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Death Ride 2005
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I had quite a lot of early season riding, so I took
several weeks off during the end of May and into June. But July will be
a busy month for me. This past Saturday was the Tour of the California
Alps, also known as “The Death Ride.” It’s 125 miles and goes over two
mountain passes and to the top of a third (for a total of 5 passes) with
a cumulative total of 15,000 feet of climbing (ascent). You can see the
route profile at:
http://www.deathride.com/course/map.php
This was my second year doing the Death Ride, so I was familiar with the
course. Below is the ride report I sent my coach. In two weeks I’ll be
riding in the Taylor House Century up in Flagstaff (a benefit ride for
the Flagstaff Medical Center’s Taylor House
http://www.flagstaffmedicalcenter.com/pp_fmc/dept_services/foundation/fmc_taylorHouse.htm)
and the last weekend in July I’ll be heading to the Colorado Springs
area to ride in a 200k Brevet.
This was another long ride, so the report is a little lengthy. If you
want to be removed from this distribution list, let me know.
Enjoy :-)
Mike
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We left Phoenix Thursday morning after watching stage 6 of the Tour and
spent the night in Barstow. The plan was the same as last year. I got up
early Friday and headed out in the direction of Markleeville on my bike.
Annette and the kids got up around 7ish and had breakfast before heading
out. My route was to take the main street out of Barstow to Lenwood,
then take Lenwood Road over to SR 58. SR 58 is a freeway where it goes
through Barstow and there's a sign on the on-ramp prohibiting bicycles.
But where 58 intersects with Lenwood Road, it isn't a freeway. Anyway
when I turned onto Lenwood Road I saw a large sign off to the right that
said there was bridge damage and the road was closed at the bridge.
Hmmm... The sign was off the road and the hazard lights were not on, so
I figured they must have fixed it (or the sign would have been in the
middle of the road with flashing lights). The bridge was a couple miles
away and sure enough it wasn't just closed, it was completely gone. But
off-roaders had made a route off the side that crossed the sandy
riverbed and I saw a guy with a mountain bike who was almost across, so
I figured I'd treat it like El Tour de Tucson and hopped off my bike and
hoofed it across.
About 35 or so miles into the ride I head north on SR 395. At the
junction there's a bunch of convenience stores. Last year I made the
mistake of not stopping to fill my bottles, so this year I pulled into
an AM/PM. It turns out fountain machines in California don't have water
options (at least not at the two stores I stopped at). I filled my
bottle with ice, but no water. I asked the cashier and she said they
only had bottled water for sale. It figures that I forgot my little
emergency money holder back at the hotel. So I went next door to a gas
station that had restrooms and filled my bottles at a sink and added
some Accelerade. I passed the spot where Annette picked me up last year
(about 60 miles into the ride) and started to wonder where she was.
Turns out the hotel we stayed at had an actual sit-down breakfast
included, not the quicky continental breakfast they had at a different
hotel last year. She also stopped at a Starbucks to get me some coffee,
a fruit cup and a muffin so it took her longer to get out of town than
last year. There were some pretty good climbs and descents before
Ridgecrest and I was actually glad to see them. I torqued my left knee
on my fixed-gear commute to work Tuesday. Someone pulled out in front of
me and I automatically tried to coast instead of braking. Oops. My knee
bothered me on my ride home Tuesday so I iced it and it felt ok on my
commute on Wednesday. I was concerned about climbing but it felt fine
going over the hills on Friday.
Right before my last climb I ran out of fluids again. I tried calling
Annette to see where she was at, but this was way out in the boonies, so
I had no signal. I took my time on that last climb and saw the
Ridgecrest turn off when I got to the other side. I tried my phone again
and got Annette's voice mail, so I figured she was on the way and in the
middle of no where at that point. I was getting close to 80 miles into
the ride, so I just kinda toodled along. Turns out I got her voice mail
because she was leaving me a voice mail at the same time and was only a
couple minutes behind me. I was tempted to go an extra 10-15 miles to
get UMCA mileage challenge credit for the ride, but figured that would
be a bit much. We stayed in South
Lake Tahoe this year, only 35 minutes or so from the start. So I got up
around 4:45am to get ready and got to the starting area at around
6:10ish. People attempting 5 passes were supposed to start between 5:30
am and 6:30 am, so I was in the right starting time this year and didn't
feel rushed like last year. I felt pretty good up to the turn for
Monitor Pass and kept my heart rate in zone 3 or below most of the way.
I average 19.9 mph to the turn. When I turned to head up the pass, I hit
a nasty headwind for the climb. I would guess it was a steady 15-20 mph
with strong gusts of up to 60 mph (at least the gusts were enough to cut
my speed more than in half!). I haven't ridden in that kind of wind
since I lived in Colorado Springs. It was worse than the wind we had for
the 600k and it never let up. That wind translated to really slow climbs
and wicked fast descents. My average speed going up Monitor was 7.7 mph
(5.8% avg gradient) and 37.1 mph going down the other side (6.0% avg,
top speed of 46.1). The descents are pretty technical, so I was on my
brakes a lot more than last year.
