Tour of the California Alps
www.deathride.com
For those who don't what the "Death Ride" is, it's an organized road ride (not race) starting just south of Lake Tahoe in Markleeville, CA through and over several mountain passes. The official stats of the ride from the organizers are 129 miles and 15,000 ft. of climbing. However, the thing that makes the Death Ride so cool is that riders have the option of riding as much, or as little, of this distance as they feel like. The ride takes cyclists over 5 mountain passes (Monitor 2x, Ebbett's 2x, & Carson Pass) and since the route is not a loop, riders can return back to their cars after completing any number of passes.
I decided I wanted to ride the Death Ride back in February when I was spending nearly all of my days sweating away in my garage rehabbing my knee on my bike trainer. I figured it would it would be a good goal to set post-ACL surgery. Luckily for me, I was able to recruit a few good friends to join in on the pai..I mean, fun...
So really, rather than write up a mile by mile account of the ride I mainly just want to thank Mrs. Shoe, lph, and hardrider/AKA/littlredridingpants for agreeing months ago to do this ride and then following through. You were all great company and made the ride super fun.
Big props go out to Hardrider who only just bought his roadbike one week before, and still managed to ride 4 of the mountain passes (something like 88 miles & 11,000 - 12,000 ft of elevation gain). SICK!
Unfortunately, lph and Hardrider witnessed a pretty horrific crash on Ebbett's Pass, and weren't in the mood to attempt the 5th Pass. I can't say I blame them after hearing their first-on-the-scene accounts. Prayers and best wishes go out to the injured rider.
However, me and Mrs. Shoe pressed on to ride all 5 passes. We had to hustle a bit to make the cutoff time in Woodford (made it by only 15 minutes) because of our late-ish start and our stopping at nearly every rest stop and damn was it worth. Powering up Carson Pass to the top all I could think about were those dark winter days on the trainer rehabbing my knee. Felt so good to top out at Carson and relax up there for a while with some great views of RoundTop Mt. as the setting sun lit it up. Bombing back down the pass at a 35 - 45 mph average was pretty damn fun too.
Anyway, here's my stats. I figured it will be awhile before I post any numbers like these again, so I wanted to save them . They're a little off from the organizers say about the ride, but my computer is probably a little messed up:
126.53 miles (my first official century!)
14,908 ft. of elevation gain
Actual Ride Time (not including all the rest stops):
Average Speed (includes inching up all the passes and bombing back down):
Max Speed (definitely could have hit higher, but damn did the winds hold you back):
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