Davis Creek S24O trial run!

Anyone who's ever done any bicycle touring knows that not everything goes as planned.  With this thought in mind....I figured I better ride the planned route for our little group s24o outing prior to hauling a bunch of people on an untested path.

The route...or a version of it.

So I headed out on a beautiful Saturday morning to see how things shook out.  I did ride with a moderately loaded bike including much of what I planned to bring on the actual trip.  Just to make sure everything was on the up and up.  I also had the privilege of a solid 20 mph (gusting to 35 mph) head wind for the first half of the trip.

Things started out a little fuzzy.  Basically, most of the in town route has good bike lanes....so everything worked out.

Since it was on my route I stopped by the new Pedalers Deli.  Unfortunately, their hours are so limited it's unlikely I'll every make it inside.  A shame...I could have used a coffee.

The first small climb....up over windy hill.

The nice part of navigating the suburbs on the Mt. Rose fan.  They are all interconnected by emergency access roads.  They might be closed to cars but give bicycles a perfect way to connect through on low traffic streets!

The views were great all morning.  The down side is that windmill is spinning like crazy and I'm headed into the wind!

In an effort to make the ride interesting, I included sections of single track.  Headed up lower White's Creek Trail. 

Touring and singletrack...can it get much better?  A side note here.  A portion of the trail was rutted out due to all the rain.  I had to hike a bike for about 1/4 to 1/2 mile.  So yeah, it could be a bit better!

I also found a way to incorporate some fire road rather than busy Mt. Rose Highway.

After only a 1/2 mile of road....you can make the connection from White's Creek to Lower Galena Creek Trail.

Although given the recent rain and snow, some of the trail is more creek than trail right now.

When you top out of the Lower Galena Creek trail you're on Joy Lake Rd.  You get a nice little down hill that leaves you here.  Just a short ride through the "village" would get you through to Davis Creek park.  Except...St. James's doesn't play nice with bicycles.  Meaning you aren't allowed in. 

Fortunately, a nice fire fighter at the local station by the gate showed me a little trail that gets your around the grumpy gatehouse guard!  Unfortunately, the short cut left me one ridge line short of the road I was supposed to be on.  I was also looking at a wall of storm clouds as I considered if I wanted another hike a bike section to complete my trip.

I opted to try to avoid the rain and head for home.  My GPS showed a road that lead right down to Old 395.  Turns out it was the construction road built for access when they put in the new highway.  It was "closed" for the season....to cars.

For me it was a private highway right back to Old 395!  It is ridiculously steep and washboarded out.  Still a fun, screamer of a downhill though!

Complete with cows at the bottom!

The construction road dumps you out just below the big span bridge.

From there it was smooth sailing back down 395....wide bike lanes, light traffic, and a stiff tail wind!

I said stiff tail wind right....this downed billboard shows just how windy it was!

Rolling back up Virginia St.  Not a great street for biking...but at least I wasn't alone.  It's also as a direct route home as you can get and flat to boot!

So that's a quick version of the trip (well almost all of it).  I'm not sure exactly what to do about the St. James's Village issue.  We can skirt the gate house and correct my error on where to head from there....but it'd be nice if the whole route could be on the up and up.  I'm thinking of contacting them to see if we can get a day pass and make the group ride a bite less stealth oriented. 

Either way...it's a good route and should be tons of fun!