Markleeville DeathRide 2000

Survivors Page

We asked, you delivered!  We sent out an email to everyone on our DeathRide mailing list, asking anyone interested to send in their stories on the Y2K Death Ride.  We'll add more as we get them...it's never too late!  --Mike--
Decided in January to do the Death Ride--I had to have some excuse to convince my wife I needed a road bike. Bought my first one (from Chain Reaction, of course) in March. At that point the longest ride in my life was probably a 40 mile mountain bike ride. Started doing road rides--lots of American River canyons. Finally broke 100 miles in June. Managed to complete all 5 plus the Y2Grade. Took lots of breaks and felt fine until Carson Pass. Suffered like a dog there. Now if I could just descend!   Ken Prager

 

The death ride was great! This was my second time. I had done two passes a few years back and did four passes this year and probably should have done carson as well but, I hate that ride up carson into the wind! I also thought the weather was great! My toes did get a little cold going up monitor ( I started out at 5:30am and could've used booties but then would've carried them the rest of the ride!) Ebetts is a great climb with the aspen/birch trees and the alpine lakes...The only negative of the ride was seeing the crash near the top of ebetts (east side) I rolled by less than a minute after it happened. The fellow was out cold and I never found out how he did. The death ride is one I always recommend to my friends for the challenge and the beauty-from alpine meadows to the desolation of the eastern sierras!     John Poco

 


I did ride the Death Ride and enjoyed it immensely. It was probably the toughest thing I have ever done. My least favroite was coming up the backside of Monitor and having a flat tire. The open scenery and the hotter temperature made it tough mentally and physically. My most favorite moments were making it to the top of the first hill and making it most of the way up the third peak before I ran totally out of gas. I have to say that it was as tough a ride as I thought. I was hoping to make 4 peaks, but only managed 2.8. The relentless climbing on the first two peaks was harder than I had thought it would be.

My best encounters were with the friendly people along the way: the father and his apparent 12 year old riding a tandem, a couple who rode a tandem over all 6 peaks, and the many people who offered to help with the flat, and most of all the great attitudes that folks displayed. Some were clearly not prepared to take on such a huge task, but they put their minds to it and went for it. Others that were prepared I stand in awe of, particulalry those who made it over all 5 peaks. This is a goal for me in the future.   Terry Gannon

 

I don't have any real stories but I did enjoy the ride. It was my first and my friend Bruce Beall and I decided to do the Death Ride instead of the STP, it is on the same weekend. We were debating if we should do the Y2K hill or not during the ride and decided that if we drove this far we might as well do the whole thing. We did not start until 6am and just beat the 5:15 cutoff time by about 5 minutes. My only regret is that I put my Y2K pin on my fanny pack and I somehow lost it. Don't know when we will do it again but it was a real test. Thanks for putting it on.   Bill Byrd

(Alas, I had to tell Bill that Chain Reaction does not, in fact, have anything official to do with the Death Ride.  After all, if you compare it to our own Sonora Pass 2000 ride, it's far too wimpy.  Just kidding!!!  But the official DeathRide page, from the people putting it on, is at www.DeathRide.com

Dear Mike:

Indeed I did climb and yes I remember every pedal stroke. I can still vividly remember almost every tree, rock and bush along the Kings Klimb! But mostly I remember the color of the asphalt. Black!

Not much conversation was exchanged as comrades in cleats trudged upward. But the Tag Line I will always remember was related to me by a rider nest to me after climbing up the 3rd and steepest turn in the experience. He said " We did great! We were travelling 2 mph, and didn't fall over!"

True story.

Happy trails

Jack Wilson  Truckee, CA 

Ahh,, the deathride. What a challenge.. This is one of those "don't do what I did" stories.

I attempted the deathride first in 1999.. I was 226lbs and had an old and heavy (nearly 40lb with the bike lock! yeah ! I took that along also) bike. One water bottle cage and no cammel back.. I had done zero (that is 0) miles training for the ride, I had never been at altitude before and It had only been 2 years since I gave up two packs of smokes a day..

I finished one (1) pass.. That is 42 miles, front of Monitor only.. I almost died doing it.. The only thing that got me there and back was pure pig headedness and nothing else. This year was better. 1500 miles and 70,000 feet, 200lb and a really nice Airborne bike.. I only managed three passes.

I am going to go for improvement next year.. Hopefully all passes.. But any improvement will be great.

I do NOT recommend anyone to do what I did back in 1999.. Be prepared. Do not underestimate the ride its hard.. But its fun.

