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Despite a forecast for potentially heavy afternoon thunderstorms, I decided to take Tuesday to ride my bike around Lake Tahoe. I had done this once before more than 20yrs earlier and have wanted for years to do so again - if for no other reason than to help in my denial at getting old. I was in Stateline, NV for a family reunion on my mother's side of the family but I would be doing this one solo - most of the family thought I was a little nuts. I got an early start around 6a in order to minimize the chances of getting caught in the rain but as it turned out the thunderstorms would never really materialize over the area. The distance around the lake is 72mi, plus some extra mileage getting to the lake and back to where I stayed plus a few stops for extraneous hiking along the way. The riding time was almost exactly six hour broken up into even segments. From Stateline to Incline Village up the east side of the lake was two hours. The stretch north on SR28 was the most harrowing part of the ride as the shoulders are narrow or non-existent and the traffic on this 55mph stretch seemed particularly in a hurry despite the early morning hour. On a downhill section, a cement truck came up just behind me before blaring its horn, seemingly just for the purpose of inducing a heart attack. Before reaching Incline Village, I stopped briefly to check out Sand Harbor State Park, not yet open to vehicles that were already lining up outside. From Incline Village to Tahoe City around the north side of the lake took another hour. Though shoulders were no wider, slower speed limits made this less scary on the bike. South of Tahoe City there is a convenient bike path that goes for miles to Tahoma on the west side of the lake. Yay for bike paths! Just past the Truckee River I stopped for a second breakfast in Tahoe City at a popular bakery/coffee shop. As I was continuing south on the bike path I came across Eagle Rock and paused here.
At Emerald Bay I met up with about 30 of the family members that had driven out from Stateline to do the short hike down to the beach on the bay at Vikingsholm. My timing was rather fortuitous as I didn't arrange this ahead of time. I knew they planned to be there around 11a and it worked out well as we were both late getting there. Vikingsholm is the name of the mansion/castle built by a wealthy woman in 1929. The property changed hands several times before becoming part of a state park. There is a dock and beach at the site that are very popular in the summer. Tours of the home are available at $10/head, but I declined to join some of the others for this - gawking at over-the-top furnishings in over-the-top homes has never had any appeal for me. I left the others down near the beach around 12:45p. Clouds were starting to develop and it seemed prudent to get myself back to Stateline. It took another hour to make my way back to the house by 2p.
This page last updated: Wed Jul 23 18:30:35 2014
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