This was BY FAR, the hardest ride I've ever done.... EVER! Five Mountain passes (I completed 3), with a total of over 16,000 feet of climbing and 127 miles. I was able to complete 3 passes (about 12,000 feet of climbing) and 78 miles in 7 hours of riding time before I missed the cutoff time for completing the last two climbs.... (oh darn....)
Michael and I parked about a 1/2 mile away from Turtle Rock Park in Markleeville ("Home of the Death Ride") and started our ride at 5:45am with a 1/2 mile climb to the park to use the porta potties. That was sort of an indication of what the entire day would be like (climbing and peeing). We had to get up at 3:30am in order to eat, dress and get to the park by 5:30. That was the earliest I've ever had to get up in order to start a ride!! (well, ok day 1 of ALC I had to get up at 3:45).
We stayed at Kirkwood Resort, which was about a 40 minute drive from the start, but the closest place you could get a reservation because anything closer was booked a year in advance!
The first climb was Monitor Pass, Elevation 8,314 ft.- we started from an elevation of 5,501 ft. The climb was long, long, long and grueling but it was a cool morning and there was a water stop halfway up and a rest stop at the top. I made it up in about 2 hours. Then the descent on the other side was long, long, long and fast! I was, however able to recognize both Ben Armstrong and Mark Smith who were both going back up the same road that I was descending. (That's the 2nd climb) I think I hit about 48 mph on that downhill! It was nice and smooth and oh yeah, the roads were closed to motor traffic!
At the bottom of Monitor Pass, it was warming up considerably so I decided that would drop all of my layers-outer jersey, windbreaker, leg warmers- they would deliver them back to Turtle Rock Park for pick up after the ride. The weather report said 78 to 80 degrees for the day and I imagined sweating my way through the rest of the ride.
I hopped back on my bike and headed back up that long, long, long, fast, steep descent which had now become a hellaciously long, long, climb back to the top (climb number two). As I made my way back to the top of the hill, I realized that there were clouds coming our way and soon as we reached the top of Monitor again I thought, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT-- ITS FREAKING FREEZING UP HERE! And I had checked all of my lovely layers in for delivery at the end of the ride.....
Luckily, there were some REI guys there working as bike techs so they were able to hook me up with a windbreaker (luckily I had a credit card on me) and I put it on and FLEW down the front side of the mountain and on toward my third climb of the day- Ebbetts Pass.
Just past the beginning of the climb, the lunch stop had been set up for those folks who where done with their 4 climbs-- I said heck if I don't have a sandwich after all that climbing I'm gonna bonk. So I grabbed 1/2 a turkey sandwich and some pasta salad and set down with George Harrison for a few minutes, who was on his way to his 3rd climb. He was only planning to climb the front side of Monitor, the front side of Ebbets and then the climb up Carson Pass, three climbs- which he completed as well.
I finished my sandwich quickly and was back on the road for the even MORE hellacious climb up Ebbetts Pass (elevation 8,730 feet). Wow, I have never climbed so long (7 miles, I think) and so hard in all of my life! It was amazing that I still noticed how gorgeous the area was, because I was so focused on the steepness and steadiness of the road for sure! Every time you'd turn a corner, there was MORE TO CLIMB. Then you'd get yourself up that part, and it would CONTINUE TO GO UP. What was also hard, was that at the same time I was ascending there were people already descending (they started riding before dawn), and so that made it a little distracting. Pretty soon I was seeing chalk markers on the road that said: 5 kilometers, 4 kilometers, 3 kilometers, 2 kilometers and so on. That made it a bit easier to anticipate the rest of the climb. Soon, I saw a chalk writing that said "sprint!", thinking that this was near the top ( it wasn't), I got out of my seat and started to climb harder and faster. When I got to the top of that, it went on even further.
I remember hearing people talk about climbing this ride. Everyone said the climbing is tough, you have to do it slow and easy and save your energy.... boy that was the truth!
Finally I reached the top of Ebbetts Pass, where Michael was there waiting for me in the COLD COLD wind! I was hoping to be able to descend and do the climb back up (the 4th climb), but Michael said "it's been decided for you- you aren't doing the 4th pass..... the cut off time was about 20 minutes ago." So the Universe wanted me to only climb 3 passes (oh darn....) and I happily agreed. 3 Mountain passes, a total of 78 miles and 12,000 feet of climbing in 7 hours was enough for me!
We headed down the very very fast, steep descent on the front side of Ebbetts, back to Markleeville where we stopped for Dreyer's Ice Cream. YUM! - that ice cream tasted so good, and it was just enough sugar to get us back up one more looong (but not steep) hill to Turtle Rock park where we changed clothes and waited for the rest of our group: Letty, Joe B. and Shance, who did all 5 mtn passes, and Ken who did 4. We were all feeling great- tired of course, but felt great about what we were all able to accomplish!
My thoughts on riding again? Well on Saturday afternoon I thought " no freakin' way"! But when I woke up Sunday morning feeling pretty good, I thought: sure if I get a new, lighter bike and improve my climbing speed by next year, I would shoot for all 5 passes, now that I know what I'm in for!
