From the Archives - Death Ride Photo Quagmire

Introduction

In the year 2000, I did the Markleeville Death Ride with my friend J— and my brother B—. This lead, years later, to a dispute that stretched the bonds of our friendship almost to the limit. Read on for the full transcript of our increasingly heated email exchange.

The Death Ride Photo Quagmire – January 13, 2005

From: Dana
To: J—, W—, & B—
Date: January 13, 2005
Subject: We Are Owed…

J—, W—, & B—:

Check out this link:

http://www.deathride.com/course/ [Alas, this link is dead, this having been 19 years ago.]

I was astonished, when perusing the Markleeville Death Ride website, and reaching the above page, to see this photo of us.

Upon reflection, however, it seems perfectly obvious that the ride organizers would want to use such natural poster boys for their promotional materials. Not everyone looks so healthy, so athletic, so—okay, let’s just say it—so sexy, especially when clad in humble garbage bags. I imagine we’ll end up on the posters and jerseys and such as well, if they can get our skeletons right.

J—, I found the original photo on your personal website. Clearly that’s where the Death Ride folks stole it from. Naturally, we are in a position to demand royalties, and it would be downright un-American to let the opportunity go. If we don’t get some kind of remuneration for this, then the terrorists have already won.

The question is, who should get the money? Obviously, B—, J—, and I are the subjects of the pirated photo, but then W—, I believe you took the photo, so you may own the rights to it. And J—, it’s your website they grabbed it from, so it may be that you own the rights to it. (The fact that you and W— are married may end up being very helpful here, as long as you don’t keep separate bank accounts.)

J—, before we go after these guys, you might want to throw some boilerplate up on your site along the lines of, “All photos (and other data) on this website are the exclusive property of J— L—, and any reproduction of said photos, in any form, including but not limited to promotional materials, romance novel cover art, screen savers, and collectible plates, is strictly prohibited.”

So who has a lawyer friend who owes him a favor?

Dana

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From: W—
To: D—, J—, & B—
Date: January 13, 2005
Subject: Re: We Are Owed…

It should be obvious to everyone that I own that picture! I make my living writing about and photographing other people - imagine if they all came out asking for a piece of the pie!

W—

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From: J—
To: D—, W—, & B—
Date: January 13, 2005
Subject: RE: We are owed…

Dana et al,

Sorry to disappoint you, but I was contacted by a guy named M— who asked permission to use some of my photos for a new Death Ride website. Thinking this was my shot at the Big Time, I gave my consent for their use. I can only assume that this free publicity will bring an avalanche of requests for ... something. Anything. All I know is there is no such thing as bad publicity, so I’m banking on that.

J—

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From: Dana
To: J—, W—, & B—
Date: January 13, 2005
Subject: RE: We are owed…

J—,

I’m afraid your apology won’t be enough for B— and me, and perhaps not for W— either. Who gave you the authority to grant that fellow that permission? Sure, I let you put the picture on your site, as a personal favor, never imagining that you’d abuse our friendship by giving out an image of me. What if a collectible plate makes its way into circulation, and said plate makes me look fat, or dumpy, or something?

Have your lawyer call my lawyer. But tell him to talk quickly, since my lawyer is expensive.

Dana

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From: J—
To: Dana, W—, & B—
Date: January 13, 2005
Subject: RE: We are owed…

My lawyer will call your lawyer, but I can tell you now that we’re going to win this one. Our lawyer is the best. Okay, to be clear, our lawyer, for now, given our penurious state, is S— [J—’s one-year-old son]. But I’ll tell you this: what he lacks in terms of knowledge of the law or putting words together to make sentences he makes up for in determination and an uncanny ability to get his way.

You’ve been warned.

J—

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From: Dana
To: J—, W—, & B—
Date: January 13, 2005
Subject: RE: We are owed…

Determination and persistence are one thing, but he’ll have my attorney’s charm to contend with. It probably won’t be any surprise to you that my attorney is A— [my four-year-old daughter]. See you in court.

Dana

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From the Archives - Death Ride 2007

Introduction

This year marks yet another when I didn’t ride the Markleeville Death Ride. It used to be too hard to get a spot, it being oversubscribed, but now it’s just too expensive. Almost the last time I did the ride was 2007, and this is the story I wrote for my bike team pals at that time. (I did return to the Death Ride with my teenage daughter a couple years ago … click here for that report.)

Death Ride Post-Mortem Report – July 14, 2007

It’s time to report on the Death Ride. This year I rode with five other guys, though we splintered apart almost immediately so I won’t bother introducing the dudes who got all uppity and rode away to prove their dominance. Mostly I rode with my former UCSB teammates John “Cap’n Pelstar” Pelster and Dan “AAA-cell” Wolnick; the others were Dan’s pals from Bend, Oregon (aka Benders).

As usual, the Death Ride was all about the food. You know what they say, a mollusk travels on its stomach. This year the rest stops had miniature energy bars (why miniature? I don’t know!) which, being a bit hard to open, didn’t have a very high calorie-to-effort ratio. Also provided were [Brand X] gels. These were very handy but I can tell you with perfect sincerity that the flavor was absolutely revolting. (I won’t say what brand they were because this company sponsors cycling teams, thus I wish them well.) That people pay money for such a product is astounding to me, especially considering—and again, I say this in all honesty, our EBVC nutrition sponsor notwithstanding—that the [Brand Y] gels are downright yummy, especially the chocolate, which I’ve contemplated putting on ice cream in a non-athletic context.

You can see how insanely popular this ride is by this rest stop, visited after the first and second passes (front and back side of Monitor).

Of the trip of the third pass, the front side of Ebbett’s, absolutely nothing is known. I can neither confirm nor deny that there has been some kind of cover-up of this operation.

Here’s a photo from riding the fourth pass, that being the back side of Ebbett’s.

