June 17th-The 'loneliest Road in America'

On the 17th, having reneged on going any further than 28 miles to Ely the previous day, we set out for a big day. Our aim was to cover 78 miles to Eureka(no services between), and then try and do at least another 20 miles and camp in on the side of the road. The day started poorly as my phone, which also act as our alarm, somehow keeps resetting itself to eastern time so instead of waking us at 5, woke me at 2 and then at 3. After overusing the snooze function, i decided to turn off the phone, confused that it was 6:30 but still not light! Anyway we did wake up properly at about 6 to a glorious day, not too hot, not too cold. Despite the alarm fiasco we were fresh after spending the night in a Motel, so were all ready for a big day.

On the way to Eureka we went over 4 passes, all but one over 7000 ft, but although it sounds like a lot of climbing, they go up very gradually, creating situations when you are confused whether you are going up or down! Two points about highway 50- one is that it is all the same, no variety, and really quite boring. Two although dubbed in the 1980's as 'the loneliest road in America', it is not in fact that quite. There is far more traffic than a lot of the stretches we had in Utah and even parts of eastern Colorado.

In the morning we ran into 2 more Trans Am cyclists. Passing cyclists is becoming a more regular occurrence, every day now we bump into at least 3 people, most of them going the whole way across. Both the guys, Kevin and John, were riding for breast cancer. It is always a nice break to stop and talk with the other cyclists, exchanging advice and so on. They were both also keeping a blog, Kevin-www.3781miles.org and John http://www.cycleforgailsangels.com/.

We reached Eureka at about 3:30, having no real trouble with the 78 miles, actually enjoying the passes(especially because of the humorous names), such as 'pancake summit' and 'Little Antelope summit'. We enjoyed a big lunch in Eureka and stocked up on bits- supper, snacks and of course water. It was another decent stretch of 68 miles with no services until Austin. carrying water is not such a problem as it was in Utah, as it is simply just that much colder. Instead of drinking a litre an hour, we are drinking about half that in Nevada. We though that it would be unbearably hot, but in the nights and mornings it is cold, not more than 10 degrees Celsius, and in the middle of the day not more than 25 degrees. From Austin we did another 23 miles, stopping and setting up camp at around ten to eight, We were riding as the sun set, creating an stunning orange sky. For me it was one of those moments that makes the hard days worth it: No cars, no people, no Wifi, just us and the sunset.