Last night I didn't get a lot of sleep.  The previous day there was a downhill run into Kirkwood that was pretty steep with choppy road conditions and it was pretty scary.  I have a propensity to 'give the bike its reins' and because of my inexperience riding such long downhill runs I was going to fast for conditions and basically 'dodged a bullet' from crashing the bike.  Laying in bed, I started to think about all of the things that could have gone wrong and I started to lose my nerve.  What if I hit a pothole and flipped the bike?   What if I skidded on pea gravel?  What if my brakes overheated the rims and blew out the tire?  All of this at 40 mph clipped into an extremely light bike resulting in either landing on asphalt at best or over a cliff at worst.

This morning I had 6 more miles of 'up' but by the time I got to Carson Pass at 8500 ft I was feeling pretty fresh.  Six miles is nothing compare to the last 2 days of 40 miles of 'up' per day.  Jaine knew of my apprehension and scoped out the run I was about to make.

"The first mile and a third is very steep and pretty rough, but as you make the turn and see the lake for the first time, the road starts to get nice", Jaine said.  She told me to take it slow and wished me luck.  I promised myself to consistently stay light on both brakes and not allow the hill to take control of my bike.  I was determined to make this run happen.

As I turned the curve I could see the steepness of the road an braked to keep the bike at around 20 mph.  I looked about 30 yards ahead of where I was going and picked paths around the potholes and cracks in the road, keeping an eye out for sand and pea gravel patches.  Luckily, there was hardly any traffic and I could ride on the right half of the road instead of the white line.

As I progressed, my confidence grew.  I was able to brake without overheating and actually increase my speed a bit as I descended the mountain.  As Jaine described, the road got very smooth after a mile or so and straighten out so I could see far ahead.  I checked for traffic, found it all clear and started to let the bike go staying near the middle of the road.

The speed was exhilarating!  The bike and I were flying down the hill, the wheels were whirring like a spinning top, the wind roaring in my ears.  I kept the bike as steady as I could, but couldn't help but give a war whoop as I flew down the mountain.  I checked the speedometer...it was 41 mph.

It took 2 days of 40 mile climbs to get from Folsom to Carson Pass at the top of the mountain.  It took 3 hours to go 60 miles from Carson Pass to Genoa, NV.   'Nuff said.

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