After coming back down the front side of Ebbett’s we stopped for lunch. This presented a bit of a conundrum. They offered a complete sandwich bar, which is pretty fun, but doesn’t provide the kind of food that exactly fuels you during exercise. I mean, ham? Pressed-turkey-lip-lunchmeat? Cheese? These are protein foods that can rebuild our shredded muscles, but rebuilding comes later, and we’re just trying to get the kinds of carb-centric calories that fuel the muscle shredding process. And yet, it’s a sandwich bar, which means you can choose whatever bread you want, and then put whatever you want on it. Irresistible prospect, that. Peanut butter and jelly on sourdough? Sure, if you’re that kind of lunatic! Ham, turkey, cheese, Doritos, and double lettuce on wheat? Whatever floats your boat! Now, this sandwich bar thing might not seem like a big deal to most Americans, but have you ever tried to get a proper sandwich in Holland or France? You have almost no options in such cases. In France you can have jambon (ham) OR fromage (surely you don’t need me to translate that for you?) but almost never both. If you do get both, it’s probably a tourist-centric place selling out to Americans, and thus crappy. Holland is even worse: they’ll lay out a really nice spread, so you could make a giant sandwich that would make Dagwood proud, but you’re not allowed to. It simply isn’t done—you’re only permitted to select one thing to put between the bread slices. If you add more, you won’t get arrested or anything, but you’ll get plenty of stink-eye, and your hosts will be ashamed of you. It’s like a trap. So as American patriots, we almost felt compelled to make big elaborate sandwiches simply because we could. And as financial custodians of our households, we also faced the classic economic motive: we paid for this ride, we should avail ourselves of every amenity! So we ended up eating big-ass sandwiches even though it seemed they could only slow us down.

(I know, it’s a pretty blurry photo. I blame the kind bystander who offered to snap it.)

After lunch, while still trying to digest, we suffered the indignity of having to pedal up Carson Pass. Just getting to the pass proper is a seemingly endless process, and then Carson itself is a mother. In this photo, the place where the road disappears (up at the left edge of the frame) is pretty much the top.

Of course, seeing the summit and reaching it are very different things. Just ask Rider #486. Oh, wait—don’t ask him anything! He’s completely crazy!

Well, that’s pretty much all there is to tell. Oh, wait, I almost forgot! There was  one other thing. At the top of that final pass, we got ice cream bars! There were no chairs to sit in, and sitting on the asphalt with no shade or anything wasn’t exactly civilized, but still—ice cream! With those little toffee bits and everything! Look how stoked we are! JP is practically smiling through that grimace!

Which brings us to the thrilling climax of the adventure: dinner. This was included with the price of the ride and we ate it outside the ... well, I don’t know what it is, a structure of some kind with a kitchen. A clubhouse, maybe? They had picnic tables. There was a live band doing covers of actual rock groups, and as live bands go I would give them about a 6.5 out of 10 (6 being opera and 7 being a cat getting slaughtered). The band sang—I kid you not—“Total Eclipse of the Heart,” and rather than taking the obvious bait (à la Old School) of singing itironically, they sang it straight, which I’ll admit takes guts. They dispatched their task admirably, though I’m not sure you can exactly screw up a song that is so cloying, maudlin, and downright absurd to begin with.

But enough about the ambience. The food was typical Death Ride fare, the culinary philosophy evidently being “why waste good food on knackered bikers?” There was chicken. I’m pretty sure it was white meat. It was coated in barbecue sauce, though this sauce appeared to have been applied after the fact, possibly with one of those frosting dispensers pastry chefs use. I’m not quite sure how the chicken was cooked; it lacked the grill marks of having been barbecued but wasn’t all dried out as an oven would have rendered it. It was eerily tender (though not squishy and spongy like the perfectly cylindrical turkey logs I inherited from the ill-fated and ill-attended century ride that the UCSB cycling team put on as a fund-raiser, or more precisely fund-loser, back in ‘90). The chicken didn’t have a smoky flavor at all, so it couldn’t have been smoked; it may have been gassed. It may actually have been turkey, I’m not sure. The taste was mainly that of metal, though in fairness that’s not the food’s fault; pretty much everything tastes like metal after you’ve ridden the Death Ride.

There were beans. They tasted like baked beans always do. I suppose connoisseurs would argue that there’s a world of difference between Van Camp’s and Bush’s, and normally I would agree, but again, my mouth was not the as sensorially perceptive as a sommelier’s nose at this point. There was also an impressive array of salads: potato, green, and several versions of pasta salad. I avoided all but one of the pasta salads, because they all looked kind of creepy, like you could just tell the little noodle tubes would be limp and slick. The one I did try lacked the pleasant oversweetness that a product from the Safeway deli would have had, that derives its appeal from sheer nostalgia for the sneaked sample of the food that other people’s parents brought to picnics when you were a kid and your parents brought Wasa crackers and tinned sardines. The potato salad was bland, starchy, and eggless—in other words, perfect, as it filled a void in my stomach without causing me any messy spasms. The green salad was unremarkable, having like so many green salads been fabricated from recycled plastic milk jugs, except that it had cherry tomatoes. A regular tomato is so simple, it’s amazing that the agriculture industry has so thoroughly screwed them up (picking them green and hitting them with nitrogen for redness and then freezing and thawing them and somehow thoroughly insulting them until their guts are just mush) but I’ve never had a cherry tomato that was all that bad, so I was cheered to see them in use here. Also on offer were three different salad dressings, none of which appeared to have any chewing tobacco stirred into it, which was a nice plus. I had the Italian vinaigrette, which was neither Italian nor a vinaigrette but which was a perfectly acceptable lubricant for the salad.

There was a roll that worried me very much. It was the size and approximate shape of a giant apple fritter and I couldn’t imagine how I could choke the whole thing down, as my throat was all dried out from the arid air of high altitude and the 100-plus-degree temperatures we’d ridden in. But then inspiration hit: I sliced that bad boy in half like a sandwich roll and put my chicken and my cherry tomatoes between the two halves. This got me through the roll, and prevented me from having to try to cut the chicken with plastic flatware. It’s so easy to break the tines off a plastic fork doing that, and then to eat the tines without even realizing it. My blood plastic levels were thus largely normal (albeit slightly elevated from the gels earlier). Dessert was pudding, which I skipped because I’d already ingested a couple gallons of energy drink, countless cookies, etc. during the ride.

Instead of drinking yet more Cokes so we could stay awake for the drive home, we actually camped another night because the Benders, having a much farther drive ahead, had secured a campsite and brought all the necessary gear. A couple of the guys even found a hot springs to visit but the rest of us were too lazy to partake. We all chatted (and also argued) around the campfire for a while, had a beer or two, and called it a day. We might have even called it a good day. Which I think is about right.

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Ride Report - 2019 Markleeville Death Ride with Teenager

Introduction

I used to ride the Markleeville Death Ride every year, until the registration process became too cumbersome and I started racing the Everest Challenge instead. This year, I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the Death Ride hadn’t filled up, so I signed up with my daughter Alexa. Read on for all the gory details. (Full disclosure: there is no actual gore.)

Executive summary

We ate like supermodels; we ate like kings. It was really hot. The scenery was gorgeous. My daughter set some new PRs. Verdict: EPIC PASS. (Any linguistic shimmer here involving mountain passes is involuntary.)

Here are the elevation profile, basic map, and Deluxe map (with numbers showing what order we rode the passes in).

