The Loneliest Road in America
The Loneliest Road in America
Scenes from solar-biking through a forgotten landscape
Gravel merges with scalding asphalt and Nevada screams to life. Casinos frame the border: Margaritaville, Golden Nugget — a miniature Vegas in the Jeffery pines. I clench my teeth against traffic and flash my lights. There are very few givens in bikepacking, but one is roadrage vacationers, speeding dangerously towards rest & relaxation. Tahoe is no exception; Tevas, flannels, and Truckee hats aside, the vibe on the lakeshore drive is distinctly Los Angeles rush hour.
Four days of California cycling has been too much and not enough. I already miss the wildflowers, the produce, the Pacific, the friends. “I’ll be back in November!” I shouted as we rode off from my old house in Berkeley. But cozy is a word that comes from contrast; the warmth of home blazes brightest when you’ve come in from a long stretch of cold.
Or sweltering heat. It’s July and we have a desert to cross.
The ‘Loneliest Road in America’ is a sparse section of Route 50 stretching across Nevada. The name came from an insult; a 1986 article in Life warned road-trippers away from the highway at all costs, unless they wanted to “test their survival skills” against the unforgiving Great Basin. But in a stroke of marketing genius1, Nevada’s state tourism board proudly hawked the moniker, inviting tourists to stamp faux passports and buy tchotchkes in each of the route’s tiny towns. You can even buy a Route 50 Survival Guide, although it mostly serves as an adbook for bars and restaurants.
For a bikepacker, a deserted road holds promise and peril. You have to balance the allure of car-free riding with the obligation to stuff your panniers full of spare tires, ramen, and Gatorade. A pre-departure chat with Dan and Natasha, two Warmshowers hosts in Tahoe, warned me and Polo that we couldn’t expect to see other cyclists or trail magic; we’d have to fend for ourselves once leaving Carson City.
No matter. In a noisy, crowded world, it can be good to feel alone.
Five miles before Fallon, Nevada
Two of my tires go flat as I blast through construction debris, lost in a daydream. Timing is good; Fallon has a McDonalds, a Walmart, a high school. At 3 PM in 105-degree heat, most restaurants are closed. But I push open the door to Pizza Factory and Neil, the on-duty manager, greets me with a whoop.
“From San Francisco! What the hell!” Neil trumpets with incredulity and pushes free soft drinks into my hands as I explain the need for shade, food, and electricity. The restaurant is empty save for us; Polo and I scarf down a meal before scribbling out a to-do list. The pre-departure scramble brings back memories of provisioning for the Atlantic Crossing, which leaves me with a taste of dread.2
When I return with groceries and an armful of bike tools, I see Adam, a Scotsman-turned Arizonan helping Polo pry off my bike’s rear wheel. They’re riffing on the common themes of two Europeans in a small American town: the country’s vastness, the bizarre size of cars, the signs advertising that handguns are welcome — as long as you think before shooting.
“Is that SOLAR PANELS! That’s genius, it’s SO COOL!” A rail-thin man exits the Pizza Factory sporting a Hawaiian shirt, khakis, and a bright red MAGA hat.
I break into a smile. These are the moments I’ve been searching for.
A churchyard in Austin, Nevada
“You know, electricity ain’t free! Ya’ll better put a donation in the box if you want to do that.” A toothless man in a highlighter-yellow tee-shirt wags his finger at me just as the sun sets. For a second, I bristle, exhausted from the day’s climb and desperate for a shower.
But instinct takes over; I was raised in the South, where the more flies with honey than vinegar thing was taken sometimes too seriously. With an apology and a smile, I let him know our envelope of cash is already in the wooden drop box and diagnose the real source of the issue; the site we’ve chosen is too close to the man’s own trailer. Easy fix.
As Polo and I move the tent, the man opens up. His name is Charlie, and he’s moved back to Austin after decades in Reno. A bus used to run the 170-mile stretch, but the days of public transport on the route are long departed. Without a working car, Charlie is stranded in Austin, population 16, forever. “It’s a nice enough place,” he insists. “But you better watch out for the pass tomorrow morning; it’ll be the hardest one you do in your trip!” I don’t have the heart to tell him we’ll climb through the Rockies a week later.
