2009 Death Ride

It's been over a week now since the 2009 Death Ride and everyone keeps asking me how it was. To be honest, it completely sucked.

I did this ride last year and while it was tough, I was never in difficulty and finshed all five passes in fine style. I had no issues other than a horrific hailstorm that struck while navigating the final stretches of Carson Pass. I actually felt pretty good last year, and figured this year would be the same. But it wasn't to be.

We had a great dinner the night before courtesy of Bill and Joey, but I couldn't manage to get to sleep afterwards. I lay awake for hours, dozing intermittently, and before I knew it the alarm was hitting 4:15am. I didn't feel great, and I didn't have the necessary excitement for the ride. It was a bad omen.

As I did last year, we started from Woodfords for easy parking and also to avoid that last small but punishing uphill to Turtle Rock Park at the end of the ride. Ridden first thing in the morning, that hill is a good warmup for what awaits. After the long downhill run through Markleeville and into the canyon, we soon started the initial climb up Monitor Pass west. I felt OK and kept my own pace. We strung out pretty quickly on the climb, with Matt and Steve up ahead, me a bit further back, and the rest of our group behind. Normally I would be in the front group, but I felt the pace was too fast to maintain all day. Another bad omen.

Ryan heading up the west side of Monitor Pass

Matt on the Monitor Pass climb

We summited the pass in good time and began the epic descent of Monitor Pass east to the Nevada state line on the desert floor. What a ride! Great views over the Sinkard Creek valley below, and south to Dunderberg Peak and the Sawtooth Ridge in Yosemite. Definitely one of my favorite rides of all time. I also love the ride back up this side of the pass, because as you climb up the two massive bends in the highway the same views take your mind off the climbing. I was actually enjoying this part of the ride and felt like I should bridge up to Steve who was still setting a pretty good pace ahead. Suddenly I felt it -- the first little cramp on the inside of my right leg. Oh crap, I'm cramping and I'm still on the second pass. Not good.

Climbing the east side of Monitor

Crazy Ellipti-Go Bike we saw on Monitor. This guy would eventually smoke me by about an hour on the ride. Unreal.

I recovered a bit at the top of Monitor and enjoyed the long descent back down the west side. I reconnected with a few others from our group and we headed towards Ebbetts Pass, but very quickly I found myself unable to maintain contact with the group. I told them to go on ahead, and I began the long slow march up the pass. Less than halfway up, the cramps returned, this time with more intensity and frequency. I kept telling myself that I just had to get to the top and then I would go back to the car. Three passes would be a big disappointment, but I knew that it was just the product of a very bad day and woefully inadequate hydration and electolytes. But holy crap does Ebbetts Pass go on forever! It just keeps on winding upwards and ever farther back into the mountains. Then suddenly you come out of some trees and there's the summit. Hallelujah!

Remnants of the crew at the bottom of Monitor west side.

Looking up at all of the people passing me on Ebbetts. This was hard.

I made it to Ebbetts Pass, barely.

I downed a coke and tried to eat a bagel, but it wasn't going down at all. Matt and Steve were still at the top of the pass, so naturally I did the stupid thing and followed them off the west side of the pass instead of heading back down towards the car. In my oxygen-depleted brain's reasoning, the west side of Ebbetts is too easy to skip, and "I finished four passes" sure sounds a lot better than three.

Unfortunately, Ebbetts Pass west was sheer misery. Matt tried to keep me company at the bottom, but I basically shooed him away and, in his words, "crawled into my man cave" to suffer all the way back up to the summit. It fucking sucked. Up to this point, even though I was cramping and feeling like poo, I was still keeping a better pace than 80-90% of the riders. But on Ebbetts Pass west, I met my personal Waterloo. Everyone was passing me -- and I mean everyone. At one point, a guy on a pink mountain bike wearing jean shorts passed me, and he had all four stickers showing that, yes, in fact he had already ridden all of the same passes as I had. This was a low point. It reminded me of the opening credits in the movie Office Space where the guy is stuck in traffic and he looks over to see he is being passed by an 80 year old dude on the sidewalk with a walker.

At the top of the pass, another coke was consumed, but food intake just wasn't happening. The coke, however, gave me some wings and I felt like I was recovering a bit on the descent back towards the lunch stop, where I choked down another coke and some bad salty freeze-dried ramen noodles.

Crazy ladies cheering on the riders at the bottom of Ebbetts

Best matching kit seen all day. The "Angry Bovine"

From the lunch stop all the way to Woodfords, I just sat on Matt's wheel and let him pull me all the way. Matt did an incredible job into a stiff headwind and I could never have done it without him. At one point I turned around and saw that he had attracted about 20 fellow parasites to sit in on his one man paceline.

As we got back to the parking area in Woodfords, my bad day got even worse when I was actually stung by a bee that got trapped in the business area of my bike shorts. Great. So I'm dehydrated, cramping, unable to eat any food, and now I have a huge painful welt on my inner thigh. At this point, I figured it couldn't get any worse, so instead of doing the smart thing and calling it quits, I turned left onto Highway 88 and began the trail of tears up to Carson Pass. I hung with Matt and Steve for a little while, but they soon rode me off their wheel and once again I was alone in the man cave.

Matt and Steve entering Hope Valley. I wouldn't see them again until the top, about an hour of pain later.

The ascent of Carson was a lot like Ebbetts west, except maybe 100 times worse. At one point I rose out of the saddle to stretch my legs and was treated with a double full leg cramp that completely paralyzed me. Somehow I got control back of my legs before my forward momentum died and sent me to the ground with a busted arm or shoulder. So the rest of the ride I just sat in the saddle and ground it out. I even had to stop three or four times on the way up just to catch my breath and massage my legs. When I finally got to the top of the pass, there was a little kid standing on the side of the road high fiving all of the riders. I almost got off my bike to kiss him I was so emotionally and physically drained. Matt was waiting at the top for me. I didn't see Steve and we later learned he had turned back just before the summit -- also with bad leg cramps. So after a failed attempt to eat an ice cream bar, I headed back down to Woodfords. All downhill to the car, except for a few flat sections in Hope Valley. I could barely push 50 watts on these sections, and once again I was being passed by everyone. Pathetic, but by this point I didn't care. I just wanted to get to the car and get the fuck home.

Carson Pass looking down.

And looking up. Summit is just around that corner up ahead. I start to think I'll make it.

Having my celebratory ice cream. The smile is forced, to say the least.

My other friend Matt made it back to the car about 90 minutes later, having also finished all five passes. His first (and he swears his last) Death Ride. Of course I will be back next year because I feel now that I have a score to settle with this ride. So until next year!