Test your mettle by peddling
LAKE TAHOE | Bike ride offers a challenge with a view -- and a cause
LAKE TAHOE, Nev. -- "I really don't feel the need to climb anymore," said my friend Kate, as we inched our bikes up yet another hill in granny gear.
These hills would have been challenging enough if we were back home at sea level in Chicago. But we were pedaling around Lake Tahoe at an altitude of 7,000 feet, where oxygen is a little harder to come by.
AMERICA'S MOST BEAUTIFUL BIKE RIDE: Next year's event will be held on June 6. Online registration is scheduled to start Jan. 4 at bikethewest.com. The ride, which costs $115 a person, typically sells out in early February.
TOUR DE TAHOE: This 72-mile ride around Lake Tahoe will be held Sept. 13. It costs $100, or $125 after Aug. 25. Register online at bikethewest.com.
BIKE RENTAL: Tahoe Sports Ltd., 4008 Lake Tahoe Blvd., South Lake Tahoe, rents a wide range of bicycles; (530) 541-1902.
We'd been in the saddle since 6:15 a.m. and had just a few miles to go before crossing the finish line of America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride -- an event that lives up to its grandiose name.
The annual ride traces the 72-mile shoreline of scenic Lake Tahoe, North America's largest alpine lake, straddling the Nevada-California border. The snowcapped peaks of the Sierra Nevada frame Tahoe's impossibly blue waters, waters so clear, it's said you can spot a white dinner plate 75 feet below the surface. Each turn of the bike delivered a vista more stunning than the last.
Taking big gulps of pine-scented mountain air, we gained 2,600 feet in elevation over the length of the challenging course. Zooming downhill at speeds approaching 40 mph, we struggled to keep our eyes on the road -- not the scenery.
If there's a more beautiful bike ride in America, I haven't found it. But this event, in its 18th year, isn't just about postcard-perfect views. It's evolved into one of the biggest fund-raisers for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's Team in Training. Roughly half of the ride's 3,350 participants were TNT members, raising $6.8 million in the fight against leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma.
Myeloma took the life of Kate's mother, Anne Cagney, last year. Like many people pedaling up these hills, Kate was doing this bike ride both as a tribute to a loved one and an effort to help wipe out these blood cancers that will claim the lives of an estimated 53,240 Americans this year.
Each TNT rider raised at least $4,200 in pledges -- no small feat in this economy. And on this cool, sunny Sunday in June, they were taking on the final part of their challenge: cycling a "century," or 100 miles, in the high-altitude terrain of California and Nevada. (It's 72 miles around Lake Tahoe, but those wanting to make it an even 100 tacked on the difference by riding to and from the cute town of Truckee, Calif.)
Leah Roskin of Roscoe Village had never ridden a century, but that didn't stop her from signing up as one of the nearly 60 members of TNT's Illinois chapter.
"I figured if I can do something athletic and awesome and enjoy it, how cool is that?" said the 27-year-old teacher, whose grandmother died of leukemia.
This year marked the fifth America's Most Beautiful Bike Ride for Gary Clay, 47, of Arlington Heights.
"When I first started training, I said, 'What the hell did I get myself into?' " Clay said. "The answer is the best six years of my life."
During those final few miles when Kate and I were running out of gas, I focused on other cyclists' jerseys, decorated with the names and photos of the people they were riding for. Seeing a picture of a smiling child with a shaved head in a hospital gown is a not-so-subtle reminder that however hard it is to go up this hill, some people have it a lot harder.
Around mile 95, Kate started crying. "Not because of the hills," she said. "I was thinking about my mom."
As we crossed the finish line, those tears gave way to a big smile. Hundreds of onlookers cheered, clapped and waved signs as exhausted, emotional cyclists took those final few pedal strokes into the parking lot of the Horizon Casino Resort.
Lake Tahoe's blue waters were nowhere in sight, but it still was a beautiful scene.