America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride? Maybe

by Rob Annis on

As I round the final switchback of the climb, the road grade tilts upward yet again. My fingers nudge my shifter, trying to retreat to a lower gear, but I’m already on my final cog; it’s up to just my legs now to get me to my first destination of the day.

About 30 hard pedal strokes later, I coast into the Emerald Bay scenic vista, my reward for hundreds of feet of climbing that cool spring morning. I lean my bike against a sign and stare down upon the beautiful blue lake below. Had I seen this same image on a travel brochure, I’d swear it was photoshopped, but it’s here in front of me, in living color brighter than any Kodachrome image I’ve ever seen.

If you’re calling a bike ride “America’s Most Beautiful,” the scenery had better deliver. Luckily for the organizers of this 100-mile jaunt around Lake Tahoe and the surrounding countryside, it does … and then some. I’ve ridden these roads multiple times over the past three years, and the lake continues to take my breath away nearly every time I see it.Two Lake Tahoe centuries are offered by ride promoters each year – America’s Most Beautiful Bike Ride in June and the Tour de Tahoe in September – but it’s simple enough to create your own epic ride. Although the lake’s circumference is only 72 miles, a 28-mile out-and-back excursion on Highway 89 to the nearby town of Truckee will give you the mileage you need to crack 100 miles on your cyclocomputer.

To ride the 72-mile loop, just keep the lake on your right side and pedal. There are more than a few convenience stores offering Gatorade and granola bars along the route, as well as plenty of mom-and-pop diners, delis and bakeries to grab lunch during the ride. Be sure to stop in Tahoe House Bakery & Gourmet, which bakes the best coconut macaroons my buddy Ross has ever tasted. I’m partial to the Denver omelet at the Driftwood Café, and I’ve also heard great things about Café Fiore in South Lake Tahoe.

You don’t need to be a super-fit rider to finish the route, nor do you need an expensive $6,000 racing bike. I passed several folks who were stretching the limits of their XL cycling jerseys, but still managed to make it up every hill and mountain. Throughout the ride, I came across several riders who earned my admiration and respect – a New Jersey cyclist riding a heavy steel single-speed, a woman on a tiny folding bike with 20-inch wheels and multiple riders atop heavy old-school mountain bikes.

That said, be ready for between 3,500 and 4,000 feet of climbing on the route. There are two major climbs – the 800-foot climb up to the 6,900-foot Emerald Bay summit, which features multiple switchbacks and a steep kicker toward the end, and the 7,100-foot Spooner Lake summit climb, which rises 1,000 vertical feet over eight miles. After Spooner, just when you think the climbing’s over, you’re faced with seven demoralizing rolling hills. More than a few riders say those climbs are the toughest of the day.

My Cannondale Supersix was armed with a standard Ultegra crank and an 11-28 rear cassette, and I never felt in jeopardy of going backwards on a climb. For the less-vertically inclined, a compact or triple chainring will allow you to spend more time in the saddle rather than standing on the pedals.

Dedicated bike lanes and wide shoulders for most of the route allow more nervous riders an extra degree of security. Because Tahoe is a popular destination for road cyclists, local motorists are used to riders and typically give them a wide berth. Nevada’s new 3-foot passing law helps as well.

You can ride in either direction, but I’d recommend most riders stick to navigating the roads in a clockwise direction; going counter-clockwise, you’re stuck pedaling up Spooner on a busy multiple-lane highway for nearly 8 miles. Better to safely descend on that same road, where your speed will nearly match the automobile traffic. Because of the occasionally twisty nature of the highway, stick to the center of the right-hand lane; the shoulder is too narrow to safely navigate at speed.

But the biggest dangers to cyclists aren’t drivers, but themselves. The route offers at least two screaming downhills, and less experienced riders must resist the temptation to break the sound barrier descending. During my most recent trip, I rounded a blind corner to come across two ambulances in the center of the road tending to injured cyclists. I squeezed my brakes, causing my rear wheel to fishtail slightly as I came to a stop. Had I been going faster, I might have joined the riders on the pavement.

Being a popular tourist destination means plenty of lodging options around the lake. I usually use Harvey’s, a casino hotel straddling the edge of California and Nevada as my base of operations, although there are literally hundreds of other options nearby.