Short version

Seemingly following my own bad example, my daughter Alexa went into this ride woefully undertrained, at least by the standards of anybody who takes preparation seriously. The Death Ride includes five high mountain passes, but our plan was to tackle just three of them: #1 (west side of Monitor); #3 (Ebbetts); and #5, Carson. We figured this would be about 100 miles with  ~10,000 feet of climbing … but this was just a guess based on nice round numbers.

Dinner the night before was at a somewhat pricey Italian joint in South Lake Tahoe. I had an appetizer of stuffed mushrooms and then chicken saltimbocca over homemade fettuccine. The portions were woefully small. I could picture Kate Moss across the table saying, “Oh my God. I can’t believe I ate the whole thing. I’m such a cow.” It was pretty tasty, though I could show their cook a thing or two about making hand-cranked pasta; theirs was a bit limp. I inherited some of my daughter’s entrée because she got tired of it … the spiciness pretty much overwhelmed everything else.

Breakfast was supposed to be instant oatmeal, but our morning went totally awry (details below). We ended up scarfing a Clif bar apiece instead. It was a new flavor I’d never tried: Apricot Lunacy. Wait, that’s a Luna bar flavor. Or should be. But it was apricot, anyway. Pretty yum, in a wow,-my-hundred-thousandth-lifetime-Clif-bar kind of way.

During the ride I ate a banana-and-trans-fat mini-muffin; hundreds of Kettle-style potato chips; gobs of orange slices; about a dozen really poor robot-made chocolate chip cookies; a cup of weak instant coffee, black; five Pepsis; an electrolyte placebo capsule; three V-8s; 1.5 Cups-O-Noodles; several gels; ice cream bars; blah blah blah (all the usual nonsense ride foods) and a couple big ham & cheese sandwiches.

The post-ride dinner, which did not come with our $160 (apiece!) entry fees, was supposed to be at a far-flung restaurant (out of spite), but in the end we caved and had the onsite $10-a-pop burger plates: two burgers each (replete with trimmings, though the patties were cold), some admirably non-vegan baked beans, and hella potato salad.

Full report

We camped on the ground at Turtle Rock Park, a Death Ride tradition. It was surprisingly—almost eerily—easy to find a spot compared to years past. I almost wondered if we had the right weekend.

We carpooled to the ride with Chris, a fellow Albany High mountain bike coach, who was also one of Alexa’s teachers last semester. (Alexa got an A- in the class; any lower and this coach/teacher would not have been welcome in our group. Just kidding. Actually, if she’d scored lower, he surely wouldn’t have deigned to go with us.) Chris asked if we should set an alarm for the morning, and I explained the Death Ride organizers’ tradition of blasting the Jimi Hendrix performance of “Star Spangled Banner” at party volumes at 4:30 a.m.; i.e., no alarm needed.

Not far (enough) from our tent was a large party of jackasses who decided to hit the road at 3 a.m., which meant waking up at 2 (or maybe they never went to bed) and making a big breakfast in their stadium-lit compound. They talked incredibly loudly, like a bunch of drunks, so I couldn’t sleep. Without any knowledge of their leave-at-3 strategy, I kept waiting in vain them to turn in, and finally gave up and went over to tell them to quiet down. Most of them were so immersed in their 100-dB chitchat they didn’t even see or hear me. What a bunch of tools. My take is, if you have until 8 p.m. to finish a 125-mile ride, and you still need to start at 3 a.m., you’re not a real cyclist and should go try some other sport, like cordless bungee-jumping. Fortunately, they did quiet down, because my Plan B was to send them home to Mother in a cardboard box.

At 5:30 a.m., Chris woke us up. Evidently the 4:30 a.m. Hendrix wake-up call is no longer a tradition. He was just heading out (for all five passes) and we eventually got going at 6:30. Here is the “before” shot.

The ride begins on a descent and we froze our asses off … a Death Ride tradition that will never change. As the sun made its way up past the ridge to the west, things warmed up a bit.

Monitor Pass is a bear. So is taking father/daughter selfies with my ice-cube-slippery phone, especially when a scorpion is crawling toward my neck.

The scenery was as breathtaking as the altitude, notwithstanding fire damage.

The first rest stop wasn’t nearly as mobbed as in years past, which was fine by me. They no longer have energy bars or gels available, and the energy drink is either weak or diabetic-friendly depending on which volunteer you overhear. But they have weak instant coffee now, which is a plus at least from the hydration standpoint. You can tell Monitor was a tough climb because my daughter is a bit surly here.

Here she’s a bit perkier, no doubt due to the dueling V-8 juices she quaffed. Chris took this photo; after descending the backside of Monitor and climbing back up, he encountered us at the rest stop.

Wondering what ebvc is, on our jerseys? It’s just another way of saying EBVC. Does that help? No? Okay, here.

Here’s the official summit marker. Monitor is the lowest of the Death Ride passes, but not by much.

Not shown: the descent of Monitor. I don’t own a GoPro, or even a StayAm. If that doesn’t strike you as funny, it’s because I’m trying to avoid amusing even myself, due to my sunburned lips. If I were to smile too much they’d crack. Maybe you’d think that’s funny.

It’s a long run-up to Ebbetts Pass, with the temperature climbing along with us. I would like to take a moment to point out that I have done this pass with individuals (whom I won’t name) who whined the whole time, and I didn’t exactly blame them: it’s a steep, long climb. But my daughter didn’t whine at all. I’m not sure why this is. Maybe because no hill climb could ever compare to Mount Evans, which she rode three summers ago. (Though come to think of it, she didn’t whine then, either. At the time I chalked this up to lack of available oxygen.)

There’s a lake. Actually it’s Kinney Reservoir. This is at 8,350 feet elevation—so we’d already broken the climb’s back. It’s it amazing how you, gentle reader, barely have to exert any energy to journey up these passes with us, and yet you still complain about how long and arduous my blog posts are. Man, you’re not just humorless … you’re downright grumpy.

Due to California’s modern all-precipitation-all-the-time winter/spring format, there was still snow up there. It’s not hard to spot the snow in this photo, but I’ll bet you can’t find Waldo.

To mark our progress I would tell Alexa how much vertical gain we had left to go, but expressed as Berkeley-area climbs. For example, “We have 1.5 Spruces to go” or “We have 1 Wildcat to go.” My bike computer was understating the elevation, though, so I’d just announced half a Spruce to go when suddenly we reached the summit. Surprise!

