems to also go by that name, agreed with me that the kinds of bikes they sell and the clientele they sell  to is not the younger hipster fixed gear crowd, but the more serious road riders of all ages who like to get big miles in their legs.

As I looked around, there was not one fixed gear in sight. And as I have ben thinking as I roll Reno’s roads, the kind of riding here is why Greg Lemond was so dominant. You can go as hard as you desire without having to worry about lights and railroad tracks and cars and intersections. And you can do so without having to bring a bunch of clothes with you because of the changes in weather that always accompany a San Francisco Bay area ride.

Did I say I like the cycling here?

About three blocks from my hotel I found this vegetable garden.

It is just a few blocks from the Children’s Discovery Museum where I met with RTC members earlier in the week.