Day 5 -- Truckee to Sparks (NV) -- 66 Miles

Greetings from Nevada! That's right, California is in the past. I thought that yesterday's sights were beautiful, but today's were even better.

A quick recap of the ride: After 8 miles, we found ourselves standing in front of Squaw Valley USA: home of the 1960 Olympic Games. After a few pictures, we pedaled onward and eventually made our way into Tahoe City, where we cycled along Lake Tahoe. I know it sounds corny, but there are no words that can truly describe how beautiful the sights were. In fact, I am a bit concerned that I was not able to capture it in the pictures either. That said, I hope you can get somewhat of a the picturesque scenes in my photos of the day.

During our route rap from the previous night, we learned about a great bakery on our route -- Brockway Bakery. The group and I stopped in and enjoyed our respective pastries. I went with an almond bear claw -- it was awesome.

After the pit stop, we eventually crossed the state line and found ourselves in Nevada. We continued to pedal and made our way through "Incline Village," and onto Route 431 where we climbed for 8.2 miles straight. It was fairly steady (approximately 6-8% grade the whole time), but it was still 8.2 solid miles of climbing, but as you can imagine, there were some great sights along the way. Upon finishing that leg, we arrived at Mount Rose Summit -- an elevation of 8,991 feet.

After a quick SAG stop at Mt. Rose, we had a 16.7 mile descent down the mountain. Yes, it was fun going 35-40 m.p.h. for 16.7 miles, but it was extremely cold, and a bit intense. Since I was able to hammer out that 16.7 pretty quickly, I was on pace to get to the hotel before I was allowed to check in. So, I took my time, picked up a few necessities, ate lunch, and evenutally cruised to the Holiday Inn at a nice, slow pace.

Once again, I enjoyed another great day on the Cross Country Challenge.