Truckee to Nevada City Gran Fondo

Today was to be our biggest ride of the TDC 13 part2 and it was. We finally made it down to a decent altitude after living above 6000 feet for the last 4 days. I noticed it when I made the last climb today at 500m that I wasn't breathing as fast as the first climb at 1850m this morning.

Today's route took us along hwy 89 for most of the day including, you guessed it, another day of 2000m of climbing. That's like riding up Black Mountain 9 times.
We road 40 km for morning tea at the only diner in town at Sierraville.




Then the only flat bit for a few km




Then a long climb at 5 % to Yuba Pass, 6705 feet.




This is my Garmin telling me how high and how far I have ridden to get to the pass.




Then it was about 60 km of total downhill, no pedalling and no brakes for the first 20 odd km




There was some smoke haze in parts from a fire somewhere.




We then road through Donnieville which is in the Yuba Canyon and once lost a vote for California's State capital location to Sacramento by 10 votes. Much like Canberra in the middle of a mountain range but way more cramped.

Here is a typical scene from the downhill, following the Yuba River and all of this in the Tahoe National Forest




Again the last 15 km were all up hill with our first hot climb. Here is my Garmin at the 100 mile mark having ridden for 6 and a half hours and dropped 1100 m.




Now we are staying at the Outside Inn in Nevada City which has turned out to be a surprising bohemian old mining town.




Now for the results. Rocket was in yellow but ended up driving so was finding it hard to retain the yellow. Goose was also a co driver today.

Just to mix things up points were collected in a mixed order at each of the sprints. For the last 5 days we have been using the thousand foot elevation road signs as sprint markers. This favoured the climbers like M2 and the Grand Duke, but they couldn't cope with the intricacies of today's scoring system.

Today's stage winner was the Grand Duke rolling in just behind everyone else. Did I mention that as we were in Nevada County, that Nevada rules applied, ie reverse points. Needless to say this was not good enough to beat the Black Cav who consolidated from yesterday's stage win with numerous 1000 foot sprint points.
M2 suffered badly from leading the sprints and now has Cadel back in his possession.

Tomorrow it's a flat ride to Oroville but we have a long rest tonight.
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Location:E Broad St,Nevada City,United States