This next photo doesn’t perhaps look very interesting, but that’s only because my arm isn’t like eight feet long and my phone’s “lens” isn’t very wide-angle. The point is, Alexa was so knackered, she had to lean her back up against me for support. The position I had to sustain for this made my back hurt quite a bit, proving what many of you already know: parenting is even harder than cycling.

Amazingly, I didn’t get the song “Lean On Me” in my head after this little exercise. Sometimes life is surprisingly merciful.

Check out this bag of chips. I wonder how high you’d need to take it before it actually exploded?

In other news, what’s with the watermelon? I mean, why offer what’s essentially a calorie-free food to hungry cyclists? Frustratingly enough, this is almost all Alexa felt like eating. I had to plead with her to eat more food. This is one area where you can’t “listen to your body.” Your body is a freaking liar!

Here is the requisite elevation shot. For the second time, Chris made the summit—his fourth, our second—right around the time we did. Incidentally, Ebbetts Pass is 62 feet higher than the Col du Galibier, which is the highest point in this year’s Tour de France. Does this mean Ebbetts is harder than the Galibier? Ha. Ha ha ha ha ha. The Galibier is way, way harder. It’s a beast. But Ebbetts is hard enough.

We safely descended, had a nice lunch at the base (I grudgingly ate Alexa’s sandwich), and then the day got really, really hot: over 100 degrees for well over an hour! We tackled the seemingly endless Category 2 climb toward Carson Pass, and then it tackled us. It’s hard to describe how tedious and strenuous it was so I won’t bother. Eventually we arrived at the last full rest stop before the Carson summit. The Gu people were there handing out free product, which probably rescued Alexa from total blood sugar collapse. She loves herself some gels, especially their vanilla and their salted caramel. The Gu-sters also gave me some electrolyte capsules, which I took a) just to be nice, and b) as a placebo. I don’t doubt that these capsules are slightly useful, but potato chips have plenty of sodium, and orange slices have plenty of potassium, and that’s all there is to it.

While at this stop, some random woman came up to me and said, “Look at this! Somebody put his water bottle in my cage! What am I supposed to do with it?!” I was utterly perplexed. I mean, why tell me about it? Do I have a sign around my neck saying, “Come to me with all your problems”? Before I was able to come up with a response, I glanced at the bottle and discovered that, in fact, it happened to be mine. I have no idea how this happened; nor does Alexa.

Here is Alexa about to mount her bike for the final slog. If her expression is sanguine, that’s only because I hadn’t yet told her we had ten more miles to climb. On the map, we are at Picketts Junction where the boxed-in R is.

Beautiful meadow, snow-capped peaks, brisk headwind. Seconds after I snapped this, Alexa asked me to take the lead again. She certainly got to practice her drafting on this ride.

Up, up, and up.

Finally, finally we made the summit, then descended to the final rest stop, which shimmered like an oasis. (Full disclosure: it didn’t really shimmer, and I’ve never seen an actual oasis. But still.)

I knew there would be ice cream up there but I couldn’t find it. I looked around for somebody who had some. The first guy I saw was wearing a triathlon national champion jersey. He was eating a Drumstick. I pointed at the Drumstick and said, “Excuse me, but … where did you get that?” He replied (somewhat haughtily, I thought), “National championships.” As in, “This jersey you cannot buy.” I said, “No, I mean the ice cream.” Ouch … I felt a twinge of vicarious embarrassment. The champion pointed toward a huge truck with these vault-like doors on it which contained all manner of ice cream bar. You can imagine how tasty these were.

In the photo above, look at that little plastic strip bisecting the middle vent on my helmet. It gave me the stupidest tan lines of my life. No, I won’t be posting a photo of that. It sure sucks losing my hair.

And here’s the elevation photo. I suspect the height of the pole is to make the sign readable when the snow is incredibly deep … but if so, why is the Ebbetts Pass elevation sign so stubby? [Update: an alert reader has informed me that Ebbetts doesn’t need a tall sign because it’s closed in the winter.]

Descending Carson is an absolute blast. My brother Max, during a long-ago Death Ride, passed a cop car at over 60 mph. We took it a bit easier.

There’s one last uphill slog just before the finish, which is tolerable only because the excitement of being nearly done always gives you a final burst of energy. Alas, when we reached Turtle Rock we were at 96.6 miles with 9,750 feet of cumulative vertical gain. It goes without saying we had to keep riding, just so we could round out our ride at 100 miles and 10,000 feet of gain. Two miles of downhill, then two grueling miles back up. Here is Alexa stoically grinding out the last stretch.

I made a surprisingly unexciting video documenting the culmination of Alexa’s first full-on century ride.

Here is the “after” shot. I cannot account for my totally overblown expression. My only theory is that my crows’ feet are so deep they were causing me physical pain, and that my crazy grin is actually a grimace.

Here is our dinner. I cropped Alexa from the photo because the camera caught her mid-blink and you know how awful those shots can be. She didn’t touch the burger, by the way, so I got it. She was oddly un-hungry for someone who’d just conquered the longest bike ride of her life.

I’m sure there’s more I could write, but now it’s time to apply another coat of Carmex to my poor lips.

Ride stats

Here are the stats based on my old-fashioned bike computer. 

• 100.2 miles
• 8:49:47 ride time
• 11.4 mph average speed
• 10,249 feet cumulative elevation gain
• 40.1 miles total climbing
• 42.8 miles total descending

Further Death Ride reading

Death Ride Frequently Asked Questions

From the Archives – Death Ride ’99

Non-Death-Ride Non-Warmup

Ride Report – Sierra Nevada “Almost Death Ride”

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Everest Challenge "Pep Talk"

Introduction

The Everest Challenge is this weekend.  This fills me with a combination of excitement and dread.  Mostly dread.  It’s kind of like that back-to-school feeling all the kiddies went through this month, except EC is more intense.  Imagine packing all the trials and difficulties of a school year into one weekend.

I had my best week of training recently:  29,000 feet of vertical gain.  Well, EC has that much climbing in just two days.  Cyclists are, by and large, an analytical bunch, and I could easily find all kinds of statistics to support the notion that I’m doomed.  And yet, having finished this race three times already (click here, here, here, and here for details), I’m actually pretty confident.  (Not entirely, though—more on that later.)

My friend John is coming out from upstate New York to do this race for the first time.  He’s a bit nervous because there aren’t that many hills to train on there.  He lived in Berkeley for awhile, so he knows how good the riding is here.  (Mount Diablo, a 10-mile climb reaching 3,800 feet, is particularly good EC preparation, as is Lomas Cantadas, a two mile climb with an average grade of 11%.)  John e-mailed me with some misgivings, and I replied with a little pep talk which I’ve decided to embellish a bit and post here, for two reasons:  a) some of my readers may be doing EC or something similar at some point, and b) the gist of my pep talk could apply to all kinds of difficult undertakings, not just sport.