I hadn't stopped at any of the rest stops yet. There was a water stop
going back up Monitor but there were some kids running bottles to fill
them, so I didn't have to stop there either. It was great! I was having
some trouble keeping my cadence up, so my average going back to the top
dropped to 6.8 mph. Last year I didn't really use my 27T cog, with the
wind this year, I would have used it a lot but had a 12x25 on. I spent a
lot of the day in my 30x25 going up the hills. I had a tail wind for the
next descent, but that side of Monitor is technical, so I tried to take
it easy and wound up with an average speed of 35.9 with a max of 50.3
mph. One of the guys I passed on the descent caught me while crossing
over to Ebbetts pass and said "Dude, you were FLYING!"
Ebbetts pass is definitely the most technical with the most turns and
steepest sections of the ride, but the total average grade up the first
side is only 4.1%. I had to deal with that headwind again, so my speed
suffered going up and I only averaged 7.9 mph. Somewhere along the way
an insect got in my jersey. I still hadn't stopped at that point, so I
have no idea how it got in there, but it bit me on the belly three times
before I finally crushed it. I must have looked pretty funny to the
other cyclist as I grabbed at my jersey cursing each time that thing bit
me. I think it may have been an ant, at least it felt hard when I
finally got it. I still have three itchy welts to remind me of it. The
average grade on the other side of Ebbetts is 5.8% and I averaged 30.0
down it. That's the section with the really rough road, so I purposely
kept my speed down and hit a max of 43.4 near the start of the descent.
I did stop at the rest stop at the bottom of Ebbetts to fill my bottles
and use the port-a-potty, but didn't stay long. By this time the wind
was starting to get to me mentally. I knew I wasn't anywhere close to
where I should have been. So the climb back up Ebbetts was tough, even
though it was a tail wind at that point. I only averaged 6.2 mph on a
5.8% ascent. I just couldn't seem to find a good rhythm and with the
wind shifting the way it was, I'd start to feel good and the wind would
change and my spin went to hell. I could feel it happen and it just made
my morale worse.
Even though the descent off Ebbetts is the most technical of the ride, I
made pretty good time and averaged 31.5 down, hitting a high of 46 mph
near the top before it started to really turn. I spent about 15 minutes
at the lunch stop at the bottom of Ebbetts. The crossing from Ebbetts to
Carson is really long. There was a tail wind to start, but it shifted to
a cross wind, then a strong headwind. The crossing passes the starting
point. This is where I learned what a stubborn obstinate guy I really
can be. I had to ride by my car and I immediately thought about bagging
the rest of the ride. "This wind is brutal; I've already done four hard
passes, why not?" "Because I didn't plan to do four passes, I planned to
do all five, dammit." "Oh, come on, no one will fault you for quitting."
"I will"... The argument went on in my head until the car was well
behind me. I'm sure a lot of people had that same argument with
themselves that day as they went by their cars and some of them probably
lost the argument.
I don't know where the "official" start of Carson Pass is, but the
climbing really starts when you turn off of SR 89 onto SR 88. There is a
pretty long flat section in the middle that drops the average grade to
3.5%. That headwind was really blowing again and I was making poor time
averaging only 7.8 mph to the top. I did get on one guy's wheel for a
few miles, but started to feel guilty about wheel sucking so much so I
went to the front when his speed dropped. I maintained what he was doing
for a while, but when I looked back he was gone, so he must have cooked
himself pulling me along. About halfway up, between the wind and the
grade, I didn't feel comfortable reaching for a bottle, so I finally
grabbed a snow marker pole (so I didn't have to unclip a foot) and took
a drink break.
At each pass, someone puts a stamp on your rider number to prove that
you did the pass. When I got to the top of Carson I tried to unclip to
stop for the person with the stamp and my foot wouldn't come off the
pedal. I almost went over before unclipping with my other foot. Turns
out my cleat had come loose during the ride, so when I twisted my foot
to unclip, the cleat twisted.
The ride back to Markleeville was fast with a nice tailwind most of the
way. I averaged 32.9 down Carson and hit a max of 57.3 mph. The first 4
passes are closed to traffic, but Carson is not so they restricted the
narrow sections to 35 mph for all vehicles. After entering one of those
35 mph sections I saw a car with a cyclist behind it and caught them
pretty quick. The guy in the car was going under 30 and there wasn't
room to pass safely. I said to the guy next to me "He could at least go
35..." The guy replied "Yeah, I almost pulled a Jan Ullrich when I
caught up to him!"
At the top of Carson, several people were talking about the wind and one
guy mentioned that it took less time to finish last year than it took
him to get to the top of Carson this year. I did 6 passes last year with
an extra 24 miles and finished in 10 hours 18 minutes. This year with
that wind I finished 5 passes in 10 hours 37 minutes. Last year I wanted
to overcome a mental issue with climbing. I've done enough climbing now
that I don't think I have any more mental issues with climbing. So this
year I anticipated an easy, fun ride but I wound up suffering in the
wind. You always learn something about yourself on this type of ride
and, other than learning what a stubborn guy I can be even with myself,
I learned that I have a mental problem with wind. There were guys
spinning easily into the wind who passed me all day. They didn't have an
easier gear than I did, they just maintained a better cadence. I could
see it when they went by. I certainly wasn't pushing my limits, so I
could have maintained a higher cadence, but I let the wind get to me.
That's something I'm definitely going to have to overcome, especially if
I want to break that East to West Arizona state crossing record, because
there will be a headwind all day for that.
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