America’s largest bike race, the Tour of California, is set to start in South Lake Tahoe on Sunday with an epic stage that includes 2 laps of the Lake, a final climb up Brockway Summit (elev. 7,179′), and finishing at Northstar resort. Lake Tahoe and the surrounding area is known as one of the best places in the world to ride a bike, on the road or trail. It’s with this in mind that we planned a family trip to visit friends on the north shore in Kings Beach. We have it all planned out: drive up Saturday, ride out with the bros to Emerald Bay on Sunday to watch the first lap, then back to Tahoe City and drive to see the finish at Northstar. Then we saw this:
A high of 36 degrees and 70% chance of precipitation?! Tahoe is known for beautiful summer weather but, even still, once we got 2″ of snow on a trip in mid-June. Such is life in the high mountains. If anyone doubts the toughness of a pro bike racer, just tune in to Versus on Sunday to watch what happens. If anyone doubts my toughness, let me be the first to say those doubts would be true. I don’t want any part of riding and standing on the side of the road to watch in those kinds of conditions! We may forgo the Tahoe trip and watch closer to home on Wednesday at the finish of Stage #4 in San Jose.
Here’s another reason to never doubt the toughness of a pro bike racer: the Giro is still planning on going up Mt. Etna on Sunday despite the mountain erupting Wednesday night. Yes, that’s right. They will race their bikes to the top of a live, recently-erupted volcano – 2 climbs and the finish. Crews are currently working through the night to clear the roads of ash and rocks from the eruption. You can read about it HERE. Every stage of this years Giro airs daily on Universal Sports.
Back to the TOC, check out this preview of Stage #1 at Tahoe:
If you were racing, which conditions would you prefer: 25 degrees and snow, 35 degrees and rain, or an erupting volcano?
Ride on…
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