Here is a photo of John from the last time we did an epic ride, which was the Markleeville Death Ride in 2000.  He’s on the right; my brother Bryan is in the middle.  We’re wearing garbage bags because it was chilly and we didn’t bring warm clothing for the final descent.

Jitters

I’m more nervous about this race than I’ve been before, probably because I’m coming back from a major injury.  For me, more is at stake this year:  this isn’t just a race, but proof that I’m back (or that I’m not).  I’ve spent this week in an elevated state, something like a continuous fight-or-flight reflex.  It feels like I have a cold as well, though I felt the same way last year and a few other times before major events.  Perhaps my body is faking illness to make sure its master (i.e., my brain) gives it all the rest it needs.  Meanwhile, I’ve become obsessive about my bike, wanting to fix everything but not touch anything. 

The truth is, everything could go perfectly and still it would be absolutely grueling.  My friend Craig (who’s also doing EC) remarked, “Perhaps it’s a curse that your specialty is being good after 100 miles and 10k of climbing—you wouldn’t have to suffer so much if your specialty was a 12-second track event.”  I’m also anxious about some mishap (illness, mechanical failure) stymieing me.  Devoting so many weeks of hard training to a single event really leverages you emotionally.

John, on the other hand, is a bit worried about finishing (despite winning a race this year and getting third in another).  He’s studied the course profile carefully, and said in his e-mail, “I can’t stop thinking about EC.  I climb a lot of hills around here, but they’re all a lot shorter….  You love Lomas Contadas.  Looking at Strava, I can’t fathom why anyone would love that hill—it looks ridiculous. It looks pretty equivalent to Blakeslee Road here in Ithaca (if you want to look it up on Strava), and I frickin’ hate that climb. I’ve only done it twice:  it totally kicked my ass the first time, so I swore off it. Then I rode it on Sunday just to prove to myself that it didn’t own me. Well, it did (own me, that is).  If there are sections [of EC climbs] that get over 12% for any length of time, that will totally mess with my rhythm and my head.  And my legs.”

On the face of it, both John and I are over-thinking this thing.  But there’s no point commanding ourselves to stop; it wouldn’t work.  There’s no daytime equivalent to counting sheep until our preoccupations fall away.  What’s needed is to rethink this thing, to keep from falling into the same well-worn ruts of thought that make us worry.  A shift in perspective, away from the analytical, is in order.

The limitations of analysis

We can analyze the EC climbs, Strava data, our own training experience, etc. all we want but it won’t really make much difference at this point.  The fact is, the EC is fricking hard, and there’s no way to totally prepare yourself.  My own training hasn’t approximated either stage of EC, but then it hasn’t any of the other times I’ve done the race.  Nobody ever said the training has to be as hard as the race.  Training never is.  The human body always holds something in reserve to make up the difference.  Plus, for once we’ll be rested and fresh, instead of doing a big ride when our legs are already tired.

It is true that I love Lomas Cantadas.  The very reason I love it is that over time it has helped to forge in me a rare and useful trait:  grace under pressure.  I don’t have gobs of this trait, but more than I used to.  This is probably the only part of cycling that I have gotten better at with age. 

When I was dusting off my old Odyssey ‘91 story for this blog, I was struck by how much of the difficulty of that ride was just me panicking every time the road went uphill.  Recently I did several of these climbs again, during my “Non-Death-Ride Non-Warmup,” a point-to-point ride to a place I’d only seen on a map.  I had no idea what climbing was in store, or even how long the ride would be; plus, I wasn’t even very strong yet.  And yet, it wasn’t a disaster. 

The difference between Odyssey ‘91 and the Non-Warmup is that this time I was “tranquillo,” as the Italians say.  I was riding on about 10% physical ability and 90% resignation.  Resignation is totally underrated.  Sometimes I think I have a talent for resignation, but actually I think I’ve merely developed it by riding over Lomas Cantadas more than 500 times over the last seven years.

Climbing stupid

In that many trips up Lomas, I’ve never made it over without a struggle.  Sometimes the struggle is completely absurd—and yet I’ve never actually tipped over, or ground to a halt, or had to walk my bike.  Yes, I’ve occasionally yelled, “Spock!  Help me, Spock!” but I’ve never failed to make it over the hill.  I’ve tackled that climb several times when I was already shattered.  The trick is to pretend you have no choice and to take one pedal stroke at a time, riding like a robot.  Climbing stupid, you might say.  Not “climbing stupidly,” which I would never recommend, but “climbing as though you were stupid.”  Sometimes the brain just needs to be shut off (though actually I usually leave a few processes running, like the event logger that watches each half-pedal-revolution with astonishment and keeps track of the implausible ongoing progress). 

Eventually, even an 11-percent grade ceases to seem like a crisis, and starts to feel normal.  Not easy, mind you, but normal ... as in, “the new reality is that my life involves a lot of suffering on this hill, and there’s no way around it.”  Fear is replaced by fatalism.  This helps because suffering itself is never the real problem in sport; fear of suffering is the problem.  Suffering is inevitable, but fear doesn’t need to be.

The point isn’t that you need to ride Lomas 500 times to be ready for EC.  The point is, during a hard climb, once you stop thinking things like “what if I can’t?” and “is this too much?” and “oh, no!” and switch to thinking either a) nothing at all, or b) “I will do this until it’s done,” then the ride—any ride—is doable.  If you pace yourself, and keep panic and despair at bay, and ride as though you could not fail, you will succeed.  It may take a very long time, and you may find yourself mired in misery, but that’s okay.  Suffering and misery will not stop you from succeeding.  Only fear and doubt and despair can stop you.  

Here’s my brother Bryan lying in the road on the second trip over Ebbetts Pass during the 2002 Death Ride.  Sure, he’d had the stuffing knocked out of him, but that’s nothing a little rest can’t help, eh?

The psychological factor

Even without routinely climbing a hill like Lomas, a rider can have faith that, once the physical preparation for EC is complete (or as complete as it’s going to get), the rest of the race is mental.  Not as in intellectual, but as in psychological.  “It’s all psychological” is of course a cliché, and I’ve been struck by how untrue it seems in the context of racing.  You can’t (or at least can’t reliably) beat somebody who’s stronger just because you pretend you can, or try harder, or whatever.  But you can certainly silence the wimp in your brain that starts internally whining and casting doubt on your operation.  The notion that “I might not be able to do this” is just a psychological trick your brain is playing on you, to get you to quit.  Framing your progress as a “can vs. can’t” question is just weakness. 

