Death Ride

My boss' boss' boss, Paul, is a hard core cyclist. You know, the kind who goes up and down Mount Diablo two or three times in a row just for kicks. I usally say he's a crazy hard core cyclist, but when I'm considering doing something called the Death Ride, it becomes a kind of pot/kettle situation. Paul emailed me yesterday to encourage me to register for the Death Ride lottery, and after giving it some thought, I went ahead and signed up.

The Death Ride is a ride over 5 passes in the Sierras, just south of Lake Tahoe. The total distance if you do all the passes is 129 miles, with 15,000 feet of vertical climbing. But you don't have to do all 5 passes, and because the way the course is arranged with a bunch of out-and-backs from a central point, you could do just one or two passes and call it a day.

I'm pretty sure I could do at least one pass on this ride. Monitor Pass begins at around 5500 feet and peaks at 8300 feet, so total elevation gain is about same as going up Mount Diablo. Of course you're starting at a high elevation, so altitude can be a factor. I don't think I would do the back side of Monitor, which is the second pass, but I might try Ebbett's Pass, which goes from 6000 to 8700 feet, but is supposed to be quite a bit steeper than Monitor. The back side of Ebbett's is a shorter pass, so three passes might be within my reach.

The way this registration works is, you sign up now and then in February they randomly select 2800 participants. Then you have one month to confirm and pay the entry fee. So I may not get selected, but if I am I have a lot of training to do between now and July.