The Death Ride is Alive and Well - Please Shoot Me!!!!

[Arty50]

There are rides and then there are RIDES. Yesterday made both of those look like child’s play. It was like an unbelievable torture the likes of which were only topped a couple of times during my football tenure. Most of the torture recounted below actually occurred during the last 1/4 of the ride. Up to then we were just dandy. So forgive me if this is long and drawn out (summary details are at the end). My mind is still Jello.

Lego, lph, and myself made plans to meet up on Monday at Hole in the Ground in North Lake. Unfortunately lph and I got delayed and missed meeting up with Lego. Karma would fuck us hard in the ass for this.

We thought we had some basic info on where to go, and even called Tyrone to get some directions. So we parked the car at the end of the ride and departed for the trail head. This normally involves riding along paved road for a couple of miles and then turning left onto a fire road. At one point we hit Sugar Bowl, and I’m thinking to myself “This can’t be right. If we keep going we’ll hit Donner Lake, which is past where we wanna be.” Naturally, I don’t listen to the little voice in my head; and we end up riding 3/4 of the way down the steep hill to Donner Lake. At this point we realize we’ve fucked up. So we start the brutal climb back up the road. Of course there’s a headwind just to add insult to injury.

Amazingly, I’m still feeling really well. So well that I know I could easily climb the 2000 ft we still have left. So we head back down the road and find three other lost riders. They’re working under the same directions. Where is the Norton Ranger Station? Hmmmm… Well we ride back up the pavement and decide to just turn left on the most promising fire road. About 100 yard up the trail we meet up with a driver in a WWII vintage Jeep and he explains to us that the Ranger Station was torn down a couple of years ago. Great! But the good news is we’re headed the right way. A bit more climbing finds us at the base of Boreal, where lph and I stop to top off our Camelbacks and grab a snack.

From there we thought we were set. We rode under Hwy 80 up to the trailhead. Hmmmm…a junction. We could swear the directions said to turn left, so we take off on the left fork. Shortly the climb begins. Along the way the little voice in my head starts up again, “Shouldn’t you be on the other side of this peak?” Once again I didn’t listen. After about 3 miles and 1800 feet we hit a dead end. NOOOOOO!!!!!! All we can do is laugh at this point. Once again I ignore the little voice. It was telling me to just bushwack around the peak. Instead we dropped all the way back down and hung the proper right.

Needless to say we are a couple of determined, yet seriously macochistic, riders. So we make the long climb back up to the peak. This time we’ve found the signs and know we’re headed in the right directions. It’s a long slog up, and I run out of water 100 feet short of the summit; lph gladly lends me a couple of swigs of his. Yes!!!! We made it!!!! A short rest and look around makes us feel like the climbing is over, despite the fact the trail elevation scale I saw earlier said we still had one decent climb left and then all downhill. We would find out that both myself and the scale were wrong. At this point lph finishes the last of his Camelback, and we head down the trail.

The downhill is sweet. Lots of little baby heads and concrete erosion controls that form nice little rollers. We’re so tired at this point, we’re taking it a bit easy. Don’t want to wreck with 8 miles left. After a good long ride down, I decide that the elevation scale had to be wrong. We should have hit the second climb by now. So I pick it up a notch and start to bomb over some of the technical rocky sections. I’m having a great ride at this point. My reserve is kicking in and I’m killing it. At one point I race ahead a bit…only to confront the next climb. My heart broke. After 26-27 miles and aroung 3500 feet, my body didn’t want any more. Oh what the hell. Fuckit, I’m taking this hill. So I raise the seat and start the next climb. I made it almost all the way up, and then the weirdest thing happenned. My legs weren’t sore, they didn’t hurt, I wasn’t even cramping. But my body just gave out. My back was done and my shoulders were killing me. I could barely keep my head up. My brain was numb too. It was like I had stopped burning fat and started burning brain cells.

Then the downhill came. Yes! Nooooo!!!! Some brilliant trail designer had decided to wrap the trail around a hill. But instead of keeping it on the down slope it had multiple ups and downs. Not little rollers; decent descents and climbs. Technical climbing, or climbing of any sort, was no longer and option for me. Of course, lph is a machine so he powered on ahead. I had to walk the last few uphills. Really there weren’t that many in the 6-7 mile stretch that remained. But I was toast. Flats and downhill were fine for me though. But standing on the pedals was getting really hard. Basically I could only do it only when the terrain made it necessary. Otherwise I was huggin’ the seat. The rest of the ride was a blur. My body and my mind started quickly shutting down. It was just survival at this point. The weird thing was my legs still felt ok. No pain. Just no energy. I’m convince the lack of water was what killed us. Eventually I come upon a sign that tells me I have 3 1/2 miles to go. “Fuck, the sun is going down. I gotta get out of here.” About 100 yard later I hit a private road. Thank you, Jebus!!!! I bombed down that sucker and cut half the distance in what I can only guess was 5 minutes. The trail split off again and the sign at this point said 1 3/4 miles.

