Roland Sturm

It has been a few years since my last post, mostly because there wasn't much to write about. My outdoor adventures had become shorter, sparser and eventually non-existent. Now that various bones and tendons are replaced with metal and plastic, I am trying to ease back into doing more activities. My first try: The 2026 Gravel Social weekend ride out of Truckee.

The 2026 Gravel Social is organized by Forest Baker, a bikepacking friend for 15 years (when bikepacking was still a rather fringy activity), and his wife Annie. A few years ago, they bought a 65 acres of land near the town of Portola in the Lost Sierra region. The property is surrounded by the Plumas National Forest and the Gravel Social route is from Truckee to their property on the first day, a loop on day 2, and a different route back to Truckee on day 3. Mostly gravel and pavement, essentially no trails/single-track.

Forest got himself a manly backhoe at a construction equipment auction and slowly a vision emerged what to do with that land beyond family camping. Like making it a destination for cyclists. Now there are two cabins, a yurt, plumbing for showers and toilets, septic tank, a deck, a trail up the mountain, wifi – even a website: https://beckwourthpeakhighcamp.com/

I drove from Santa Monica to Truckee the day before the start and booked a room at the Northstar resort for $125. The price seemed very odd, even a Motel 6 in Reno would have been more expensive. And the description was unusual: 1000 square feet? Turned out it really was 1000 square feet and there was nothing wrong. Larger bathrooms (2 of them), larger kitchen, larger living room than our house. In December, that room goes for $2,500 per night. Why $125? Presumably the strategy is to price rooms just high enough to maintain core housekeeping and security staff rather than close entirely (restaurants and stores at the resort are closed). Nevertheless, a 20-fold difference in the rate is astonishing. Parking is normally another $40 per day, but I was not charged for it.

Friday morning, we started from the outskirts of Truckee in an industrial park near the ski resort. Forest shuttled everyone's luggage to High Camp in a van. For somebody coming from traditional bikepacking, the contrast is stark: no multi-day food carries, stuffed frame bags or handlebar rolls. I couldn’t quite liberate myself completely and carried a saddle bag with tools, several tubes, first aid kit, clothes, but I saw others riding without anything. I was also an outlier by not riding a gravel bike for me, just an old hardtail mountain bike with moderately sized tires (2.2)

Day 1 is about 100 km with less than 1000 m of climbing, a bit more paved than unpaved. The route heads north and east out of Truckee before dropping into the Sierra Valley, a broad alpine basin and the biggest in California. The route passes through Loyalton, a small town of a few hundred people. Forest had called the owner of a new Pizza place (opened a month ago) to make sure that they open early and also have gluten-free pizza available (after all, there were people from San Francisco coming). I think the owner was initially skeptical (especially about having to make gluten-free pizza), but as more and more bikes rolled in, that switched to excitement. May very well have been the busiest day in the restaurant's short history so far.

Much of the valley floor is freshwater marsh — the headwaters of the Middle Fork Feather River — and the wetlands are a stopover on the Pacific Flyway. It may be a destination for bird watching. Even I stopped at one point because the scenery and the bird ruckus were worth it. I noticed on the group website that many others also took pictures at that location.

There is a bit of double track after Loyalton, but the road opens up into a long flat section of pavement where a mountain bike actually feels slow.

There, Ryan Ness, Dave Cohen, and Alex Rocco rolled past, and I only briefly tried to stay with them. In fact, they passed me 3 times that day. Obviously they were going faster than me. This was one of the moments where one can actually notice the small differences between bikes that bicycle magazines owe their existence to. Apparently, they took more and longer breaks, too. This, however, would not be mentioned in equipment reviews.

Dave Cohen and Ryan Ness

Near Portola there was an optional paved bypass that omits a climb and single track descent. The main route goes up toward Beckwourth Peak — not all the way to the summit, just the direction. This was the closest the trip came to mountain biking.

