Into the Desert

Leaving the relatively safe confines of California - and it's abundance of EV charging stations - for the literal and figurative deserts of Nevada...

Mar 14, 2024

Photo from the seat of a motorcycle, including the land ahead of the motorcycle, a piece of the windshield on the right edge of the photo, and the author reflected in the left rearview mirror in the lower left corner of the photo. The land ahead of the motorcycle is a tall, naked mountain in the desert with multiple, weather-worn peaks leading up to a naked top. Small clumps of grass grow in patches and exposed, dark rock appear on the hill in places. The dirt road that the motorcycle on bend to the left. The author reflected in the mirror of the motorcycle is wearing elkskin leather gloves and a black helmet with a checkerboard strip pattern along the top and a gold reflective visor that has been flipped up a little for ventilation. The reflection in the visor is more scrub brush growing in the sandy soil and the blue sky, both tinted gold. The author is holding a small orange camera with a black lens that is being used to take the photo.

[This is Chapter 6. The story begins here… I recommend viewing on a laptop or desktop or even a tablet to let the photos breathe a little more and help convey the vastness of the American West.]

May 21, 1903 — Reno, Nevada

"Waking in Reno, Nevada, on a May day morning, the 21st of the Month, I found snow falling thickly and the ground unfit for riding. Considering that I was only about 250 miles on my journey from San Francisco, I heaved a sigh that was almost a moan as I realized that I was to meet delay so soon. I had slept in a hotel- a good one as hotels go in this country- and, after a very satisfactory breakfast, I looked about for something to beguile the time away. I was in hard luck because I do not gamble, drink, smoke, or chew. The old time picturesque-ness of Reno has departed, but it is still a town of the West, western, and a man of no habits is at a discount in it. There is plenty of opportunity for drinking and gambling about, but for little else. I killed some time profitably by overhauling my machine, and after dinner I concluded to get under way."

George A Wyman

Photo of Reno, Nevada sitting in a valley. In the hazy distance is a tall mountain range with patches of trees on its flanks. Reno sits in the valley in front of the mountain range, a mix of green trees surrounding a downtown of tall buildings, mostly white. A spherical structure can be seen beside a tall hotel casino. In the foreground occupying the lower left of the frame are the green and pink grasses of a nearby hillside along with a brown rocky outcropping. Part of Reno is obscured by the hillside in the foreground.

July 14, 2016 — Reno, Nevada

A thin layer of cool evening air lingers in Reno, Nevada and seeps through the vents of my riding jacket as I ride quietly along the wide boulevards of the still sleeping city. In the morning light, it's clear that all that glittered last night was not gold; just blocks from the big casino hotel skyline are dive bars, thrift shops, and half star hotels — squat, featureless buildings that seem closer to Wyman's era than our own. I'm trying to get an early start today but it's not happening. Unlike, Wyman, it’s not snow slowing me down, it's a sandwich board promising, "2 eggs, 2 pancakes, 2 sausages, and coffee for just $5". I stop, hoping for a cute little restaurant where the waitress comes by and asks, "warm up your coffee, hon?" Instead, it’s a bar with pool tables on threadbare carpet, TV screens filled with talking heads, and slot machines all around. I should back out slowly like Home Simpson but I'm a sucker for a bargain and a little hungry. I ignore the decor and the two other patrons talking politics while I reach over the padded bar rail to eat. The food is filling and the coffee nice and strong though.

Photo of a bar. In the foreground are two stacked rows of bottles, including some corked bottles of wine and mostly liquor bottles with spouts for easy pouring. Behind the bottles are a handful of US flags. Behind them, against a distant wall, is a gaudy white architectural column with gold fluting and a marble capital. The column is simple stuck to the wall and is not supporting anything. Beside it is a neon sign, "ATM" in red letters sitting inside a blue neon oval. Another neon sign "77" sits to the right. At the top of the wall are three large, flatscreen televisions showing a football game, a bicycle race, and a sports reporter talking to camera in a studio setting.

"It was a quarter past two in the afternoon when I left Reno and I had lost a good eight hours of riding time. The snow had ceased falling, but the skies were still overcast and the ground very wet as I set forth toward Wadsworth and the great Nevada desert."

George A Wyman

Photo of a wide interstate, two lanes in each direction with generous shoulders on each side, arcing towards downtown Reno, Nevada. There are a smattering of cars and trucks on the road and a smattering of green vegetation in dry sandy soil on either side of the road. A highway exit ramp can be seen on the left, and beyond that are railroad tracks. The road bends and its vanishing point the skyline of downtown Reno can be seen. Beyond the buildings are tall mountains on the other side of the valley. The mountain on the right is tall and sandy and pink with just a smattering of green near its rounded peak. Mountains on the left are greener and hazier.

I stop on an overpass to take photos of the Reno skyline through the heat haze. An old hitchhiker with scraggly, unkempt hair, leathery skin, and raggedly clothes is by the exit ramp, trying to thumb a ride. Unsuccessful, he walks by and says, unprovoked, "Fucking yuppies."