Cheers

Siamak Mirnezami

Mike, 

I remember your photos of the ride in the rain, etc. prior to the Death Ride. Excellent stuff. I just got back from a 7-day Colorado Heart Cycle Tour in the San Juan Mountains of southwestern Colorado. On our fifth day, we did three passes over 10,500 feet: Coal Bank, Molas, and Red Mountain. It rained, hailed, and lit up the trees with lightening all the way from below the first over the second pass, better than an hour of misery. Now I know what you went through. I declined two offers of a ride by the sag van (must be the "Marine" in me) and was shivering when I hit the sag at the top of Molas. 

On Markleeville, too bad you had to miss it. This is my second year in a row trying it. I'm 67. Last year, I cramped up for forty minutes at the top of Ebbett's and only made three ascents. This year, I did four, so I felt pretty good about that. Will this old fart ever make five? We'll know in about 11 months. 

This year's Death Ride was better than last year's in that it was much cooler - yet, no precip. We should be so lucky every year. 

Good website you have. I need to understand how you do your photo stuff if you don't mind sharing, i.e. the small photos that you click to see the full screen versions. 

Thanks a bunch. Keep up the good work. 

Chuck Wilkerson, El Segundo, CA 

 

Sorry, I only dream of the Death Ride in my worst nightmares.... (maybe next year). Thanks for asking.

Jerry Barrack 


This was my first Deathride and completed all 6 passes.
Started at 5:30 and finished around 7. This was my first long ride and have now considered riding some of the Triple Crown double centuries. My bike is a 20 lb, Specialized, Allez Competition, with a triple (which I changed out from the double), and a 12-27 (from the original 11-24), that makes a big difference when hill climbing. I highly recommend the triple to anyone doing serious hill climbs, it helps keep your cadence up.

I expected to be much more muscle sore (legs and back), and stayed at a hotel that had a spa to soak in after the ride (which is one great way to end the day). I'm 47, and targeted my heart rate for the ride to 150 +/-, 75 to 80 % of my actual max, which I maintained until Carson Pass where I started to fade into the 130's. Not riding the high altitudes very frequently, I wonder what the equivalency would be for a sea-level heart rate exertion to a given altitude, say at 8000 ft, the equivalent exertion would increase the heart rate by 10 or 12 %. The food and drink was good, especially at the needed locations, top of passes and at the half-way points up the long grinds, Ebetts and Carson. The only additional food I would have liked to have eaten other than the lunch stop was a sandwich, be it turkey, ham, or chicken at some of the other rest stops. The power bar - gels get old real quick.

The rest stop support was fabulous, the volunteers at Y2K and the half-way up Carson Pass would come up and ask, can I take your bike, get you something to eat, drink, what would like? The ice cream - popsicles at Carson Pass was a surprise, and for an ice cream lover, this was seventh-heaven.

The comraderie with the riders was great, everyone talked and told stories. A group of us riding up Monitor from the East side told stories which appeared to get other riders interest and attention. Even though this was just a ride, there was one rider taking this ride (race??) very serious or shooting for a PR, while riding up the back side of Monitor, someone riding down yelled, "out-of-the-way" very harshly, and a female rider behind us said "God, it's just a ride..", which is just what this was.

The decent down Ebetts Pass appeared short, which made the ascent an elusion, the ride back up was longer than it appeared. The Y2K leg was not as hard as it was talked up to be, round trip was 45 minutes from the rest stop. There was only one short spot of a 24 % grade around a curve that required standing or getting out of the saddle.

The last pass of the day, Carson, was a long up-hill, head wind grind. This was close to two hours (a long two hours) to grid up this pass. What helped was everyone else rode the same pace, or drafted to save what energy we had left. The ride down Carson was a blast, on the straight stretches, it was fun to ride at 35 - 40 mph. At the bottom, several of us (about 8 or 10) were strung out and coasting at 45, yea, I said coasting. Then we turned down the home stretch, up a hill at 8 mph, for last 3 miles. That was quite a transition, coasting at 45 to a hill grind of 8.

Would I do it again, you bet, I'll be there next year.   Mike Heaton  Danville, CA

 

For more info on the Markleeville Death Ride, check out our DeathRide page at www.ChainReaction.com/markleeville.htm.  

The "official" DeathRide page is at www.DeathRide.com (but it's not nearly as much fun as ours!)

And to answer that commonly-asked question is "Has Mike ridden the Death Ride?"  Well, yes, a couple of times, but it was "back in the day" when it was held on a Sunday, when our Redwood City store is closed.  This year I did have the opportunity to inspect the ride from 30,000 feet, as I was in a plane on my way to France for a week (during the Tour de France).  Maybe next year?   --Mike--

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Last updated 09/08/07

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