Eureka, NV to Austin, NV – Austin, NV to Middlegate, NV
Day 62 and 63
From Eureka, NV to Austin, NV we were supposed in for a pretty serious summit, Bob Scott Summit and then Austin Summit, according to locals. Even though we’d climbed over mountains almost 5,000 feet taller they still seemed to think these two summits were going to be tough on us. Turns out they weren’t that bad, definitely the most difficult in Nevada but not of the trip by far. About 15 miles outside of Nevada we saw a guy riding towards us on a one speed beach cruiser bike with huge knobby tires that looked like he’d custom painted it Polluck style. After the initial shock that this scruffy guy in a skateboard helmet, teva sandals and a t-shirt was riding on highway 50 through Nevada on a one speed we got to talking to him and found out he wasn’t all there. Joe was on his way across the country from Santa Rosa, CA “until he ran into the president.” No final destination was stated just “until I meet him somewhere, I hear he likes coming out here.” I egged him a bit and said “what are going to talk to him about.” He replied, “Honesty.” Joe literally had two tiny bags and about 2 Aquafina bottles of water with him, Brent and I were shocked he’d made it this far. We told him to tell the president we said hello and he said “the desert has been great for my meditations.” We parted ways and were relieved we were going in opposite directions.
After riding through some rain, the weather is really crazy in Nevada by the way. It’s pretty impossible to predict the clouds and storms. The wind can be blowing west and the storm is moving east. We got over the final two big climbs in Nevada two climbs that were supposed to break us and pulled into the little almost ghost town of Austin, NV. The rain was still going and we opted for a motel room at the Lincoln, Motel whose TV had literally One channel, so we watch “Who wants to be a Millionaire” that night. Sleeping in a bed was a nice change of pace and got us ready for our ride to Middlegate, NV, AKA the most desolate place we would bike through in Nevada. A good night’s rest at the Lincoln and we were on our way to Middlegate. In the afternoons the headwinds in Nevada were pretty nasty, there were several days in a row where we battle it out with the wind laughing in your face because you can’t go over 10 Mph. We had a good lunch right off the side of Highway 50, which is called the “Loneliest Road in America” but Brent and I beg to differ. We saw so many cars for it to be called that, probably 200 a day, after I was expecting to see maybe 15. About five miles outside of Middlegate, NV to heard this quick noise to our right and looked over and saw that a pair of shoes had fallen from somewhere. Upon closer examination we saw this tree filled with shoes, hundreds and hundreds of pairs of shoes. I can’t explain how interesting and yet super creepy this tree was. We joked that it was the shoes of all the people that had biked through and been eaten by the desert people, or died in the desert, all the worst possible scenarios. Brent and I both threw a pair that had fallen in to the tree and continued on to Middlegate. The story behind the shoe tree is that about 12 years ago a young married couple were arguing right by the tree and the woman started to storm off and said she would "walk home", the man said "oh no you won't, not if you don't have any shoes on." Story goes he took her shoes and threw them in the tree. Locals and people passing threw saw the shoes and heard the story and started throwing shoes in the tree.
Now Middlegate turned out to be a really cool town, truck stop, restaurant bar, whatever you want to call it. Home to 17 people that mostly live in the trailers around the one restaurant/bar, and work different shifts at the establishment. They let cyclists camp out back behind the building for free and had a shower in a little red shack where were able to do laundry too. Also there was a concrete slab and basketball goal, so of course we had to hoop it up. There we were in our full spandex bike outfits playing basketball in the middle of the desert. Brent beat me in PIG and HORSE but I stopped Brent’s trash talking pretty quick when we played some one on one. We had a great burger for dinner and to our pleasant surprise watched some ESPN and college football at the bar. We had a couple beers and ventured about 100 yards into the desert, away from the noise of the generator that runs 24/7, to finish them where we could hear 4X4’s and fireworks going off. The stars in the desert really are amazing. I woke up at one point in the middle of the night and heard singing and live music coming from the bar. Middlegate was like this mix between the old west, the twilight zone, that movie “Nothing But Trouble” with Chevy Chase and Dan Akroid, and a place where the really kind residents knew they had something special all to themselves out in the desert.
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