"Why, because they won't give you a ride?"

"Nah, it's not that…" and he starts to rant about modern society before looping back and asking me, "What do you think about what's going on in this country?"

I'm a political junkie but I don't want to get into a long debate on a highway overpass, so I look for something that connect us. Turns out he's a miner who's been tramping around the West for decades. I tell him about a Kentucky miner that I met on another motorcycle trip who told stories about not seeing the sun for weeks and rolling onto his back deep in a narrow mine in order to have lunch. "Oh man, they've got it tough back East," he replies, before walking off towards Sparks, still, I think, angry at fucking yuppies. I pack up my gear and follow Wyman into the Great Basin Desert^[1].

A wide, modern interstate arcs towards distant, rugged, desert mountains beneath a blue sky. The mountains are brown with very little vegetation. To the right of the highway, beyond the safety guardrail, are a set of railroad tracks also arcing into the distance. To the right of the railroad tracks is a river whose banks are green with vegetation.

"For about 18 miles the road was fair, and then it began to get sandy. Sand in Nevada means stuff in which you sink up to your ankles every time you attempt to take a step- To further enliven matters it began to rain. Every now and then I had to dismount and walk for a stretch of a quarter of a mile. Several times the soft sand threw me because I did not respect it enough to dismount in time. A bicycle with a six horsepower motor could not get through such sand. The wheel just swings out from under, and the faster you try to go the worse it is."

George A Wyman

I hop on the I-80 entrance ramp and give the throttle a healthy twist. The Zero motor whirs like an angry electric drill, accelerating so quickly that I've got to lean forward and tighten my grip on the handlebars to keep from sliding back in the seat. In a flash, the Zero is cruising at 75 MPH and easily keeping pace with traffic. Were this July, 1903 I would be breaking Glenn Curtiss’ motorcycle land speed record (set on Memorial Day of that year) of 65 mph, but higher speeds results in more battery drain and less range, so I temper my enthusiasm and decelerate to a pedestrian 55 MPH.

Photo of the rearview mirror of a motorcycle on a wide, modern, interstate highway in Nevada. The mirror occupies the majority of the picture frame, with just the curved edges of the mirror in the corners of the photo. In the mirror's reflection, the highway recedes arrow straight towards distant, hazy mountains. The headlights of two distant cars can also be seen. To the left, the highway median is peppered with green vegetation, and the two opposing lanes of the highway can also be seen. Beyond the opposing lanes, the land is flat with sparse, low vegetation before reaching more rugged, naked mountains.

55 Miles Per Hour. This was set as the national speed limit in 1974 in response to the 1973 oil crisis when OPEC restricted output during conflict in the Middle East to increase oil prices as much as 400%.

55 Miles Per Hour. This was supposed to conserve fuel (which it did, a little) and make highways safer (which it did, a decent amount).

55 Miles Per Hour. At this speed, grandmas in minivans are passing me as if I'm standing still.

55 Miles Per Hour. I drone along, checking my mirrors obsessively to avoid becoming a hood ornament.

55 Miles Per Hour. I drone along, making sure that all of the vents on my jacket are open.

55 Miles Per Hour. My eyelids grow heavy.

55 Miles Per Hour. I wonder if it's due to the big breakfast, the heat, or the fact that I'm going 55 MILES PER HOUR.

I can't take it any longer and pull over to check Google Maps for an alternate route. A squiggly line appears to wind all the way to Fernley. I take the next exit and cross the Truckee River on an old wooden-decked, spindly single-lane steel truss bridge.

Photo taken from the seat of a motorcycle of the bike crossing an old, single-lane wooden-decked truss bridge. The vertical columns and diagonal braces of the bridge fill the frame and cast strong shadows onto the bridge deck. To the left, leafy, green trees grow alongside the river that the bridge is crossing. Beyond, is a green, grassy field and then dry, arid desert. To the right, elevated above the roadway, the level bed and rail of a railroad track can be seen. Beyond that, a naked, rounded hill. Straight ahead is the end of the bridge. The road bends to the left. A single telephone pole can be seen on the side of the road.

The wheels touch down on a sandy dirt road on the other side the bridge, the soil crunching beneath the tires as they roll alongside sagebrush and pale wild grasses close enough to touch. This is the Great Basin Desert, the dry, hot, and harsh land that Wyman, the pioneers and Forty Niners, and the Native Americans traversed. On the interstate, the landscape is pushed away by the road with its broad, safe shoulders and the speed. Here, on this narrow, sandy dirt road, I am immersed.

Photo of the rolling Nevada desert. A sandy dirt road, descends to the right and then kinks to the left and heads towards a hilly horizon. A large barren hill looms to the right of the road, its shoulders a ruddy white side versus the pinkish sand of the road. To the left of the road, down a small slope, lies a railroad making a gentle s-bend to the horizon. Beside the railroad is a river, also s-bending to the horizon, its banks green with vegetation and trees. Beyond, the land flattens to a broad, tan plain where the interstate runs. More ruddy white patches of sand appear in the distance and then on the horizon are more pink-colored mountains.

