Ely, NV to Baker, NV Distance: 78 miles
Ride Time: 5:25
Average Speed: 14.3 mph
Altitude Gain: 3438 feet
Average Temperature: 84
After yesterday, today seemed to start out great, even though the wind had not gone away. We started going south and maybe that helped some.
The area south of Ely contained some remains of mining in the past. It always amazes me how short-lived most of these boom towns were. Three to five years were about the norm.
We rode around two sides of a wind farm. It had 63 windmills and the wind to keep them all spinning. Kathie had lunch for me on the south end of the farm. It was a great break from the wind. As I turned to go north along the west side of the farm, it was down hill with the wind at my back. According to my cycle computer I reached 58 mph. I don’t believe it, but it was fun to finally have some wind at my back.
I stopped and talked to another cyclist headed west. He was going to Oregon from Colorado, where he lived. He has a friend in Oregon that he is going to help. He had everything stacked on his bike: extra wheels, tires, clothes and his helmet was attached to everything and almost dragging on the ground. He said he had gone through some terrible weather coming across Utah, but he was enjoying the tail wind that was my head wind.
There was a good long climb out of that valley and I was excited about being close to Utah.
Garrison, UT, we were told, did not have any services; so we decided to stay the weekend in Baker, NV. The RV park did not look promising. The Great Basin National Park and Lehman Caves are both closed because of the virus. We spoke to a park ranger and he said not to stay in Baker and recommended we stay at a border truck stop. It worked out good for the weekend.
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