(Obviously there are exceptions to this.  If you blow up completely, and literally cannot turn your lowest gear, and even lying down for awhile doesn’t help, then it’s no longer a psychological matter.  Or, if it’s 100 degrees and you’re not handling the heat well and you get goose bumps or something, then you need to quit to avoid heat stroke.  But these are very rare scenarios, in my experience.  It’s far more common for somebody to decide he can’t hack it, and either quit well ahead of total exhaustion, or sabotage his efforts by refusing to eat or drink enough, which reliably leads to total exhaustion and the mythical conclusion that failure was inevitable.)

I well remember my first EC.  I was good and scared about every climb, including the first one, and when I reached the top of it and still had good legs, I felt ecstatic.  The second climb, another out-and-back, was a lot harder than it looked.  When I saw my pals coming down it I assumed they were just really, really far ahead of me, but to my pleasant surprise the climb was over before I expected.  The last climb seemed endless and really beat the crap out of me, and I was worrying the whole time about the really steep pitches at the top, but when I finally reached them, they were more manageable than I’d expected.  I remember thinking to myself, “Is that it, mountain? Is that all you got?!”

The best part is, if you’ve paced yourself carefully and kept it in your pants, sometimes you (or at least I) feel strong like bull on the last climb, and it’s exhilarating!  On the flip side, if everything goes wrong and you suffer like never before, to where you want to curl up in the gutter in the fetal position, well, that also has value.  That’s vision-quest territory, and I’ve been there, too.  Just last year, in fact, while racing the Everest Challenge.

Non-Death-Ride Non-Warmup

I found myself in the Lake Tahoe area just prior to this year’s Death Ride. That ride is so popular it’s hard to get in, and when dudes started scalping spots on craigslist I gave up on it. But this year, a couple days before it, since I was in the area I did a hard ride over Luther Pass (a former DR pass) and Ebbetts Pass, which is the granddaddy, en route to another campground. If everything went fine I wouldn’t have much to report.

My plan was to ride from South Lake Tahoe, where my family was camping, over the west side of Luther Pass, down the east side, through Markleeville, and over Ebbetts Pass and on to the campground some 25 miles farther on where we were meeting up with my wife’s friend and all her in-laws. The road to this place isn’t on Google Maps and my smartphone battery was dying, so I only had verbal directions. I love a point-to-point road ride—it’s the furthest thing from riding a trainer. You really feel like you’re getting somewhere.

Pre-ride meal was Red Hut in South Lake. Great place, where the cops go. Whenever I’ve gone this place has offered a special called The Usual which is eggs, real hash browns, and a biscuit and gravy. I love hash browns and despise home fries. I can kind of make home fries at home, and except for the ones at the dearly departed Spaghetti Western restaurant in the lower Haight, I’ve never had very good ones. It’s easy to screw up hash browns too but I admire a place that tries, and love a place (like Red Hut) that nails it. I got most of my wife’s hash browns but my kids successfully fought me off from their French toast and pancakes.

I almost doomed the ride before it even began by wearing the wrong shorts. The awful chamois of modern bike shorts is a topic I’ll have to tackle as its own post one day. Suffice to say the modern chamois is less like a little pad and more like crotch upholstery. Giant thick thing and they’re bigger every year. This year’s shorts have a chamois the size of a basketball. Paul Bunyan could use it. And where traditional chamois had a little terry-cloth section where your unit goes—we always called it “the penis patch”—these latest ones have full thick chamois all the way up practically to the navel so there’s no ventilation. It feels like you’re riding with a book shoved down the front of your shorts. I’d actually put them on before I remembered their cursedness. Had I ridden in those, this would be the story of a crotch done wrong and maybe of a mid-ride suicide.

My second choice of shorts were last year’s, with all the seams done in bright orange. It’s a really lame Spiderman kind of look, especially the bright seam running right up the front of the crotch, and my wife has said they’re downright lewd. My kids get embarrassed when I wear them. I’d have blown all this off, except that (though I’d met only one of them) I knew the men we’d me meeting up with for camping would all be real men: big strong guys with trucks and boats and biceps. (Not that they’re lowbrow; they know how to make non-grey, non-slimy hash browns and how to roast an entire pig on a spit.) I pictured them sitting around a campfire drinking beers when this skinny little bike guy shows up with obscene orange-piped shorts: not a good first impression. So I had to wear the shorts I’d worn a couple days before during a 55-mile ride over Luther and Carson Pass.

I hit the road a little after 1 p.m., a few minutes after my wife took off in the car with the kids. (She’d have lunch before driving to the campground and would pass me on the road.) It was 95 degrees. The west side of Luther Pass is much harder than the east side that used to be a Death Ride pass. It starts at about 6,500 feet and winds up at 7,740. I could really feel the altitude and my bad leg felt heavy and kind of stiff. The climb is long and straight and there’s no shade. Plus, I had a headwind—not the kind that’s at least refreshing, but the angry hot wind that just parches you. But Luther is not that big a deal and soon enough I was cruising down the east side, then down through Pickett’s Junction and Markleville where I refilled a bottle at a cool old drinking fountain right alongside the road.

My family passed me at the base of Ebbetts. They acted like I was some kind of hero. Then they drove on, and I began my suffering. Ebbetts is a pretty brutal climb. It’s got some switchbacks of grotesque gradient. I’d never ridden it solo before—it’s a lot easier when it’s the Death Ride and you’ve been training and have excitement and camaraderie working for you. Plus, I really didn’t know what else awaited me after the summit. I imagined it would be around thirty miles of gradual descent, but had to keep something in the tank in case the ride turned out a lot longer and/or harder than I expected.

About halfway up I was really suffering, and running low on energy drink. The air was cooler but also thinner. My gearing was just barely low enough. I weaved like a paperboy. The grade blocked the wind most of the time, but in sections it would return and rush in my ears trying to shatter my morale. There is a human impulse to complain even if nobody is around to hear it; I fought this. Ebbetts has a lot of sudden downhills that slam you into another steep uphill section. All they do is screw up your rhythm and undo some of the progress you’ve made toward that 8,736 foot summit.

Finally I reached the top. There were already port-a-potties set up for the upcoming Death Ride. I took a leak and started the descent. The road is steep and twisty and I was so tired my hands were hurting just working the brakes. In very little time I’d reach Hermit Valley, which is around 7,000 feet above sea level. This is where the Death Ride has you turn around and climb the south face of Ebbetts. From this point on I had little idea what to expect from the ride but was still shocked to find myself climbing again. Not just a little roller or two, but serious grades, one melting into the next. Eventually I realized that Hermit Valley wouldn’t be a valley if it didn’t have a grade on either side of it. I’d literally never considered this before in my life. I’m not very bright.

