When the TPT was celebrating its first section of trail (between Mogul and Verdi), I was living in Truckee (the community of Glenshire) and bicycle commuting to downtown Reno. After meeting Janet Phillips, I was determined to ride the entire route in one day, and on February 6, 2002, after a false start, I did just that.
The false start involved pain and tequila. A friend, Chris Riche, founder of the Discovery Museum, wanted to do the ride, so we set off in the last week of January. It was fortunately a dry winter, but cold. Chris and I had ridden together many times, but he was nursing a knee injury, and when we reached Verdi, he was done. Fortunately, the store there had some tequila (for medicinal purposes), and we soothed sore muscles while awaiting a rescue pick-up ride.
So at 5 a.m. on February 6th, I started my ride again, leaving my car at Tahoe City and heading out, fully wrapped in fleece. Back then, photos were taken with my trusty Eastman Kodak DX4330 Digital Camera and so about every hour, I stopped for a picture. Janet was interested in documenting my adventure. She asked me not to ride through the ranches on the old river road between Sparks and Waltham Way as she was working with Storey County to try and obtain permission to use the old road for the TPT route.
By 6 a.m., I passed through Truckee and used Glenshire Drive to get to Old Highway 40. None of the trails in place now were there back then, so the ride was on many adjacent roads through this section. I used a hardtail mountain bike, and I had to follow the railroad, including riding on loose railroad ballast for several sections. There are two railroad bridges to cross and one underpass, and I had to carry my bike across the tracks several times.
