We got a late start to what was going to be a hot day. Quinton's rear wheel was just spinning freely when we were getting ready so he headed in to Truckee to try and get it repaired. It turns out the pawls were dirty and not engaging. It was supposed to be photo pace but it sort of wasn't. Emily has been doing a few back-to-back bike packing trips and is super fit and just ripping. This was a gravel ride but the intel was that the trails were rocky so I decided to bring the Epic EVO. At first it seemed like overkill but soon it was apparent it was the right bike for the ride. The gravel descent down Bear Valley Rd. was probably the prettiest and most fun part of the ride. At the bottom we decided to head in to Loyalton for snacks and found ourselves in the middle of local classic car show. Back on course people were starting to feel tired and the trails seemed to get even rockier. The call was made to cut out the climb up to Sardine Peak, the hardest part of the ride. Even though I was feeling the beginning twinges of cramps in my inner quads and felt like the smart thing to do was to skip it, Emily and I decided to do the climb well the rest took the bypass. At the beginning of the climb, I was still feeling pretty good but a quarter to a third of the way up, I started to slow down. The climb was quite rocky and speed was something you need to get over all of them - something I was lacking. I thought the peak was at 7,500' but around each bend, I just saw more climbing ahead of me. It was relentless. On and on it went and the peak ended up being 8,000' (according to my Garmin anyway). I stopped just short of the top to plug in my Garmin which gave me a low battery warning. I was so tired that when I unclipped I actually rolled my ankle instead of landing on my feet. Luckily I seem to have strong ankles as I've done this in the past without spraining my ankles. Little did I know I was close to the top because I could hear Emily cheering somewhere nearby. But even when I got to the top, it wasn't quite the top. We had to do another short, steep, loose, section of trail to get to the peak's lookout. The views from the lookout itself were gorgeous but you wouldn't really know it from the trail itself. You really had to go to the top to enjoy them. On the way down, it was even rockier and gnarlier, with a very sandy section in between the rocky ones, than on the way up. I was super happy to be on my MTB. I ended up waiting for Emily to make sure she made it down okay on the gravel bike. It was getting late too and I was starting to get cold. Gene promised a great descent on the way back. And while there was some descending, there was also quite a bit of climbing. A fun ride but I was so tired when I got back to camp. Sardine Peak really took a lot out of me. Remember how I plugged my Garmin in to give it some juice? Well it died right when I got back to camp and was about to save the ride. I didn't think anything of it at the time because it's happened before and saved okay. This time the ride was corrupted. Luckily, after trying a couple different tools and failing, I was able to recover the ride with all the suffering intact. :)