Mr. Toad is a village squire; vain and self centered, and rather wealthy. His reckless interest in all things that go vroom lands him in jail after he steals a motor car and crashes it, thus known as Mr. Toads Wild Ride.
Brian is neither a village squire, nor vain or self centered. And while he does have a reckless interest in bicycles, he has never stolen one...that I know of. This is his Wild Ride down the infamous Mr. Toads in Tahoe.
It started with me dropping him off down the road. I don't have enough bike skills (or health insurance) to ride the top of Mr. Toads trail. So I was acting as bike shuttle dropping him off at the trailhead so he wouldn't have to ride all the way up to the top just to go down.
Still there was some riding to the trail head required.
And once there he still had quite a climb to the top of the trail know as Mr. Toads.
Rocks, rocks
and more rocks.
Going uphill is never fun.
Going downhill doesn't look that much fun to me either.
A wild ride indeed.
It's always fun until your chain guide breaks.
How MacGuyver can you get?
While Brian was fixing his bike, I was pushing my bike up the trail from the bottom of Mr Toads, the plan was to meet somewhere in the middle. Two miles later I caught up with Brian. Now it was my turn to go downhill.
Considering my past experience with trees, I'm a little nervous now riding around them.
Wheeeeee!
Ahh, end of the trail. Very nice.
After resting for awhile we headed up the road to ride Corral Trail. Corral is a super fun trail with lots of berms, and it's all downhill. The only bad thing about Corral is the two mile ride up the road to get to the trail head. It was a very warm day, and with the higher elevation it's definitley a lung buster. By the time we got to the top, my heart was racing and I felt lightheaded and a little sick to my stomach. Not fun. But after a bit of a rest I managed to ride down the trail and still stay on my bike.
We only rode one more trail the rest of our stay at Tahoe, and it's probably the most fun. Powerline trail is a mellow trail, with some great scenery.
We stopped at a creek with a bridge for a picture then we headed up the trail to the right. We should have gone to the left because the trail we took led us down a dusty all terrain trail out into the middle of nowhere. Since I was drinking so much water my camelback ran low and I had visions of us stuck out in the woods of Tahoe, lost with 10 packs of Gu and no water.
But there was no tragic ending. The trail we took dumped us out on the street, so we rode the rest of the way back to the hotel on the sideroads. It was sort of a disappointing end to an otherwise fun moutain bike ride.
That Saturday and Sunday there was a Opening Weekend to Lake Tahoe celebration, so we left the bikes back at the hotel and walked around checking out the festival.
They had motorbike jumping which was the most interesting thing going on. Then there was a biking contest, and some bands and lots of food booths set up. We ended up ducking into a casino to lose a couple of bucks.
Here are the obligatory drinking and gambling shots just to show how bad ass we really are. Taken of course in a non smoking casino, because smoking is so gross. And neither one of us knew how to play the game we were sitting at. We just starting pushing a bunch of buttons.
Brian cashed out at 10 cents! Woohoo. Casinos are a little creepy. People sit in front of the slot machines in a daze just pulling levers. And nobody looks like they are really having any fun.
So that was seven whole days of Tahoe. The trip back home was uneventful, and I was a little sad to leave. There is always one more trail to ride but never enough time.
2 comments:
Macgyver does not have a "u." Don't forget your vacation in August too!
Very cool. It's great they are implementing smoke free casinos. Maybe they are trying to suck in a new crowd ;)
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