Eureka! reprised

The Ramada Inn in Ely has an attached casino and today we hit the jackpot. Not at the casino but at the free breakfast. It was the best we've had so far: eggs, pancakes, sausage, fruit, cereal, oatmeal, pastries, and on and on. Best of all, there were plenty of fixin's for making road lunches. In addition to the copious quantities of breakfast food I ate, I left with made a bagel with cream cheese and jam; a PB&J sandwich, a hard-boiled egg, and a banana.

We won big (in terms of calories)

In following with the rhythmic pattern of Nevada so far, today was oddly similar to yesterday. The day started cold and clear, so we waited a bit for it to warm up. By 8:30 it was about 35F, so we started off. It remained in the 40s for the rest of the day, but nice and sunny.

Another basin, another snow-capped peak

My Garmin bike computer apparently decided to take the day off, for when I started it up this morning it rebooted itself twice and then showed nothing but a blank screen. So I was "riding blind" all day in terms of knowing speed, power, or distance. It's really no issue except that I have come to rely on the power metric when I am pulling to gauge how hard to go, and the distance reading to know how long to go. So we used the mile markers on the highways to time our pulls, and Tom had to help me keep the efforts even by telling me to speed up or slow down. This afternoon after we finished I did a factory reset on it; hopefully it will be back in action tomorrow.

The route today featured three medium climbs ranging from 900 feet to 1200 feet, on gentle grades of 4-6%, followed by symmetric descents. Today the wind was more or less neutral or behind us for a change. So as 78 mile rides go, it was fairly easy. The climbs were not too steep, and the descents were not too cold, so it was quite enjoyable.

Over the last few cold days, we have steadily improved our layering techniques. It's a bit of a challenge when riding in hilly terrain. When climbing, you are working hard and going slow so there is lots of body heat and little or no wind chill. When descending, you are not working and going fast so there is no body heat and lots of wind chill. This means constantly stopping to layer up or down at the top and bottoms of the hills.

Tonight we are in the little town of Eureka, Nevada, the second so-named town on our trip after Eureka, Kansas. The Nevada version definitely has more charm, with plenty of its historic mining soul still in evidence.

An uncannily large fire house for a town with 610 residents

Today's ride: Ely NV to Eureka NV. 78 miles, 4176 feet of climbing.