It's only been 48 hours since I finished the Tour of the California Alps, also known as the Death Ride and I've been feeling the pressure to share all the gory details. So here ya go.

Joe, Jay and I setup for an early start. We figured we wanted to leave plenty of time to make the check points and finish the ride. We had a great carbo load dinner at Passaratti's the night before and set the alarm for 4 am. We arrived at the Turtle Rock park shortly after 5 am. There was already a lot of people there as everyone was trying to get a headstart. The temperature was warmer than expected and after much debate about what to wear, we were ready to roll at 5:30, heading south towards Monitor Pass.

The day was off to a good start. The sky cleared up from smoke the day before and we were all happy to finally see some blue sky and clouds. Lake Tahoe had seen some pretty bad air quality recently, so bad that several events got cancelled, including the Donner Lake Triathlon the day before.

Monitor Pass

The climb up Monitor Pass (el. 8,314 ft. / 2,534 m) was relatively easy. The pavement is in excellent condition as the road is closed most of winter. We reached the summit quickly and got our first sticker.

The first long descent on the other side of Monitor Pass was awesome. One of the great thing about the ride is to be able to experience riding on closed mountain roads. Once we reached the rest stop down by Topaz Lake, time to get our 2nd sticker, turn around and go back up. This is when it dawns on you that the exhilaration you've experienced during the downhill will now become sheer pain, ridding the same road back up. When it comes to climbing I'd say ignorance is bliss.

Ebbetts Pass

With Monitor out of the way, we headed towards Ebbetts Pass (el. 8,730 ft./2,661 m.). While Monitor landscape is more reminiscent of high altitude desert, Ebbetts is more of your typical high mountain pass, with lots of trees and stunning views. The road is fairly narrow and is one of the most scenic, least travelled in the Sierra. It even has its own web site.

The first several miles seemed like a gradual climb, with what felt like many flat reprieve. Needless to say it did not last for long. Before reaching the top of the summit, I was welcomed with a steady 12% grade that lasted forever.

Mentally, this was certainly the most difficult part of the course for me. I knew I was not even half way thru the whole ride and started to doubt my ability to finish it. Then when you're ready to give up, the summit shows up right around the corner. Cycling is as much a mental as a physical exercise. 3rd sticker down.

The back side of Ebbetts is relatively short compared to all the other climbs. Going back up, we passed some crazy guys from the Rolling Bones team (08/04/08 UPDATE: See picture below). One of the guy was towing a trailer in the form of a coffin with a skeleton having a drink inside. I don't know whether he finished the whole ride, but at that point he was on his 4th pass. I can't imagine what it must be like to do this towing an extra 20 lb or so. Once we reached Ebbetts summit again, all that was left was to go down, have lunch and power thru to Carson Pass, a 45 miles or so journey away. Time to go get that last sticker.

Carson Pass

The road back to Carson has a slight incline and can be long and discouraging, partly because of the frequent head winds. We got lucky to hook up with an impromptu pace line, which we drafted all the way past Markleeville. At Markleeville, the whole town (population 200) was out cheering the riders, with claps and bells. There were many spectators supporting the riders along the course, which was really neat.

To get to Carson, you have to go back to Turtle Rock Park, which means passing your car. I thought this would be more difficult because at this point you're 88 miles into the ride with over 11,000 feet of climbing and need a very good reason to stop you from calling it quit. I was determine to finish and the prospect of an ice cream at the top of Carson Pass was good reason enough for me.

The climb up Carson Pass is comparatively the easiest because the grade does not go much above 8%. A little garden hose shower at Woodfords made it easy to reach the rest stop at Picketts Junction, sitting half way thru the climb. With 10 miles left to climb to reach the summit, the finish was within our grasp. However, at that point, a storm was moving in quickly in our direction. It started raining and as we were heading up again, we got caught in a nasty hail storm. It was so bad that cars were stopping, waiting for it to get better. Our handy bike helmets were fending off the giant piece of ice hurling down from the sky and bouncing everywhere. The cacophony of hail hitting the carbon bikes and the metal railing on the side of the road almost made the climb humorous. We kept riding while the hail storm turned into plain rain storm. There was little reprieve until we reached the summit.

Once we reached the summit of Carson Pass, we got our pin and started huddling with other rider in a futile attempt to get warm. We were so wet and cold that the porta-potties became the most, ahem, inviting place to keep dry. Despite being on the verge of hypothermia, we were determined to enjoy our you-made-it-to-the-last-summit ice cream. I went for a Choco Taco which had the sweet taste of victory. We waited for a while for the weather to calm down and our body heat to raise while trying to scrounge any plastic bag that could be used as wind breaker. We knew we had a long, cold descent ahead of us.

On the way down, we got hit with hail again. At some point, I had to stop because my bike was wobbling. I feared a mechanical problem. I soon came to the realization that it was my body shaking uncontrollably that caused it. After several miles of this, we finally reached some sunny spot and started to dry off. This is the amazing part about mountain storm they go as quickly as they come in. We then rode all the way back to Joe's truck by Turtle Park without any problem.

After a quick change of cloth, we hit the post ride BBQ at Turtle Park. There was a band there and the mood was cheery. We were looking forward to celebrate our accomplishment with some cold beer. Our dream got quickly shattered when the guy in front of me finished the last of the keg. They ran out of beer. How can you f***ing run out of beer? They've only been organizing this ride for over 25 years! Completing the ride was grueling enough, but depriving us of a finish beer now that's simply cruel. How well, we quickly recovered from this last blow. We were not going to letting anything spoil the joy of knowing we accomplished a hell of a great ride that day.

You can view more pictures from the ride.

Stats

Unfortunately, my Garmin Edge bike computer ran out of battery before the end of the ride. Here is a compilation of my data and some from Joe's computer.

• Distance: 128 miles (206 km)
• Elevation gain: 15,287 feet (4'660 m)
• Time in the saddle: 10 hours
• Average grade: 5.2 %
• Steepest grade: 18 %
• Average Speed: 12.9 mph (20.7 km/h)
• Top speed: 46.4 mph (75 km/h)
• Calories burned: ~ 8,000
• Gears: 52/39/30, 12-25

You can view a complete profile for the ride.

Elevation Profile

The complete official elevation map.

Resources

Surprisingly, there isn't much information about the Death Ride online. One useful resource is this "just made it in time" sheet that basically let you know the bare minimum cut off time in order to finish the ride.