Death Ride Report by Laura Stern

Death Ride Report by Laura Stern
7/9/11

The Death Ride. 129 miles, 15K of climbing over Monitor (8314'), Ebbetts (8730') and Carson Pass (8580'), and with about 3500 new-found friends. This year's edition included the small but mighty Coretechs contingent of Miles, Dave J., and me.

Last year's conditions at the DR were terrific, but this year's were even better.
I may never do this ride again simply because it couldn't possibly be better than this year. Reasonably cool (or at least not "hot") temperatures, low to moderate wind, crystal clear air and cloudless skies, and the best scenery ever with all the lingering snow, high water level in the streams, and wildflowers still in bloom. It was particularly spectacular over Monitor with the early morning lighting and long shadows. Andrew sometimes teases that all my rides "need to be pretty" (he's right, they do), but even he would have been blown away by the vistas we had this year!

The new, butter-smooth pavement on Monitor (and with painted rather than bone-jarring cattle guards) was also an unexpected treat. (Note to Scott Fairman - it would be dynamite roller skiing up there this summer! Note to Miles and DJ - my sources say that Carson is slated for it's much-needed repaving NEXT year!)

With the exception of no altitude training (since April) and not having dropped the 8 lbs ahead of time that I'd planned (or at least hoped) to do, I thought my training was reasonably sufficient to pull off a strong ride if conditions allowed. I think I got in eight 100-milers already this season before the DR, and those nasty hill-interval pain sessions on Wednesdays with Mark D., JP, and a few others of you really seemed to pay off.

Dave, Miles, yours truly, and a couple of other friends met up at the Turtle Rock Park start at 5:30 am for a group roll-out. I was not looking forward to the initial fast and c-c-c-cold plunge down to Markleeville, and about 2 minutes before we started it suddenly occurred to me that I had forgotten to secure or tighten my front wheel skewer. Oops! I reached down and the wheel was indeed practically flopping around. I tightened it up and we rolled out shortly thereafter, down to Markleeville then out towards Monitor, which was Pass #1 (the west side) and Pass #2 (the east side.) Like last year, I was amazed at how many riders had rolled out well ahead of the "official" start time of 5:30 -- I'm guessing that 500 to 1000 were already on Monitor when we got there! It looked like some sort to crazy pilgrimage or something, as all you could see was a steady stream of riders, 4 or 5 abreast, weaving their way up the mountain. And you can see a very long way up, literally for miles. I stopped briefly at the top to refill a bottle, then continued down the east side while soaking in the views, flipped around at the bottom after collecting the oh-so important sticker, and headed back up. The east side feels particularly huge, with something like 3300' of vertical. I think we accumulated about 6200' of climbing before 8:30 am, not bad for a Saturday morning.

When I got back up top Monitor I got off the bike for the first time, gently set it down in the gravel (all the spots on the rack were taken), and walked across the dirt/gravel section into the rest stop. I'm not sure what happened, but somehow I managed to do something to either the cleat or pedal such that I couldn't get back into the right pedal when later trying to get back on the bike. Odd. I fiddled for several minutes with both the cleat and pedal but couldn't see or find anything jammed anywhere, and figured I had somehow broken the locking mechanism or spring in the pedal or something equally stupid. So went over to the REI tent and found the Park Tool mechanic who was hugely helpful and got everything working again. Then headed down the road only to find that I had the same deal going on with my left cleat/pedal system. D'oh! I felt doubly stupid for not having checked out the left side out when I was at the tent. So turned around, rode (one-footed) back to the rest stop and found Mr. Park Tools again, and he once again saved the day for me. I think I lost about 15 minutes of being-stupid time up there, so tried to be extra efficient with my off-the-bike time after that.

Everything was fairly smooth sailing after that. Ebbetts was spectacular on both sides (counting as passes 3 and 4), particularly with all the snow along the road near the top.
This year though, in an effort to be "efficient", they tried a new system of sticking the Pass-3 sticker on your bike while you were still moving (and climbing up the final steep pitch, i.e. tired and out of breath), which nearly, but not quite, sent riders sprawling to the pavement. It was sort of comical to watchŠ until you were the one being stuck and thrown off balance! I bet they wont try that again. Like last year, I also found it somewhat nerve-wracking to navigate back down the front side of Ebbetts through the sea of riders still coming up, and I had more than a few near-misses with those riders taking the so-called paper-boy route up the steep sections. But it was still a lot of fun just being on those roads with SO MANY other riders.

The "lunch" stop is several miles after the base of Ebbetts, but I by-passed the actual lunch line in an effort to avoid walking over rocks again, settling instead for 2 packages of Cliff Bloks near the side of the road. (Hey, those go down easy!) Then got back on the bike and rolled out through the canyon back towards Markleeville, only to find that there were absolutely NO riders to be seen anywhere. Where'd everyone go??? So ended up riding fairly solo for the final 45 miles with the exception of one strong posse of riders who swept me up for a short section between Markleeville and Woodfords. It tends to be hot and windy through that section, so it felt like the Cavalry had finally arrived when those guys rolled up and motioned for me to jump on. The paceline detonated after Woodfords though, so once again I found myself solo.

The final stretch up Hope Valley and Carson Pass (pass #5) was hard (it always is, and it's supposed to be!), but overall went much better than last year given the somewhat cooler temperatures and with the (head) wind being only about half of last year. I still went through my usual near-bonk at Picketts Junction (about 10 miles before the top of Carson) so stopped at the aid station and slammed down my once-a-year Coke. It did the trick. Then picked up my 5-pass pin up top Carson shortly before 2 pm, spent a few minutes talking with folks, and headed out for the finish. The guy recording the 5-pass finisher numbers at the top told me I was the 2nd woman through of all the 5-pass finishers that he'd logged, but that's rather meaningless since it's not a race and not even being close to a mass start. (I thought I saw 2 or 3 women descending as I was still going up Carson, but maybe they didn't all have the 4 previous pass stickers, I don't know.) I think Miles may have been at Picketts as I was descending, and then I spotted Dave a little while later, who I think had to deal with a front blow-out. Yikes, I would not have wanted a blow-out on that ride, with all the long and high-speed descents!

It was just after 2:45 pm when I finally arrived back to Turtle Rock Park, so I actually ended up with a similar time to last year (and once again missing my "goal" of 9 hrs) but definitely felt about 100X better than at the end of last year.

Overall it was a GREAT day! I'm looking forward to reading what Dave and Miles have to say about their rides!

Who's in for next year?
Next up: Santa Cruz Mountains Challenge, July 30! I know there are several races also on this same day, but the SCMC is really a great ride if anyone's up for it. Reg closes July 26, but I expect it'll sell out well before then.

L.