Looking down at the camp

The gradient was steep enough that I walked (shortly after Dave, Ryan, Alex passed me yet again). The descent is smooth singletrack, nothing technical, but very enjoyable. Near the top, you can look down onto Annie and Forest's property — the cabins, the yurt, camping areas.

But there is still a fun single track to go down first – and then a dirt road climb back up to the property. It is a short, minuscule climb back up, but comes just when you think you are done. Good climb to watch others arrive. From the deck with cold drinks, you get a good view.

It was not a long or hard day, the hardest being the push towards Beckwourth Peak at the end. Nevertheless, I was very tired and happy to be done that early in the day (around 3 pm). And having the option to take a shower, a beer (or several), not to worry about dinner. All very easy and pleasant. Mosquitoes got annoying late in the afternoon, but not too terrible, and they went to bed early, long before me.

Not surprised to feel tired given the lack of preparation. I have not done any longer bike rides or spent time at altitude for a few years. A wrist reconstruction and then 4 hip surgeries. Now body parts match my titanium bikes. With little confidence in my abilities, I considered shortcuts. Forest has a few alternatives mapped out to shorten/simplify it. On day 1, instead of the final climb and single track descent, there is a flat road alternative. We talked about an alternate for me on day 2 to skip the longest climb of the ride to Gold Lake. All routes are downloadable here: Gravel Social

But neither shortcut turned out to be necessary. These options make the route manageable for weaker riders.

My current bone and titanium structure

And weaker rider is definitely what I am now. By themselves, hip replacements are not that hard to recover from when you consider the amount of material replaced. Not trivial, but easier than one might think when everything goes well as it does in most cases. But not in all cases. And that is why my break from biking and blogs was even longer. After one surgery, I ran a fever a few weeks later and expected something like "here is an antibiotic". Instead, I was immediately sent to radiology for a torturous test and then into the next available operating room.

Why is an infection now such a big deal? Implants do not have a blood supply through which the immune system works. Bacteria like to stick to metal or plastic and fairly quickly form a protective (for them) biofilm. Similar to the slimy inside of water bladders. Therefore, medical treatment for peri-prosthetic infections is very aggressive, much harder than the original surgery. I was in the hospital the rest of the week. Eddie Merckx had exactly the same revision procedure in April 2026 and was in the hospital for a full month. Despite aggressive treatment protocals, treatment success remains moderate and mortality rates are similar to common cancers. The infectious disease specialist recommended antibiotics for at least a year, but I stopped antibiotics after 4 months because side effects left me crippled. So far so good.

Forest decided to wake people with the standard funeral tune for bagpipes, although nobody had died at night. Wasn't real bagpipes, just a canned Amazing Grace from a big loudspeaker to announce freshly brewed coffee shortly after 6am. An unusual tune choice, but the coffee did not taste suspicious and there were no further casualties.

Early morning

Day 2 was a shorter route, but with more elevation gain. Fairly soon came a 20 km and 1000m climb, although mostly paved and with a gentle gradient. For a paved road, it is very pretty, shady, and virtually without traffic. Maybe 6 cars during around 2 hours for the climb. Many more cyclists than cars - at least that day. I actually liked doing that climb.

Climb to Gold Lake

Gold Lake was windy and cold. Whitecaps on the water. Not a day for taking a swim. I had a quick snack and rolled downhill (on a slightly busier street, but still little traffic).

Gold Lake

The route goes through the town of Graeagle and then slowly winds back. Some ups and down, but no substantial new climbs. Around 6 hours of riding time.

Disc Golf Course

For evening entertainment: Forest has placed disc golf baskets into the hill side (they have 65 acres, mostly uphill). Sort of frisbee target throwing, but slightly faster/heavier discs. That required some evening hiking in rough terrain and the worse you threw, the rougher the terrain. I did not do well with this activity, but at least I did not lose a disc.

