Tahoe 2008!

Americas most beautiful bike ride really lived up to its name this year. We had a wonderful trip. We had a good practice ride, where we made our way towards the Death Ride passes and stretched out our legs, then had a good pasta dinner.

We were up bright and early with a 5am breakfast, ready to ride at 6am in the parking lot. I had my camelbak all prepared with jim's photo and was all ready on time.





We made our way up the treacherous Emerald Bay switchbacks and were rewarded by a beautiful view and lots of cheering













Here are the cheerful Paul, Fern and Christine

We then made our way down a very fast hill and along to the road to Truckee. The river was more beautiful than ever, so we stopped to admire the view and take a few pictures.

The sag stop at truckee is pretty ugly, but it was nice to see our co-ordinator, heather cheering us on and giving us pretzels!









We also passed by the legendary squaw valley, site of the olympics about a million years ago


















Just as we started to get a little tired and hungry, we realised we'd made it to the beautiful kings beach. We grabbed our sandwiches and rested on some rocks to eat them. Here is the legendary coach phil enjoying his lunch with Dianna.

Paul entertained Christine, Lisa and Fern while they ate!







We also saw a really cute dog all dressed up in a TNT tee shirt, bless.








We continued our journey around the lake and came across a really picturesque spot and stopped to admire the view again, and then took our pictures and tried not to fall down the hill!! Looking over the lake at the other side it was amazing to think that we'd come from there!







When we neared the finish line, we all lined up to wait for the rest of the team and Coach DJ did his best to try and entertain us and keep our mind of beers at the finish line by doing an impromptu cheerleading session and a cartwheel! When the rest of the team arrived all smiles, we made our way in a very impressive double paceline. This is the first year I've done a century where everyone has finished. Not just finished, mind you, finished smiling, then gone to the party after and closed down the dance floor! Tahoe 2008 was really one to remember. It was also wonderful to know that the people that rode that day rasied $8.5 million to fight blood cancers.