This part of the trail was really fun. Up to this point we had seen nearly everything: baby heads, little drops, large boulders, you name it. The last section of trail was the best surprise, a long winding staircase down through the woods. At this point my head felt like it was just gonna fall off. My traps were dead. Still, bombing down that last section was fun…until it hit the private road again (no you couldn’t ride the road the whole way). “Trail head: 1 3/4 miles.” Wait the last sign a mile back just said the same thing. Why god?! Why?!

Ah, the sound of the highway was near though. The end was in sight. A little more climbing and then a jaunt through the woods ended with the best sight ever. Right where the trees parted, there was lph with the car. He was every bit as dead as I was. We had both bonked around the same time and despite the fact he was able to make the last few climbs, he couldn’t feel a thing at this point. He told me the last few miles he kept looking at his shock to make sure it was still working. It was working perfectly fine, but his arms were so dead from all the saddle time the shock wasn’t helping much. I had felt the same thing. At this point I was informed at how many miles and vert we had just ridden. I’d never even done 1/3 of that. I couldn’t believe I had lasted as long as I did.

At this point all we could think about was one thing…water. So we went into old Truckee to rehydrate and grab some food. We couldn’t even eat. It took too much energy. Hell, we could barely talk we were so dead. At one point during dinner, I look across the table and tell lph, “My whole body is shaking.” It wasn’t a violent shaking, just a gentle constant tremor. Enough to make me laugh as I was trying to use my shaking hand to get a forkfull of food.

So after blindly staring off into space and barely choking down some food, we jumped in the car and headed back home. All I have to say is mad props to lph for driving. We were both completely fried and he made the hour long drive like a champ.

So I know what you’re wondering at this point. How long was the ride?

The final verdict on lph’s cyclocomputer:

33-34 miles
4,500 feet of climbing

The last 8 miles (and god knows how many vert) were ridden without water.

All for a ride that’s normally 17 miles and 2,000 feet of climbing. lph's comment: "That was much harder than the 80 mile ride around the Lake." Oh and I just looked at the website I saw yesterday morning. I’d like to kill the author.

[gimpy]

ooooof!!! what doesn't kill ya, only make you more badass. now the next hillclimb you do won't feel like shit in comparison.

[lph]

Damn that was a fun day!

I have NEVER seen Arty not be able to put away any amount of food put in front of him and he balked at a ceasar chicken salad, had to get it to go. Said he couldn't hold the fork the tremors were too bad.

I ate/drink so much so quickly I almost puked.

I think it was the lack of water and food during the ride that did us in. the sheer mileage, the climbing and the technical terrain of 2/3 of the terrain didn't help either. Each of those little climbs was typically technical and required a burst of energy if you didn't want to get off and walk.

and yeah, that made the 'ride around the lake' feel like a ride around the neighborhood.

[Arty50]

Originally posted by gimpy
ooooof!!! what doesn't kill ya, only make you more badass. now the next hillclimb you do won't feel like shit in comparison.

Bring It!!!!*

* Note to Mother Nature, Murphy, and the Almighty...this was merely a joke!

[PeachesN'Cream]

NOT looking forward to climbing with you guys this weekend.

shuttle runs, yes please!

[Viva]

Arty, get thee a road bike and try a real "Death Ride".

http://www.deathride.com/

[Theodore]

Or the Kansas version...
http://www.deathride.org/

[Arty50]

No offense, but fuck you both.

Actually it's nice to see the name return. Sorta, maybe. Someone actually died from a crash on that ride two years ago, and they renamed it last year. A shame, in more ways than one. I hear that ride is brutal.

[freshies]

boys, ping me nxt time for beta on North Lake rides! I coulda saved ya a lot of wrong turns and extra climbing! but that traic rocks, don't it? am riding it this Sat.

Backcountry has a great site for trail beta.

http://www.thebackcountry.net/

also, buy the Tahoe topo map that Backcountry sells that lists all the good mtb rides and hikes, etc. that map has saved my ass on many lost occassions in the Tahoe area - esp. on sections of the TRT that I was not familiar with.

good TR! Made me tired just reading it.

[freshies]

Originally posted by Viva
Arty, get thee a road bike and try a real "Death Ride".

http://www.deathride.com/

done it. twice. never, ever again.....i have never been more tired and bonked harder in my life than on that ride - both times. simply brutal....

[Viva]

Originally posted by freshies
done it. twice. never, ever again.....i have never been more tired and bonked harder in my life than on that ride - both times. simply brutal....

I was suppose to do it back in 96. No way now, however. I'm too fat.

[freshies]

yeah, i hear ya, no way i could do all 5 passes this year.....just not in the same shape i used to be.....grumble...grumble......