The trail zigs and climbs up to a vantage point from where I can see the railroad, the Truckee River with its banks thick with trees, an old dusty trail, and beyond that, framed by the stark brown hills, cars and trucks on the interstate. In this one frame is the history of transcontinental travel. I ride up and over the sun baked hills until I get to a bridge with a locked gate. There's no way around and I'm not confident that the other thin squiggly lines on the map won't have locked gates either. Fearful of running out of charge in the middle of nowhere, I admit defeat and retreat back to numbing efficiency of the Interstate.

Photo of a wooden-decked bridge with locked gates blocking access. It's a short bridge, with metal tracks where a car or truck's tires are supposed to travel, and white painted guardrails protecting the rusted metal structure of the bridge. About 10 feet from the camera, a metal gate comprised of pieces of blue square tubing laid out in a criss-cross pattern blocks access to the bridge. The gate is hinged on the right; there is a metal chain and lock on the left preventing the gate from swinging open. About 30 feet away from the first gate, a second, identical gate is blocking access. Beyond is low, green scrub brush, a dirt road, and distant, rocky mountains.

"Walking and riding. I managed, however, to make the 36 miles from Reno to Wadsworth in four hours and there I pitched camp for the night."

George A Wyman

Wyman averaged nine miles per hour on his way to Wadsworth. That's slower than a MAMIL (Middle-Aged Man In Lycra) out for a weekend bicycle ride. The top speed of Wyman's California motorcycle — 25 miles per hour — is about as fast as a MAMIL going downhill. But Wyman rarely achieved those blistering speeds, thanks to the roads.

"Wadsworth is one of these division settlements and I took a snapshot of it that gives a fair idea of the place. Like many railroad towns of the sort, it will soon become only a memory, for the Southern Pacific shops there now are to be removed to Reno and this will practically wipe out the town, which now has a population of perhaps 3,000. It is ever thus with the settlements in this region - here today and gone tomorrow. New places spring up in a week, and by the time some traveler has seen them and described them some shift of railroad interests has caused them be deserted villages and the next traveler cannot at all rely on finding things as described by his predecessor."

George A Wyman

Wyman was right about Wadsworth; there are fewer than 850 people there now. But neighboring Fernley, established a year after Wyman was in the area, is now 19,000 strong and, more importantly (for me at least), has a Best Western with a couple of RV hookups. Using RV hookups is a critical part of my plan. There aren't many charging stations along Wyman's route between Reno and Chicago but there are plenty of RV campgrounds with 50 amp/240 volt outlets that titanic RVs use to power their slides, air conditioners, microwaves, televisions, and power reclining lounge chairs while "camping." It's similar to the connection that an electric clothes dryer uses and can charge the Zero in 2-3 hours thanks to the bike's optional ChargeTank and a handy cable I am carrying called a JuiceCord for connecting the bike to the RV hookup.

I ride through the compact old center of town and to a sea of asphalt and giant box stores on the east end. At the Best Western, I check with the front desk before riding to the RV hookups out back. Nearby, a giant set of solar panels is angled to capture as much of the sun's rays as possible. The rest of the rays bounce off the hot asphalt and straight into my soul. I shed my helmet, backpack, and helmet and move slowly to minimize sweating.

Closeup photo of a black waterproof duffle bag. The bag is open, revealing an orange box with the label "QuiQ" in the bottom of the bag and a white box with the label "eMotorWerks JuiceCord 20 PRO Edition". At the top of the photo is a white connector for an EV charging station.

I'm a little anxious; this will be my first time trying the JuiceCord and the ChargeTank together. If it works, great. If not, it's going to take a lot longer to cross the country that I originally planned. I plug it all together like a puzzle (the motorcycle J1772 Chargetank's connected to the JuiceCord, the JuiceCord's connected to the 50 amp RV hookup, you do the hokey pokey and you shake it all about) and anxiously await the charging light on the dash to start blinking. Blink. Blink. Blink. It works! The Zero phone app confirms it. I gather my things and retreat to the air conditioned lobby to check on emails, chew on an energy bar, and back up photos. After about 90 minutes, the Zero is back to 100%. I hop back on I-80 and ride headlong in the Forty Mile Desert.

Photo of a white, sandy desert running along the side of the highway. The desert fills the width of the photo and appears to be a mile or more wide. Naked, rolling mountains lie on the horizon.

^[1] Stretching from the Sierra Nevada in California to the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, the Great Basin Desert encompasses nearly the whole state of Nevada and is an inhospitable arid plain punctuated by a series of rocky north-south mountain ranges. Little more than squat low sagebrush, saltbrush, and greasewood grows here. For pioneers heading west with dreams of new lives and golden fortunes, crossing the Great Basin Desert was one of the great challenges on the California Trail, and from 1848 to 1869, over a quarter million people ventured across.

Following Wyman: An Electric Motorcycle Adventure

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