The Death Ride

I recently went down to Lake Tahoe for The Death Ride. This is a crazy endurance event covering 129 miles and 15000' of climbing.

We stayed at a condo at the base of one of the Heavenly resort ski lifts. There were 5 of us there, 4 of us doing the ride. There was lots of “what are YOU bringing with you” and “I can’t believe how old your bike is!” talk. After a short nap on Friday night, we got up at 3am on Sat. and were on our bikes by 4:50am. It was still dark but we had lights. There were lots of people that did NOT have tail lights, which made passing them in the dark, half asleep, while descending at 30+ mph, VERY interesting.

My friend Joe and I stayed together the whole ride and remained in the top 100 riders all day. My boyfriend Jim (who was there for support) thinks I was the first woman to finish all 5 passes(!). I’m not sure I agree since I saw 3 women coming down the 5^th pass as we were going up, but he claims they did not have all 5 “pass” stickers. I must say, it was pretty nice being at the front of the majority of riders, we had the rest stops almost all to ourselves (i.e. easy access to food/drink) and we didn't have to pass too many riders on the hills (calling out "on your left" more than 10 times is just a hassle : ) ). Of course, being in front of all the riders meant we didn’t see any fun stuff, like someone pulling a skeleton in a coffin. (Apparently he was taking turns with 2 other riders.) On one of the descents we saw probably 1500-2000 riders heading UP the hill. That was pretty amazing seeing them all make their way up like that.

It never got too hot or windy, and we only got rained on in the last 20 minutes, so that was good. Other people who took longer got hailed on. The ride itself went exactly according to plan - no leg cramping, no bonking, no flats or mechanical problems. It took me 8hrs 45min. ride time to complete it, which is exactly in the range I estimated. I received a pin for doing all 5 passes, got an ice cream bar at the top of the 5th pass, and bought a coffee mug (cheap) instead of the 5-pass jersey (expensive) which was pretty ugly (green and orange??) and would probably never get worn. : )