Forest leading the disc golf players

bike trail along Feather River near Portola

Day 3 is back to Truckee, but a different route. No matter which route, it is more climbing than the first day. There is an optional single track start with more climbing or a flat road start (which I took). All pavement with a tiny section on a paved bike trail. The roads had very little traffic, almost none, but it was Sunday morning. Flat all the way to Sierraville because we are again in the Sierra Valley. The cafe in Sierraville is the last replenishing stop of the ride, then comes a long climb.

Hrishi Raol from Rohnert Park and I taking the pre-climb break in Sierraville

On paper, this climb is shorter than the climb on the previous day, but with with the same gradient. So it should be easier, but I found it harder and liked it a lot less. The surface is gravel/dirt, which adds some resistance over smoother rolling asphalt. There were also some bigger fluctuations in the gradient. But I don't think that's it. Instead, the main difference is being fully exposed in the sun, no trees. Less attractive and the radiation heat is noticeable. I took two breaks to cool down, which wasn't hard in the shade because the air was cool. But it felt like a slog.

The descent is a somewhat rockier fire road and my mountain bike was perfect. Still feels like a beating, but just that descent easily made up for being slower on pavement the previous days than a gravel bike. And there is Stampede Reservoir already.

Forest said he would have our luggage at the Alibi Brewery, but there was a change of plan that I didn't know about. So when I got there, I only found those two guys drinking a beer already: Dave and Ryan again. Turns out, Forest was at a different brewery. That's the problem with Truckee, too many craft breweries (5 of them?). In any event, I couldn't join at either place as I had an 8 hour drive to LA ahead of me.

with Dave Cohen and Ryan Ness, still wondering where Forest might be

Along the South Fork of Cottonwood Creek

July 26 was my first hike this year in the high mountains of the Eastern Sierras, more than a month later than in previous years. The Sierras received an unusual amount of snow this year and summer is coming very late in the high mountains. Even the end of July turned out to be too early to get over some passes or get to the really high mountains (I overly optimistically thought I could get up to Mt Langley).

Looks still very summer-like at this unnumbered lake, with Mt. Langley (4277m or 14032 feet) behind it

Cottonwood Lakes and Cottonwood Pass are one of the closest trailheads to Los Angeles, the road goes from Lone Pine. Also quite popular, but not as crazily overrun as Mt. Whitney and I think much prettier. The day I went, still about half the permits for overnight backcountry were available.

As I was driving up the road from Lone Pine, I saw a big lake. Yes, the long gone Owens Lake is back this year. For 100 years, Owens Lake has been an alkali flat with small brine puddles after LA started to divert the water from the Owens Valley. The lake had disappeared by 1926. But this year, Owens Lake flooded and looks like the large lake it used to be.

Owens Lake is actually a lake in 2023, not an alkali flat

After about 2 hours of hiking, I was high enough to encounter snow, this is at Lake #3

I finally made camp between lakes 4 and 5, nobody else at either one of the lakes. No mosquitoes, I would not even have needed the inner tent (I didn't use the rain fly at all). I encountered a few further down in the swampy area, but unremarkable. This year is also a month later for them.

camp at lakes 4/5.

View from my campsite. Old Army Pass in the background is still snowed in

It was obvious that Old Army Pass would not be manageable without winter gear. The picture doesn't quite give justice, but that is even before the real climb, not much above the lake yet.

So the next morning I hiked back along lake 3, then on the New Army Pass trail past Long Lake and High Lake. That's where I saw a few groups, I think the majority wanted to cross the pass to get on the John Muir trail, but turned back. There was a well equipped group with ropes and ice axes who claimed it was impossible to get to the top of the pass. Mmh, that required a first hand look.

There was a slightly snowy area and some snow bridges that were about to cave, still before Long Lake (where I left my pack), and nothing difficult. Snow was pretty hard, so no post-holing.

Lots of pink snow this year, I also had noticed it in Colorado the previous month. That is algae growth and is kind of new to me. Or have I always overlooked it? In any event, nothing difficult here either: