Death Ride

129 miles, 16000 feet total elevation gain,
13 hours 40 minutes total (10 hours 45 minutes on the bicycle)

It was finally time for the event for which I have been training for the last 6 month. I did the Death Ride, and finished it without problems. It was a lot of fun, except for the freak thunderstorm and hail.

The week before the ride, my coworkers made a poster for me and signed it with words of encouragement.

Vaishali and I drove to the area on Friday. I wanted to checkin for the ride early and then get to our motel for an early bedtime. The closest motel we could find was in South Lake Tahoe, which is a 40 minute drive to the start/finish in Markleeville. During most of the drive there, we could not see much of the mountains because of the smoke. There is a forest fire raging near Chico, 150 miles away, which is injecting smoke into the atmosphere of eastern California. We could even smell the smoke in the air. I hoped that the air near the route would be better, because I did not want to breathe smoky air for 12 hours.

After checking in for the ride, we drove to our motel, ate a big dinner, and I went to sleep at 8:00pm. I got up at 3:00am, got ready, and had Vaishali drop me at the start. I started riding at 4:30am. There was a steady stream of blinking taillights in the predawn darkness as many cyclists wanted to get a head-start on the long day.

Click for an interactive map. The route is:

• E to B: Start point, up the west side of Monitor Pass, then down the east side.
• B to C: Turn around, up the east side of Monitor Pass, down the west side, then up the east side of Ebbetts Pass, and down the west side.
• C to D: Turn around, up the west side of Ebbetts Pass, down the east side, (pass by the start/finish), then up the east side of Carson Pass.
• D to E: Turn around, down the east side of Carson Pass, finish.
  

4:30am, 0 miles, 0 feet

The first part of the ride was very cold. It was 45 minutes until sunrise, the temperature was in the upper 40's, and it was downhill 5 miles. We reached junction with the roads that lead to Monitor Pass and Ebbetts Pass. Both of them were closed to motor traffic for this event, and the cyclists enjoyed having the road to ourselves. A left turn here took us towards Monitor Pass. The climb was pleasant since I was now building up heat. Watching the sun rise in the mountains was beautiful.

5:30am, 15 miles, 3000 feet

I skipped the stop at the top of Monitor Pass. I was not hungry and did not need to rest since I now had 12 miles downhill on the other side of Monitor Pass. At the bottom, I ate and stretched at the rest stop. The temperature was warmer, and on its way to the low 90's that was predicted. At this stop, the organizers provided the facility to drop off items that riders did not want to carry, which would be transported to the finish for pickup later. Most people dropped off their jackets here, but I kept mine. Most of those people would eventually regret that decision.

6:00am, 25 miles, 3000 feet

Now the route retraced its path, going back up to the top of Monitor Pass and back down the other side. I felt fine most of the climb, but was more tired than I expected to be. I stopped at the top this time because I wanted to stretch my neck. The ride back down the west side was great. I set a new personal speed record of 47 MPH, but there were plenty of guys going much faster. Even when I was in the low 40's, guys were zooming by me.

8:15am, 40 miles, 6000 feet

After finishing Monitor, the next part of the route was Ebbetts Pass. Like the previous part, this meant going up the front side, down the back, turning around, and retracing. This was probably the most difficult climb since it is the steepest part of the route. I was feeling pretty strong at this point and had no problems with it. Like before, I skipped the rest stop at the top and rested at the bottom on the far side.

10:30am, 60 miles, 9000 feet

The heat was apparent on the return climb. Again skipping the stop at the top, I descended the front side. This part had to be taken more slowly because the road is narrower, rougher, and it contains many blind corners. Many of the people who were coming up at this time were suffering. I saw many resting in whatever shade they could find.

12:30pm, 70 miles, 11000 feet

The rest stop at the bottom was the official lunch stop. Most of the elevation gain was done since 4 of the 5 passes were finished, but only about half the distance had been covered. All the sandwiches were premade, and none were vegetarian, so I stuck to my usual — mostly cookies, potato chips, pretzels, orange.

Did this passenger get too much sun? A group of cyclists were riding together and taking turns towing the trailer.

It was 20 miles to get to the start of the climb of Carson Pass, consisting of smaller hills, none difficult, but challenging enough considering how much energy we had already expended. There was a rest stop at the beginning of the Carson Pass climb, with volunteers spraying cyclists with a garden hose. Little did we know this would be the last hot part of the day, and that Mother Nature would be spraying all of us with water.

1:30pm, 95 miles, 12000 feet

The climb up might be the easiest ascent of the route. About one third of the way up, I was startled by a loud thunderclap. I looked over my left shoulder and was surprised to see dark skies. My first thought was regarding what rain would do to the road conditions. This part of the route was not closed to cars, and there was regular traffic. Then I realized that thunder always follows lightning. The last thing California needs now is another lightning-ignited forest fire. I reached the rest area halfway up, and most of us discussed the weather conditions. We expected to get wet but hoped it would not be too bad.

Continuing on to the final summit, we kept hearing thunder, but it seemed to be getting more distant. The change in weather had the much appreciated effect of cooling the air during the final climb. The second half of this climb is less steep than the first half, and I was putting in my full effort knowing that it was practically all downhill after the summit.

4:00pm, 105 miles, 15500 feet

I reached the summit of Carson Pass. There was a celebratory mood. We had all finished the 5 passes of the Death Ride! About five minutes after I arrived, we were hit by a shower of hail. People scurried under the temporary shelters as pea-sized hailstones fell all around. The stones even reached marble-size at one point. The hail continued for about 10 minutes after which it became a steady rain.

Video of the hail storm.

My decision to carry my rain jacket proved fortuitous. Few others had jackets. Most improvised by making temporary ponchos using plastic garbage bags and tearing holes for their head and arms. After about 20 minutes, the rain reduced to a slight drizzle. Many people were standing around shivering.

I needed to decide when to head back to the finish. It was 20 miles, mostly downhill. Although my upper body was dry, my shorts and hands were wet, and my shoes were soaked. There was no telling when conditions would become dry again. After having spent about 30 minutes at the stop, I joined the small trickle of riders leaving, not wanting to waste any more time.

I started the descent fairly slowly at first, knowing that my brakes would have lost much of their effectiveness by being wet. As I got comfortable with their capabilities, I allowed myself to get up to 25 MPH at times (whereas I would have been going around 35 MPH if dry). I was surprised to find that my hands and feet were not getting frozen. Although it had cooled off from earlier in the day, the air temperature was still warm enough that I did not get miserable. Very few people passed me at this point, but I zoomed by many people who looked frozen. The rain tapered off eventually.

6:15pm, 129 miles, 16000 feet

I returned to the finish where there was a party atmosphere with live music and dinner for the riders. I called Vaishali to pick me up. While waiting for her, I ate. It was a barbeque dinner, so I ate potato salad, pasta salad, and three bean salad.

When Vaishali arrived, she was surprised to find that the area was wet — it had not rained where she was. She was concerned about my condition. I told her I was wet, but felt great. I did not get frozen, I did not get exhausted, I did not breathe in smoke. In fact, I still had a lot of energy, and she noticed that. On our drive back to our motel, I told her the story of the surprise storm.

So the last 6 month have been a pursuit of a single goal, and now I have accomplished it. It is quite a feeling of satisfaction to set a high goal and achieve it. But my cycling adventures for this year are not done. I still have a couple months of prime cycling weather this summer, so I need to find some new goals. I will decide soon what those will be.

Addendum

Here are a few other videos I took. I did not want to embed them into the report because it was getting too long. Most of these videos have more description in their "Details" tab.

• [video] Me riding up the west side of Monitor Pass just after sunrise (hence no sunglasses yet).
• [video] Climbing back up the east side of Monitor Pass.
• [video] Cheering volunteers at the rest stop halfway up Monitor Pass (west side).
• [video] Me climbing up the east side of Ebbetts pass.
• [video] Further up the east side of Ebbetts pass while another cyclist plays music.
• [video] The rest stop at the base of Carson Pass.
• [video] Halfway up Carson Pass.
• [video] Near the Carson Pass summit.
  
• [video] The top of Carson Pass just before the hail started.
  

Preview of the Death Ride

With one month to go before my principal 2008 bicycling goal, I had a preview of what it will be like. I traveled to the Sierra and rode on the Death Ride course. This was my chance to prepare by seeing exactly what the course is like -- how steep it is, which parts are flatter and which are hillier, what condition the road is in, etc. But my primary concern was how I would be affected by the altitude.

I traveled with Vaishali, my father, and Rom. We left the Bay Area Friday after work and had to fight rush hour traffic for a while. After finally reaching Stockton, we finally saw mostly clear roads the rest of the way. There was enough sunlight to view the scenery as we entered the mountains, but it was dark by the time we reached Markleeville.

We stayed in downtown Markleeville, not far from the start/finish of the official route. We went to bed right away, and the overnight rest was my only chance to acclimatize to the altitude (Markleeville is at 5500 feet elevation).

My initial plan was to start just after daybreak, around 5:30am. But, instead, I decided to sleep a little longer and rest since I had not slept too much the previous couple days. I started around 7:30am. It was cool (lower 50's), so I was wearing my jacket. The initial part was mostly downhill, so I did not build much internal heat for the first 20 minutes.


