Cycling to Lake Sabrina (1 of 15)

9/7 I was not sure the legs were feeling up for it, but we decided to try another epic climb - this time in the Sierras instead of the White Mountains. We started an hour ealier to try to get above 7,000 ft. by 9:00 to beat the heat. This time we took highway 168 west from Bishop straight to the end. It started climbing immediately, but only about 1% for the first few miles. At mile 4, the real climbing started. We quickly reached the 5,000 ft. marker. Just as we passed 6,000 ft, we saw a campground and decided to see if we could get some water to refill our bottles. There was a film crew there filming a Suzuki motorcycle commercial, and they offered us some of their water - score!

Shortly after we passed a single sweeping curve, the 5% grade ticked up to about 10% for a short bit, and then dropped back off a bit. The next 6 miles to 8,000 ft. was a set of two long straightaways. The 3 miles from 7,000 to 8,000 ft. was straight up a canyon. You could see the saddle of the mountain constantly, but it never seemed to get any closer. Finally we arrived at 8,000 ft. to a split in the road with one branch going 7 miles to South Lake and 168 continuing 4 miles to Lake Sabrina. We knew the remainder would only be about 5.5%, thankfully. The road continued for one mile past the end of 168 in Aspendell. There were a couple really steep little pulls up to the dam on the lake. When we crested, we were greeted with a lovely Alpine lake view and a little bait shop/restaurant. We had hamburgers and fries (not much selection) and shared a piece of apple and pear pie while enjoying the view.

We refilled our bottles and strapped on the helmets for the wicked descent. With the long straightaways of 8% on a still day, one could easily exceed 50mph. However, with the thermic effect blowing winds uphill, it held us well below - even with no brakes. The fastest we could achieve was around 40mph.

Our afternoon was spent doing laundry, eating Japanese food, and seeing the movie Invincible.