Ironically, visitors will see photos of the area’s immense natural beauty throughout the casino, but many won’t venture outside the gambling parlors. In the early-morning hours before day one of riding, I stumble out of bed and find myself in the casino. On my way to breakfast, I’m forced to weave through hordes of heavy-lidded gamblers wearing last night’s party clothes. Walking toward the escalator to the restaurant, I noticed a man nursing a half-empty Corona at the bar, holding a cigarette burned down nearly to the filter with one hand and sullenly punching the buttons of a video poker machine with the other. Forty minutes later – and nearly as many cups of coffee later — I saw him again, in the same spot, holding his head in his hands.

Beware the mountainous region’s notoriously unpredictable weather – three years ago organizers of the Amgen Tour of California canceled two stages of the race after a heavy blizzard made the roads nearly impassable. A week later, I rode the route and was pelted by rain and hail as the mercury struggled to pass 45 degrees for most of the day. When the temperatures rose, so did the condensation — as the water on the roads evaporated, the roads were blanketed with a thick vapor making it nearly impossible to see more than 10 feet in front of you. However the last two years have been nearly perfect, with the chilly morning temperatures in the upper 40s giving way to highs in the 70s later in the day.

I’ve ridden all over the U.S., in some of the most incredibly scenic places that human eyes have come across. Are the roads surrounding Lake Tahoe truly America’s Most Beautiful? That’s hard to say, but I can promise you won’t be disappointed.

Coopers Rock: Morgantown, West Virginia

by Elizabeth Seward on

I have lost count of how many times I have been here. I started coming to Coopers Rock State Forest in Morgantown, West Virginia, when my family first moved to the town, which was seven years ago. The 12,000-some acres of beautiful hiking trails begin just a couple exits down the highway from my parents’ house. No matter which trail I plan on hiking, I always start off by taking in the view at The Overlook – imagery that simply never gets old. The hills of the Appalachian Mountains fall sharply into the tumultuous Cheat River at the bottom of the country crevice that The Overlook overlooks. Boulders stand in all postures throughout the grounds below and behind me, looking as if they’d been dropped into their place from the sky. The haze of the horizon distracts me in scenic areas like this one. No matter what type of landscape unfolds around me, I return to that indigo blur at the back of the frame every few minutes as if to contextualize that which is before me. I do this at The Overlook of Cooper’s Rock. I do this every time.

%Gallery-190472%I wonder about the man who was the park’s namesake, the fugitive who hid out near this very overlook to escape the police more than 150 years ago. He happened to be a cooper by trade and he continued honing his skill and doing business with the communities surrounding Coopers Rock while hiding out for many years. The story is legend in these parts and it’s said that no one knew the cooper’s name, but if I had to guess, he hid out in this forest somewhere between the years of 1836-1847, since he purportedly survived by trading his handcrafted barrels for food at the worksites of the five furnaces that were on the grounds at the time. The biggest and most famous of those furnaces was the Henry Clay Iron Furnace, which employed around 200 people and, although completed in 1836, stopped operation shortly after in 1847. No one knows where exactly the cooper lived, but legend has it that he lived near The Overlook and many speculate that he lived in the cave right below The Overlook.

But there are countless caves and cracks and crannies throughout this park. That’s part of the reason I keep coming back – I discover something new each time.

The mountain air is fresh and reliably rejuvenating. I swallow it in a hurry with a thirst that can only come from living in a populous concrete city. My 6-year-old niece is with me, as well as my husband and my two dogs. As for my niece, this is her first time ever hiking. She says she wants to climb rocks and so I let her. I carefully explain some of the basic free climbing principles to her and instruct her to apply the focus she’s learned from practicing yoga with me toward this new activity. She does so masterfully, making me smile with pride as I stand beneath her, watching her every flinch and waiting for what I perceive to be the inevitable fall. She never falls. Instead, upon conquering each boulder, she requests a go at a bigger boulder and we move on in a perpetual search of “bigger.”

I return the following day and take the dogs through a portion of the park I’ve never explored on the opposite side of Highway 68. We meander along a stream on the Glade Run Trail until it leads us to a pond wherein one of my dogs spends the next 30 minutes swimming, furiously and fastidiously retrieving flung sticks time and time again.

When I make it back to the car on this second day, on this numberless departure, I am struck with the recognition that it’s a special thing to so deeply treasure a place so close to home, to not be lost in its familiarity but rather stricken continually by its treasures hiding and awaiting my discovery, to always seek and find its newness. I’m grateful for this and promise myself to try to remember this lesson for all places, though not all places were created equal.

Private Jet Travel For The 99 Percent: Book Your Private Jet Via Facebook Or App

by McLean Robbins on

It’s easier than ever to travel like the 1%. Tech-savvy travelers know that they can use services like Uber in many major cities to call a town car or SUV on demand. But what about air travel? Historically, private jets have been reserved for the ultra-wealthy and celebrities who can afford to keep that G-4 on 24/7 call.

Companies like NetJets have attempted to democratize the private airline industry, offering purchase of private jet hours at much lower price points than full ownership, but the barriers to entry are still there. A NetJets Marquis Jet Card allows people to purchase as few as 25 or 50 jet hours, but the cost is still around $120,000 for just a few hours in the air.

Of course, this may not seem pricey to companies who need to get somewhere now or those people who are already used to chartering planes for private use – the cost has been proven to be money saving, in some instances, for groups of business travelers used to traveling first class commercially.

But now a new breed of private jet companies has infiltrated the marketplace. Names like JetSuite and BlackJet are revolutionizing private aviation, transforming the term “jetsetter” into something nearly anyone can afford.

JetSuite, a private jet airline that launched in 2009, offers a guaranteed price quote for flights to more than 2,000 airports across North America and the Caribbean. CEO Alex Wilcox, a founder of JetBlue, certainly aims high – his goal is to make JetSuite “the Southwest Airlines of private jet travel.”

He’s well on his way. Through the company’s “SuiteDeals,” released daily via Facebook and Twitter, consumers can find empty leg sales opportunities ranging from $499 to $1,499 for next-day, one-way trips. The price isn’t per person; it’s per aircraft – on a Phenom 100 (seats four) or a Citation CJ3 (seats six). The type of aircraft is confirmed after booking.

Today, for example, one could fly from San Diego to St. George, Utah, for $536.43. A commercial flight on Delta would be $406, economy, with one stop in Salt Lake City.

BlackJet is essentially the Uber of private jets. The company lets you book private flights via iPhone app, reserving seats two days in advance on flights between San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Las Vegas and South Florida. Other cities are coming soon, like Chicago and Washington, D.C. Well-behaved pets are even permitted. The company has generated some serious buzz, raising over $3 million in funding with names like celebrity Ashton Kutcher and SalesForce CEO Marc Benioff backing the company.

It’s a bit less populist than Uber. You have to be a “member” to book a trip – which means signing up online and waiting for approval. There’s also a $2,500 “member fee” for your first flight. You won’t get charged until you book that first ticket, but it’s there. After that the flying part is pretty easy. You travel, then pay, and members enjoy guaranteed seats on flights. The cost is a bit more than JetSuite too, but the planes are bigger and the flights often longer.

A seat on a flight from DC to San Francisco for next week would cost $3,351 per person, compared with commercial economy flights from $253 (with stop) or first class from $732 (with stop). It’s pricier than flying with the public, but still a lot cheaper than the comparable $20,000 to charter that plane on your own.

What do you think, readers? Would you try one of these new private jet models? We’d be thrilled to test either – but probably need to check our savings accounts first!

Ljubljana: Why Slovenia’s Cool Capital Needs To Be On Your Bucket List

by Sean McLachlan on

Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, has been trumpeted by travel writers for a good 10 years now, yet this artsy little city of 270,000 still doesn’t get overrun with tourists. Perhaps it’s because it’s surrounded by better-known countries like Italy and Croatia; perhaps people confuse it with Slovakia; perhaps people still have old Communist imagery in their heads. Whatever it is, you can visit this cheap, fun capital without being trampled by photo-snapping hordes like in Paris or Prague.

This is the first photo I took in Ljubljana and it sums up my impression of the place: family-friendly, lots of culture and a few surprises. Like why there are all those shoes hanging up everywhere.

To get oriented I took the Ljubljana Free Walking Tour, which lasted a bit more than two hours and was hugely informative. A local university student named Neja led us all over her city’s historic center and gave us a great introduction to Ljubljana and Slovenia. She even explained the shoes. University students throw them up there at the end of term. The “shoe wire” I photographed is right next to Cobblers Bridge but apparently that’s just a coincidence. There are several wires adorned with footwear all over town.