I was following the official route, so I started up west side of Monitor Pass. By now it was warm enough in the sun that I did not need my jacket for the climb. I kept a slow pace to preserve my energy, since I had many miles and many hills ahead. I started breathing hard much earlier than I normally do, and obviously this was because of the altitude (the summit of Monitor Pass is at 8300 feet).


After a brief pause at the summit, I started the long descent. There was very little traffic, and the road was fairly smooth, so I was able to descend fast (between 35 to 40 mph). On the day of the event, the road will be closed to motor traffic so everyone will be descending at equally high speeds.

I reached the bottom by 9:30am. This was one hour before I had expected to. I had told my support crew (Vaishali, Dad, Rom) to meet me there at 10:30 so I could refill my water bottle. I was down to a half a bottle, but I did not want to wait for an hour. Fortunately, there was a fire station at this location, so I was able to fill my two bottles from their outdoor faucet. After that, I started the return trip back to the top of Monitor.

Climbing up to Monitor Pass.

About halfway up the east side of Monitor, I crossed paths with the support crew. We stopped at a pull-out and I took a break. I filled my water bottles and ate some snacks (banana, cookies). We then made our plans for the next rendezvous. I told them to continue the scenic drive down the East side of Monitor, while I continued to the summit, back down the west side, then back to the rental house in Markleeville for a break.

By the time I cruised down the west side of Monitor, I was seeing more cyclists on the road. Some were, like me, preparing for the Death Ride, but others were simply cycling in the Sierra. Again, with little traffic, it was a fast descent. I arrived back at the house at noon, so I washed up and ate lunch. So far, I had no problems and was ahead of schedule.


At 1:00pm, I left the house and started eastern ascent of Ebbetts Pass. The first half is a shallow incline, but suddenly becomes steep. Although it is no steeper than my usual training rides, I was tired from the amount of energy I had already used and because of the elevation, so I struggled a little. I made it up to the 8700 foot summit without stopping, but was almost at the end of my energy limit. I stopped for a while and ate a few cookies I had brought along.


The descent down the west side was relatively short. I quickly reached the turnaround point at Hermit Valley. There I saw a group of cyclist at an organized rest stop. I asked them what they were doing and they told me they were scouting a route to create a double century (200 miles) over 8 passes. That's impressive, considering that the Death Ride is "only" 130 miles over 5 passes!

Again, I was planning to meet my support crew at the bottom of the descent, but I reached there ahead of time. I was down to less than one full bottle of water, but I decided to continue as far as that would take me. I started the climb up the west side of Ebbetts. Now I was keeping a slow pace because I had little energy. I was being passed by other, fresher cyclists. About halfway to the summit, I met the crew. I refilled my water and ate some snacks. Now the plan was to meet again back at the house. The crew would have enough time for a short hike near the summit.

I reached the summit and only took a short break before starting the descent down the east side of Ebbetts. This is probably the most scenic part of the route. As the steep road drops, there is a wonderful view of the valley in front. This is also the most dangerous part of the route since it is steep and contains many blind curves. I took it relatively slowly since I am generally a very cautious descender.

I returned to the house at 5:00pm. This was quite an accomplishment since it was more than I had expected to do. I did not think I would be keeping a pace that would allow me to cover both sides of Monitor and both sides of Ebbetts. Since we still had daylight, I decided to also attempt Carson Pass. I knew that I did not have enough time to make it to the top and then back down, so the plan was to attempt to reach the summit and meet the crew there to drive back to the house.


I had a short rest and ate, then left by 5:30pm. I was pretty drained at this point so I was forced to keep a slow pace. There were several ups and downs to reach the town of Woodfords before the main climb starts. Immediately after turning left at Woodfords, I faced a strong headwind. Between that and the incline, I struggled to crawl forward at 4 mph. At this pace, I clearly would not even reach the top.

Although sunset was not until 7:30pm, I was in a valley and the sun was behind the mountain tops, so it was darker than I expected. I knew that the crew would pass me while I was still climbing. Since they would need to pull over and it would be difficult to find good spots to do it in the dark, I decided to find one and wait there. I stopped at the entrance to a campground. I stood there for 10 minutes, with the car arriving around 7:30pm.

Distance-wise, I was less than one third of the way to the summit, but I had reached 6400 feet, while the summit is at 8600 feet. This meant that I had covered 12000 feet and 91 miles. I considered this a success, even though I did not make it to the top of Carson Pass. I would have been able to do it if I had had one more hour of daylight.

I could have finished the route on Sunday, but I decided to give the support crew a break and did not do any cycling. We all went to South Lake Tahoe and did a short hike there. We came back to the Bay Area in the evening.

So now I feel fully prepared for the Death Ride. I know the route, I know that the altitude is not a serious issue for me, and I know that I am in good enough shape for it. Now all I need to do is stay in shape, which should not be a problem. I will continue training, and in one month I will return for the Death Ride.