The Death AKA Tour of the Californian Alps is a 162Km 3998 metre tour. Starting and finishing at Turtle Rock Park in Markleeville, Calif., the 103 mile course begins at 5:00 am and covers both sides of three mountain passes: Monitor Pass (Hwy 89), Ebbetts Pass (Hwy 4), and the Pacific Grade (Hwy 4). The full course is not for the faint at heart! The image and the previous sentence is from the ride website
It was filmed for Fulgaz on a quiet day in October 2023. It is the hardest ride, with the most elevation out of the 2500 ride Fulgaz catalogue. Clearly it was calling out to me to be completed. Wishing to share my pain I arranged a challenge through the month of February to ride it and I was the first one to complete it.
Below are some of the lessons learned, how I fuelled and tips for others.
I planned to start at about 07:30 but I was awake early and was in the garage by 06:15.
Position | Time | Mtrs ascended | Distance | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|
Top of Monitor from West | 1:38 | 872 | 25km | |
Top of Monitor from East | 3:36 | 1818 | 57km | |
Halfway | 4:40 | 2238 | 81.4km | 56% climbed |
Top of Ebbetts from North | 5:33 | 2700 | 88km | |
100K mark | 6:16 | 3000 | 100km | |
Top of Ebbetts from South | 8:00 | 3784 | 136km | Approx distance |
Finish | 9:16 | 3992 | 162.8km |
The obvious positive is that halfway in distance is 2238 meters climbed or 56% of the total. Me at about halfway – looking quite bright and cheerful. One bonus is that it achieved double my weekly elevation taget in one ride.
There are several Strava segments on the course but I would recommend turning them off as the 3rd section is 61km long and frankly gets really off-putting, also it overlaps with a fourth section. The video is made by a cyclist who keeps a good pace and I was always between 0.7-0.8x of his time bar parts of the downhills. I didn’t really pedal downhill and when I did it didn’t make any noticeable difference in speed
There is little traffic on the first half with slightly more later on and very few people around. I did not see any cyclists at all. The filming is well done, on a bright sunny day. The lake (Lake Heenan) at the top of Ebbetts looked very inviting but was likely icy cold.
For pacing I would use the table above and adjust to your own schedule. My biggest (and probably only) mistake was in not having a target time. I had cycled further virtually (Kona Ironman 180Km) but nowhere near as much climbing or as long a time. I didn’t really have an idea of how long it would take and how fast the descents were so it was a matter of completing rather than making a certain time. In hindsight, given that I ‘lost’ about 20 minutes getting food etc I would see 8:30 as achievable and definitely sub 9.
I am not a great liquid drinker when doing longer rides and I took on a total of less than 2 litres of liquid, including 500ml of energy powder and 3 cups of tea. Food was toast, a coconut macaroon, an energy bar and a cereal bar. I never felt under fed or watered but I should probably have drunk more.
Edit: Also two gels
Link to my Strava file. If it is not on Strava it didn’t happen. 39 comments and 75 kudos. Thanks everyone.
Will I do it again. Definitely. Probably not until after February as if I am slower or do not finish I wipe my first time from the leaderboard. Currently 5/6 on the leaderboard, although I was first on 8th Feb. Times range from 6:43 to 10:21
Good luck to anybody having a go. It is a hard but satisfying challenge. I hope the information I provided is helpful
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Comments and input welcome
Pete said:
Congratulations on a really great accomplishment John and as always a great write up. You do look fresh in that picture and you really didnt eat or drink much at all. Like you, I dont really consume enough liquids on long rides. Keen to give the challenge a go, just hoping its not too hot here in OZ though as we are mid 30s at the moment this week, Sounds like you had no issues with the ride as far as freezing or dropouts which is great. From memory you download and ride it from NAS. What bike/trainer set up do you use m8?. I am using ATV so hoping to download it all in 1080p as 4K would be too much data. Again well done, brilliant effort. Cheers Crazy Catz Pete 💪👏👊
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Stuart said:
Great work John.
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John Hallas said:
Thanks Stuart
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John Hallas said:
I have a wattbike and I set it to the climbing gear set up. I also use ATV and downlaoded it in 1080p – 22Gb. Idont have a NAS. I just ran a ethernet cable into the garage from the router and it took no longer than 10 minutes. Better than trying over wifi.
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Stuart said:
Great job John.
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tempocyclist.com said:
That is one massive day on the turbo. 😮 Well done!
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John Hallas said:
Thanks Klem.
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