%Slideshow-578%

The historic center is a delight for anyone who likes colorful architecture. Vienna Secession, a central European take on Art Nouveau, was big here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries and colorful examples flank the river that runs through the center of town. There’s plenty of Baroque buildings too along with an unfortunate scattering of concrete Communist monstrosities. Apparently living and working in an attractive building was thought to be symbolic of capitalist decadence or something. Fortunately most of the worst examples of Communist ugliness are outside the historic center.Architecture isn’t the only culture you’ll find. Ljubljana is a great place for drinking and dining. Slovenia has a distinct cuisine that I’ll cover later in this series. The city’s restaurants offer a wide sampling of other cuisines too, especially Italian. The bar scene isn’t as active as most European capitals but is good enough for a night out. One odd little place is Pr’Skelet at Ljubljanska cesta 1b, where you go down into a cellar made up to look like a medieval dungeon filled with skeletons. Their cocktail menu is numbers more than 180 strong mixes. Try more than a couple and you’ll end up as part of the decoration.

Like the nightlife, shopping is not too extensive but still worth checking out. Antique and bookshops abound, and the farmers market next to the Triple Bridge by the river is worth going to for local delicacies such as wine, honey, mead, fruit and produce.

Most visitors head on up the hill overlooking town to see Ljubljana’s castle, the nation’s most popular attraction. Slovenia is at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and has lots of great castles. I’ll be talking about them in my next post.

The city has several good museums. The best is the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum with its large collection of folk art and interactive displays about life in traditional and modern Slovenia. Numerous video panels feature interviews with Slovenians young and old about everything from contemporary views on religion to being a World War II partisan. It’s a really good way to learn more about the people you’re visiting.

An even better way is to hook up with the local Couchsurfing community, which runs weekly meetings open to all. I went to one and had a great evening learning about the country, sampling various unusual liquors and ending up with more invitations to go out that week than I had time to accept. As I’ve mentioned before, Couchsurfing is more than a free place to stay, it’s also a ready-made community welcoming you with open arms.

One thing that struck me again and again while meeting Slovenians was their repeated assertion that they are distinct from the rest of former Yugoslavia. There’s a common saying here: “Yugoslavians are brothers in blood, cousins in language, and foreigners in culture.” One said his nation was different than the rest of the former Yugoslav republics because it had spent many years as a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, while they had been ruled by the Ottoman Empire.

The civil war in Yugoslavia is still fresh in people’s memory, even though Slovenia managed to avoid the worst of it. One university student, too young to have many clear memories of the war itself, almost broke down in tears as she talked about it. The war hasn’t left scars; it has left open wounds. I haven’t been to any other parts of former Yugoslavia but I imagine the emotional damage of the people there must be far worse.

Despite a harsh past and a troubled economic present, Slovenians seemed determined to enjoy themselves. Parks and cafes are full and people take long strolls along the river. Through most of their long history, Slovenians have been ruled by other nations. Independence has given everyone new hope.

One big advantage to the little nation of Slovenia is that it’s cheaper than most of the rest of Europe, certainly cheaper than any other nation that has a piece of the Alps to show off. A nice single room in the heart of downtown was 64 euros, breakfast included. A meal for one with wine rarely went over 15 euros. And since the city is so small you probably won’t spend anything on transportation costs.

So if you’re looking for a relatively cheap European destination with plenty to offer, consider Slovenia, and check out the rest of this series for more information.

This is the first in a new series, “Slovenia: Hikes, History, and Horseburgers.”

Coming up next: Like Castles? Go to Slovenia!

Cycling The Niagara River Recreation Trail: Ice Wine, War Of 1812 History, And A Back Door To Niagara Falls (Part 2)

by Dave Seminara on

Click here to read part one of this story. In recent weeks, U.S. and Canadian officials have been fighting over a development issue at the Peace Bridge, but when I drove over the bridge, built to commemorate 100 years of peaceful relations between U.S. and Canada, one warm day late last summer, I had much older hostilities in mind. Two months before, I had taken a bike ride from Niagara Falls to Niagara-on-the-Lake. This time, I returned to cycle the Fort Erie to Niagara Falls section of the trail, with the goal of learning a bit more about the War of 1812, and to approach Niagara Falls from a direction I’d never seen before.

I ditched my car in Fort Erie, a town on the Canadian side of the border where the U.S. army withstood a six month long siege during that forgotten war. On the New York side of the border, Fort Erie is known more for its proliferation of gentleman’s clubs, know as the “Canadian ballet” in these parts. Ontario’s drinking age is 19 and Americans have long flocked to Fort Erie’s strip joints, which offer full bars and nude women, a combination that isn’t legal in New York.