As I toiled away, trying to be like a robot (and thus incapable of misery) some guy in a jeep drove down toward me. He slowed down and asked, “How far is it to Hermit Valley?” Of course he didn’t deserve scorn, and of course this is a reasonable question, but at the time I felt true contempt. What—is your foot getting tired on the pedal? Is this drive boring you? Are you in a rush?

Finally I reached a sign: Pacific Grade Summit, Elevation 8,050. Only then did I vaguely recall seeing that on a map. Now, though, I figured it must be all downhill to the campground. But it wasn’t. The road continued to roll up and down and put the fear into me. How much longer could I hold out? Strength aside, there was the matter of fuel. I had some gels left but nothing to wash them down with. I encountered a lodge at Alpine Lake and topped up my bottles. When I got back out to the main road, I suddenly wasn’t sure which direction to go in. My brain was that muddy. I figured it out but wasn’t completely confident.

It took me forever, still fighting the wind, to get down to 7,000 feet. Fortunately I didn’t miss the single sign to the little uncharted road leading to the campground. It was at this point I realized two unsettling things. One, my assumption that by the end of the ride I’d have logged as much vertical loss as gain was erroneous. That rule only holds true when you start and finish at the same place (i.e., home). There is of course no guarantee of this when you don’t know the elevation of the destination. Second, I realized why it had seemed like I’d done more than my fair share of climbing over the last 40 miles: it’s because after climbing Luther, I’d gotten more than my fair share of descending. Markleeville is more than a thousand feet lower than South Lake Tahoe. I’d dug myself into a hole I’d have to climb out of. So maybe point-to-point rides aren’t such a great thing after all.

So yeah, there was one more brutally steep grade to get over, a few miles and maybe 600 more feet of climbing. I made it. Hardest ride in ten months. I guess there’s not much more to tell.

Death Ride Frequently Asked Questions

I used to ride the Markleeville Death Ride (125 miles, 15,000 feet of climbing, http://www.deathride.com/) every year. In fact, it became a tradition for all three of my brothers and me, and sometimes a friend, to get together for it. Here's a picture of (from left to right) my brother Bryan, his colleague Bradley, and my brothers Geoff and Max climbing the back side of Monitor pass in the '04 DR. (Click to enlarge.)

Unfortunately, more people want to do the Death Ride than the highway patrol will allow, and it's become very difficult to get in. The last time I got a spot was in 2005, and my brothers were either turned away or had made other plans. None of us has ridden it in years. Thus, it is purely out of a selfless interest in helping others—those very people who got spots when I didn't—that I write these Death Ride Frequently Asked Questions.

General

Q. I’m signed up for the Death Ride, and it’s in just three days. I’m starting to have second thoughts. How hard is this ride, really?

A. If you managed to get registered, that’s really the hardest part. After braving the Active.com server crashes, getting your money back for that expensive subscription Active.com slyly signed you up for, and of course prevailing in the lottery in the first place, the ride itself is practically a formality.

Q. Should I go to Markleeville Death Ride early to try to acclimate to the altitude?

A. In my experience, acclimating takes so fricking long there’s no point, unless you wanted to live in Tahoe for 4-6 weeks. Also in my experience, the altitude isn’t a big problem unless you’re trying to hammer. If you’re pacing yourself properly, you shouldn’t break through the dreaded “invisible ceiling” where you go from being conversational to gasping for breath in two minutes after a slight acceleration.

Fueling

Q. How about carbo-loading and hydration?

A. Carbo-loading is a great idea—not just in the few days before the race, but year-round. As for how to carbo-load, most endurance athletes stick to what they know: pasta, rice, cereal. And water is as fine a fluid as any other typical beverage. But for an intense night-before carbohydrate load, you might try TwinLab's Carbo-Fuel, a beverage that has 60 grams of carbohydrate per eight-ounce serving. A liter or two or this will not only top up your muscle glycogen stores, but will also hydrate you and help induce a soporific blood sugar stupor—an excellent way to get the sleep you need the night before the event. Here, Geoff, Bradley, and I mix up some (off-brand) carbo-fuel on the hood of the car on the way to Markeeville.

Q. Does beer also count as both a fluid and a carbohydrate source?

A. It counts as a carbohydrate source, but because alcohol is a diuretic, it actually depletes your fluids and should not be consumed the night before the ride.

Q. But what about that great German beer, Meister Brau?

A. That brand of beer should never be consumed, except under dire financial circumstances, such as college.

Q. Do I need to bring Powerbars with me to Markleeville?

A. No, the Death Ride event coordinators will provide all the food you will need, in addition to Cytomax, the miracle sports beverage with lactic acid buffers.

Q. I’m conflicted about carbo loading, because I’m on Atkins. What should I do?

A. Consult the handy chart below to choose the correct course of action:

Q. You seem to be talking a lot about diet, digestion, consumption, and such. Why all the hullabaloo?

A. I’m pretty obsessed with food in general, and try to work it into everything I talk or write about. Beyond that, it’s said that an army travels on its stomach—and so do Death Riders. The stomach is perhaps more important than the heart, the lungs, or the legs. If you can digest 8,000 calories while riding, maybe you’ll be able to finish. Here, Max, Bradley, Geoff, and I tuck into a pre-ride Mexican Extravagaaaaaanza dinner at some place in Placerville.

Q. Wow. Eating a lot sounds really important. Does that mean if I have a bad stomach, or start to feel nauseated, that I should just pack it in?

A. Of course not. Consider Jacques Anquetil, a cycling hero from the early days of the Tour de France. While climbing the famous and brutal Col du Galibier in 1958, he had dysentery and was spitting blood and vomiting by the finish. If he can handle that, you can surely keep down your Powerbars and Cytomax and make it over half a dozen little American hills.

Q. What does that say about Anquetil’s stomach?

A. It says more about his incredible determination than anything. And that raises a good point: your brain, your will, and your stubbornness are more important than any physical consideration. I imagine you could put a bullet through my brother Bryan’s head and he’d find a way to finish. If the time cuts don’t get him, that is.

Other strategies

Q. I’ve been told that I should “taper” before the ride. What is tapering?

A. Tapering usually refers to how much alcohol you should be drinking as the ride date approaches. It’s best to do most of your beer drinking about five days before the ride, to build stamina. (If you drink wine, you should stop. It’s expensive, pretentious, and hard on the gastrointestinal system). And as I mentioned before, you should cut back on beer the night before the ride in case it’s hot, so you’re not dehydrated.

