Great Basin of Nevada Ride Planning

[Stichill_imp]

Along with two friends in my motorcycle club "The Cheese Weasels", I'm planning to ride > 300 miles / day from Las Vegas to Ely, Ely to Fernley, Fernley to Big Pine (CA), Big Pine back to Vegas. Flights are reserved, lodgings are reserved, bike rentals are reserved, so all there is to do now is think about the finer route details, sight-seeing / points of interest, and wait for the jumping off day to arrive in early May.

Here are the draft daily ride maps at this point.

Day 1 Vegas to Ely (need to add a detour into Valley of Fire state park per Nachodaddy)


Day 2 Ely to Fernley on US 50 "The Loneliest Road in America"


Day 3 Fernley to Big Pine, CA via Tonopah. Stopping to take a look at the [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crescent_Dunes_Solar_Energy_Project]Crescent Dunes solar thermal power plant. I was the project leader from my company to supply high-precision position feedback systems for the 10,000+ heliostats that focus the sun's energy on the tower. The overall project has been rather a bust financially because the business case was never really there (I think it was a money grab for the solar subsidies to be honest; the start-up that organized it was fly-by-night and folded after they unloaded it on an energy management company), but it's still an impressive "science fiction" installation.


Day 4 Big Pine to Las Vegas - bypassing most of Death Valley due to roads being washed out