In the morning, Charlie prays for us. “Dear Lord, protect these young people from the crazy drivers and the Mormon crickets.”
We wave goodbye, a would-be-enemy turned into a friend.
Somewhere in the middle of the Great Basin Desert
My whole person is chameleon. I go red with sunburn and fruit-punch electrolytes, then blip to a deep tan before fading to dusty gray. Chain grease coats my legs — a grimy tar added to the jumbled tableau. I match the desert perfectly, with its crimson sunsets, gold tumbleweeds, and jet-black road. My brain is equally fried.
There are no campsites out here. Part of the beauty of sleeping outside is finding a river, lake or tree at the end of the day, pitching the tent and making a nice meal, swapping stories by the fire. But it’s too hot, too risky to burn anything. Shade is nonexistent. We wild camp, sleeping on slivers of gravel wherever we find them.
“Back ze frick away!” Polo’s French accent is strongest when he’s alarmed. His headlamp illuminates a giant snake with a vicious rattle, the first of his life.
I move the tent, again. Best to know when you’re beaten.
The Border Inn Casino
Nevada exits the way she entered, with slot machines and cigarette smoke. I’m sulking in a patch of shade outside, drinking a weak coffee3, when a man’s voice jolts me from my stupor.
“Ya’ll are my HEROES!” The speaker introduces himself as Dennis, a Missoruian mountaineer / cyclist / general outdoorsman who’s just come from climbing in the national park. He takes dozens of photos of the bikes and sends them to his wife back home. They’ve cycled 22,000 miles on a tandem.4
“I don’t know what ya’ll’s perspective is on climate change…” he ventures, before sharing what he’s seen in the mountains: shrinking snowpack, melting glaciers, smoky skies — heartbreak. It strikes me that I appear neutral; my bike and panel don’t betray my politics, my climate anxiety, my work. There is a magic to this mode of being: the ability to move between conversations, places, worlds. 15 other people stop to chat and to photograph us: Harley riders, veterans, gemstone-wearers, Berkeley students, union workers, all with smiles and support.
Dennis invites us to visit his at-home indoor climbing wall and honks a final goodbye in his tiny yellow car.
I wonder if it weighs less than our bikes.
Delta, Utah. Population 3,742
The final stretch reveals a troubling setback. Just because Nevada advertises its claim to the Loneliest Road in America doesn’t mean the road actually ends there. In fact, the 88-mile stretch with no services from Border5 to the next town beats our distance record by a dozen miles. I swear for a minute, then pedal.
Utah’s famous red rocks lie far to the east. The road is grey, interminable, pale. My eyes fill with stinging, salty dust. I loop through my cycling playlist three times.
In Delta, Richard and Becky welcome us to their high-ceilinged home with pasta and warm bread and pie. They’re something of an institution, the only cycle-friendly home in a 300-mile radius, hosting college students and retirees and racers of all types. We talk about green energy, mining, the Tour de France, water wars, and skincare.
We sign their guestbook. We continue on.
Trip statistics:
Miles: 415
Days: 5
Flat tires: 3
Rattlesnakes: 2
Thanks to Thomas Polo for all the incredible photos in this post.
Thanks to Natasha and Dan, Neil + Marco + all the other employees of Fallon’s Pizza Factory, Adam + Family, Charlie, Dennis, Peter + Joe, John, the Middlegate Station owners, Chris, the proprietor at Border Inn Casino, the Californians at the Subway in Ely, and of course, Richard and Becky and Dewey, for showing us that a road is only as lonely as you let it be.
That far predated Donald Trump’s triumphant reclamation of Hillary Clinton’s ill-advised ‘basket of deplorables’ comment in 2016.
After nearly five months at sea hitchhiking sailboats, I’ll take a bike over a boat any day of the year. They both provide monotony, but at least with the former, you’re getting some exercise.
And Polo’s. He doesn’t drink coffee, but I usually order one for him anyways.
A sign of a rock-solid relationship, but not something I aspire to. My friends Lauren and Laurien have done this; they joke that the only reason it works is because Laurien is partially deaf.
Yes, according to the Border Inn Casino’s staff, this is the actual name.
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Great story!