Some use the term “tapering” to refer to a decline in training duration and intensity. This is useful for big races, especially short ones, but you’ll want as many miles as possible before Death Ride, unless you’ve been training all along (in which case you should take two-three days of active—or passive—rest). Besides, if the snap is gone from your legs, you’ll be less likely to overcook the first couple of passes.

Q. About those time cuts. Are they really enforced? Can we realistically make them? Should I calculate my rate of vertical gain for each climb?

A. The time cuts can be a problem. They’ve caught out one or more of my brothers and me here and there. Start the ride early, as early as you can, just after dawn if possible. This means waking up in the dark, which won't be hard because rock music comes blasting over the PA system at like 4:30 a.m. Here, Geoff helps pack up the camping gear before the chilly start to our ride.

Also, try not to take too much time at the rest stops. If you go out hard, you might beat the crowds at the food tables and the San-O-Lets. Of course, if you go out too hard, you might blow. What can I say? It’s not an easy ride. As for the calculations, we did this one year, and though it worked out very well—we started the sixth “bonus” pass literally ten seconds before the cutoff—it was fiendishly complicated, as our brains became less and less capable as the ride wore on.

Safety

Q. Obviously with five mountain passes to go over, there must be a lot of descending. Is it dangerous?

A. I would put the danger somewhere between a roller coaster and a nuclear holocaust. Okay, I exaggerate. The roads, though twisty and steep , are well paved. The biggest danger is presented by the vast number of riders on the road. If you must pass somebody, give him plenty of room. Also, if you haven't had your bike up to fifty miles per hour before, proceed carefully to make sure there are no surprises, such as the dreaded speed wobble. I witnessed that once on an organized century ride, shortly after this photo was taken:

My friend John had a very close call there. If you're interested in the whole story, along with a discussion about descending in general, click here:

http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=8468

The climbs

Q. I’m trying to get an idea of what the climbs are like. How would they compare with, say, the Samish Way climb in Bellingham, or Flagstaff Road in Boulder, or Mount Diablo in the Bay Area, or the freeway overpass in the Netherlands?

A. Whatever you train on just isn’t as long as these climbs. The first big climb, Monitor, probably gains more elevation than just about any training ride you typically do. After that the climbs get longer, and of course you’re more tired. The last climb seems endless and cannot compare to anything you’ve ever done in training.

Q. How would they rate, given the European categorization method?

A. You aren’t racing, so perhaps the whole categorization method is out the window. But if you were racing, I’d put the front side of Monitor at a Category 2, the back side of Monitor as a 1, and the front side of Ebbetts as Hors Categorie (if only because it comes after both sides of Monitor). The back side of Ebbettts is about a Cat 3, I reckon, and Carson about a Cat 1 simply because it’s so fricking long and you’re so fricking fried. It's worth it, though. Here are Bryan, Geoff, and Bradley atop Carson Pass, triumph written all over their faces:

Gearing

Q. What gearing should I use for the ride?

A. Assuming a standard front chainwheel size of 39 teeth, here's a useful rule of thumb for your largest rear cog: the number of teeth should be equal to your age, minus the number of years during which you raced. For example, I'm forty, and I raced for fourteen years, so my rear cog should be 40-14=26 teeth. But there’s another rule that says your bike should look cool, so I would stick with a 25 and live with the consequences. In other words, you should use as low a gear as you can handle aesthetically.

Q. Wouldn’t a triple crankset be just the thing?

A. Let’s see, how should I put this? Don’t be such a . . . um, well, suffice to say, using a triple just isn’t done. You’d have to put up with a lot of mockery from your comrades, and the only way to handle that gracefully would be to drop them. And if you’re strong enough to do that, you obviously don’t need a triple.

Q. What about a compact?

A. Sure. You go right ahead.

Other equipment considerations

Q. I just realized my bike chain is pretty worn. Should I replace it prior to the ride?

A. Sure, if you like. But you’d better ride at least a hundred miles on it to make sure it doesn’t fight with your cogs & chainrings, to make sure nothing skips. In general you shouldn’t make big changes to the bike in the days before the Death Ride. For example, don’t do as my brothers did (though this wheel, laced a couple days before the ride, held up just fine):

Q. What kind of clothing should I bring?

A. You'll want the normal jersey, sleeveless jersey, shorts, socks, shoes, sunglasses, cycling gloves, sunscreen, and of course your helmet. You should also bring a lightweight rain jacket that can be stowed in your jersey pocket. The temperature can be in the nineties, but snow banks at higher altitudes coupled with common thunderstorms can make things very cold.

Q. Besides my bike, what is the worst possible thing I could forget to bring to the ride?

A. Your shoes. There is no way you could find a pair of spare cycling shoes that would fit properly and have the correct cleat placement. You also shouldn’t forget your sleeping bag, since you’ll be camping on the cold hard ground and it gets mighty cold up there.

Q. Has that ever happened to you? How could anybody be so stupid?

A. Next question, please.

After the ride

Q. Can I plan on driving home after the event?

A. Sure, if you have plenty of caffeine. If you’re following my an un-doping regimen (see http://www.dailypeloton.com/displayarticle.asp?pk=6072), you’ll have no problem. But you really might be better off spending another night, if for no other reason than getting biscuits and gravy at the Red Hut restaurant in South Lake Tahoe the next morning. (I’m not sure exactly where it is … just look for the cop cars parked outside.)

Q. What’s the best medication to use for saddle sores?

A. Bag Balm. It's for cows. Dairy farmers rub it on the cows' swollen udders. Because it's designed for thousand-pound animals, it works great on humans, I'm told. I have only ever had one saddle sore, incidentally--from the ‘97 Death Ride.

Q. DMSO, a miracle solvent designed for horses, can chase crushed aspirin directly through my skin into my bloodstream. Should I use this?

A. Not unless you're stupid. (Football players have been using it for years.)

Q. What medicine can I use for general pain and suffering?

A. Advil, of course, and Halls Mentholyptus for after the ride.

Q. Will I really need the cough drops?

A. Yes, after a ride of this magnitude you will probably not be able to take a deep breath without coughing, and your throat will be very raw.

Wimping out

Q. Is it too late to change my mind about this thing?

A. Yes. You've already paid your entry fee and besides, you would incur the scathing gibe of your riding buddies were you to chicken out at this point.

Q. How did I get talked into this, anyway?

A. It was a combination of your own foolishness and relentless peer pressure.

Q. I want to ask you something that isn’t on this list. How can I do that?

A. Leave a comment below, or e-mail me at feedback@albertnet.us.