Day 25

We had a lodge in Mammoth Lakes to stay in so a lot of people were anxious to get going this morning. Some people decided to stay behind a little and grab some breakfast at the local diner. The ride started off exactly like I thought it would with a lot of climbing. I think that I was going 4 mph up one of them. All of the climbing soon paid off with a huge decent into a valley with lakes and snow-capped mountains all around. Mammoth Lakes only has a population of about 7,000 but it is a ski resort town so on the weekends their population explodes. When we got there we were greeted by our contact, Stacy, who set up everything for us. We all had a bed for the night and a hot shower. Some of us went to the local laundry mat to wash clothes and then dropped into a bike shop, which gave us 20% off of our purchases. When we got back to the lodge Stacy had some pizzas waiting for us. There was an article in one of the local papers about us so there were a lot of people in Mammoth Lakes who were stopping us to ask how the ride was going. After supper we went to the Looney Bean coffee shop for a scheduled meet and greet for whomever wanted to pop in and talk with us. When we got back from the Looney Bean some people went to go and check out some of the local springs. Suchin, Scott, Cookies (Skip's documentary assistant), and I went to scope out some of the local tourist hangouts and to play some 42 (dominos). While we were playing at one place a guy came up to us and asked to sit with us and talk. His name was Doug and he was a local roadie. He asked us where we were going and he was happy to hear that it was Yosemite. Apparently there is a 12-mile climb with a 3,000-foot elevation change called Tioga Pass. He made it sound pretty scary but he said that if you turned around and went down it then you could get up to 60 mph!! That made us a little more excited about it so we invited him to show us the way tomorrow and ride with us. He gladly accepted so now we have a local to show us the best way tomorrow. It was getting late so we headed back to the lodge to get some sleep and mentally prepare for the 12 mile climb into the gates of Yosemite known to the locals as simply "Tioga."