A More Urban Ride: Sparks

It’s getting tougher to avoid crowds around Tahoe, or anywhere in the Sierra. Bike rides, streams and lakes that used to be relatively unknown have been exposed via social media and social circles. There’s still a few good bike ride locations out there, but we have done them many times since this whole new world arrived in March. So today, we decided to head to the slightly more urban area of Sparks, Nevada.

Initially, it was our intention to ride the Erica Greif Memorial Bikeway, which parallels Veterans’ Parkway on the eastern fringe of Sparks. Having never heard of it, we figured it would be less crowded. The bikeway was completed in 2018 and memorializes a young UNR student that was killed in a car accident in 2015.

There is not a designated parking area for the EGMB. So we set out along Veterans Parkway to find a place to safely park and unload bikes. That’s when we noticed the eastern section of the Tahoe Pyramid bike trail along side the Truckee River. That altered our plans. We found a nice dirt pullout for parking along Pembroke Drive to park, next to the now closed and overgrown Rosewood Lakes Golf Course.

We retraced our route along the EGMB for a mile or two and connected with the Tahoe Pyramid Bikeway, turning right to find the current end of the pavement, just past the Vista Blvd exit on Highway 80.

From there we turned around and followed the trail along the Truckee River until it passed under Glendale Blvd, near the Grand Sierra Resort. The path is paved and marked with two lanes the entire way. Most of the time, two lanes hardly seemed necessary. We saw a just bit more than a dozen people on the trail, all individuals, in 16 miles of riding. The exception was where the trail passes through Rock Park, which was quite busy today with swimmers and tubers.

There’s a mixture of pastoral scenes, river vistas, urban fringes and full on junkyards along the path. Along our way, we saw a multitude of cows and California ground squirrels, and various waterbirds, including a heron and some egrets. We also saw a very bewildered beaver, whom happened to wander up onto the bike path.

As we got closer in toward the urban part of the river, we noted several homeless encampments along the river, mostly on the opposite side of the river. The map of this Tahoe Pyramid trail section notes this. It’s unfortunate, but it is reality. If you think we don’t have homeless encampments around the Truckee River near Truckee and Tahoe, then you’re not getting out much.

As we headed back toward our truck along the Erica Greif Memorial Bikeway, we shifted into high gear and enjoyed the breeze. We’ll have to come back and do that full trail some time when it is not 91°, maybe during an early morning. As for the Tahoe Pyramid Trail, I’ve completed about 45 miles of the currently available 64 miles of trail. I should be able to knock out the last two sections before the snow flies.