I followed the road that paralleled the river until the dedicated bike path started just outside of town, next to a seedy looking campground across from the Frenchman’s Creek War of 1812 Memorial.

Right beside the trail there’s a plaque describing the Battle of Frenchman’s Creek, which was a failed American invasion described as a “fiasco” that took place on November 28, 1812, and some “War of 1812” wreaths adorned with British and American flags. I rode on for miles with modest homes on my left and Buffalo’s oddly beautiful tableau of disused industrial plants and oil refineries just across the river on my right, until pulling over to check out the Willoughby Historical Museum, about 12 miles north of Fort Erie.

The one-room museum (see below) features displays and artifacts from the War of 1812, and since I was their only visitor, Jonathan Milner, a young man who serves as one of the museum’s historians, was thrilled to stop for a chat. I asked him if Canadians were as ignorant about the War of 1812 as Americans and he toed the line between honesty and diplomacy.

“For us, the War of 1812 is prominent in the school curriculum, and because it’s the bicentennial, the Canadian government has put out advertisements touting four Canadian heroes- General Isaac Brock, Laura Secord, Tecumseh, and Charles de Salaberry,” he said.

Given the fact that the war ended in an effective stalemate, I found it a bit surprising that Canadians are expending much effort to remember this conflict. But many consider the war to be a key moment in forging their national identity. Milner asserted that recollections of the conflict, whose conclusion marked the beginning of peaceful relations between the neighbors, are selective in Canada.

“People here often refer to it as a war of American aggression,” he said. “We talk about the American invasion of York but we don’t talk about the British invasion into Baltimore, the attack on the White House, things like that.”

The Canadian government has committed at least $28 million towards celebrating the bicentennial with more than 100 events, including several later this year, but there hasn’t been as much interest in marking the anniversary on this side of the border despite the fact that historians believe that the war helped consolidate the freedom we won in the revolution and helped unify the country.

I had a feeling that Milner would have been content to talk history all day but I had a mission to complete, so I continued north up to the site of the Battle of Chippawa, where on July 5, 1814, American forces routed an equal number of British troops for the first time.

The victory proved that American troops could hold their own against British and Canadian units, and just five months later, a peace treaty was signed in modern day Belgium. Word traveled slowly in those days, however, and the war’s most famous battle, a victory for the U.S. at the Battle of New Orleans, actually occurred two weeks after the treaty was signed. A fittingly bizarre conclusion to a war that is still difficult to understand.


Just minutes after leaving the battle site, I got my first glimpse of the mist rising from Niagara Falls off in the distance. Right after you catch a glimpse of the Skylon Tower in the distance, the path splits from the Niagara Parkway, and you begin to traverse a series of rickety wooden bridges. At this point, the roar of the Cascade rapids, where the water rushes through at up to 25 MPH, is louder than the nearby traffic and you get that giddy sense of excitement that comes from knowing that you’re approaching mighty Niagara, where some 6 million cubic feet of water go over the Falls every minute.


After crossing over a series of bridges and re-emerging on the path, protective fencing gives way to a lovely untrammeled view of the rapids and the midst rising above the Horseshoe Falls. The path is so close to the rapids that a suicidal or highly inexperienced rider could easily veer into the river, never to be heard from again.

Only four people have gone over Niagara Falls without any protective equipment and survived: the first was a 7 year old boy who fell in the river in 1960; the other incidents were apparent suicide attempts, most recently in May 2012 when an unidentified man suffered a collapsed lung and broken legs but survived. Numerous others have fallen into the river and died, including a 19-year-old Japanese student who was posing for a photo while straddling a railing with an umbrella in her hand in August 2011. She apparently lost her balance, fell into the river and went over the Horseshoe Falls. And just a few days ago, a 17-year-old boy died after saving his little sister, who fell into the Niagara River.

The trail runs right into the best view of the Horseshoe Falls and, though I’d seen them dozens of times before, approaching on a bike, riding along the rapids made the experience seem somehow novel. The beauty of the trail is that just an 1/8th of a mile away from the spot where a mass of humanity gathers right next to the Horseshoe Falls, there is complete tranquility and almost no tourists in sight. On the Niagara River Recreation Trail, you can almost have Niagara Falls all to yourself.

Click here to read part one of this story.