(well, almost)
by Valerie Josephson,
Bicycle Touring Club of North Jersey
Death
Valley National Park is a vast expanse of extreme environments. Ringed by high dark snow capped mountains,
it offers ancient sand dunes, ochre painted hills, thousands of rocky barren
wind-swept acres, whirling dust devils, strong dehydrating winds and very high
but dry temperatures.
Noodling
around the internet on a cold January night looking for a warm experience, I
found the Death Valley Century and Double Century ride . My friend, Lowell Morgan a.k.a. Skip, had done this C in October, 2003 and
the temperature during the ride reached 104.
That is not what I had in mind.
We talked and he estimated early March temps would range between 75-80
degrees. That sounded good so we
registered for the ride early hoping to get one of the 300 slots. He would drive up from Colorado and we
would do the ride together.
The
108 mile course was to start at Furnace
Creek Ranch and run north to Scotty’s Castle where we could enjoy this lovely
oasis before heading back over the same roads.
Rest stops would be at 18, 54 and 90 miles. The total climb was estimated at 4200’. I had visited Death
Valley many times while living in California and loved its harsh beauty. Would I still love it from the seat of a
bike?
Having
only started long distance cycling in June, 2004 I knew I had to do some
serious preparation. Joining a local
gym, I had one session with a trainer who was a mountain biker; she understood
what I wanted to do and worked out a
plan of resistance training (weights),
added in a dash of treadmill and
set a schedule of 3-4 times a week.
Roadwise, I would do one 50 mi
ride and a bunch of 15-20 mi rides with intervals. After all, it was January,
and I am not a masochist.
XC skiing is good cross training
and I did a lot during Jan-Feb.
I
thought my bicycle, a Trek 5000, was ready to go until I talked with some
friends who had done a week long bike tour in Death Valley in March, 2004. They had snow, freezing rain and lots
of hypothermia. Normally I ride with one medium sized
handlebar bag but this information
clearly indicated I needed more storage capacity for warmer duds. Off to the bike store for an aluminum seat
post, a rear rack and bigger bag. When installed it all looked quite lovely,
but dealing with the redistribution of weight took a little
work. With the handlebar bag gone, I added an aerobar and have learned to love
it. Dehydration can be a big problem
in Death Valley for anyone. It is
estimated that you lose one gallon of water sleeping at night! Given the distances between rest stops on
this ride, a camelback was clearly needed.
Some
friends suggested that it was pretty nutty to try my first century in March but
I thought why not? With an out and back
course, I could always turn around. I am not a hyped up competitor – I ride for
the pleasure of it and if I didn’t finish a century on the first try, I would
do it another time. I just wanted to
get away from winter.
Running
a tour in any National Park must be very difficult; the Park Service has many competing usage problems. Rest stops can only be located in areas
where there is enough room for the cyclists and the tourists. In Death Valley these spaces are quite
limited. A week before the ride
AdventureCORPS informed us that
the course had been
changed due to a visiting VIP!
The new plan was to start at Furnace Creek Ranch and head south to
Jubilee Pass and return; a 105 mile course with 3700 climbing. The VIP turned out to be Laura Bush and
one assumes the Secret Service did not
want the roads clogged with sweaty cyclists while she was at Scotty’s Castle.
The rest stops were now to be at 17.7 mi (Badwater), 47.7
mi (Ashton Mill) and lunch would be served back at Badwater on the
return loop.
The
park roads are also a problem; they are only two lanes on which an abundance of
motorized homes (RVs) roll, followed by lots of frustrated drivers trying to pass them. Abundant spring rains had produced a bumper crop of
wildflowers so the roads would be lined with photographers and tourists for the
annual show.
I
toyed with the idea of shipping the bike
ahead but got nervous when we had heavy snow the week before. What if I got there and the Trek
didn’t? Dave, at James Vincent, ordered a padded bike
bag, showed me how to disassemble and reassemble the bike and provided heavy
duty skewers to use during
shipping. At home, I packed it up, protected the derailleur with
a Styrofoam “box”, wrapped other operating parts in
bubblewrap and crossed my fingers.
Early
March 3, I dragged the bag over the snow drifts to the car and headed for
Newark Airport. Parking next to the first free luggage cart, I loaded on the bike and my backpack and
took the elevator to the tram. Then
the redcoats took over. The ladies in
red jackets must have taken one look at me and that big bag and decided I needed
help. Actually everything was
going smoothly but I am never one to pass up “the kindness
of strangers”. They pushed the cart to
the right elevator (one with big doors) and delivered me to special services
where I checked in and rolled the bag over to the TSA guy who wiped it down for
explosives and waved me good-bye. They
did open the bag and search it later on as it was too big to be x-rayed
and left a little note to that
effect.
Arriving
in Las Vegas, I picked up my rental car and returned to the airport for the
bike and bag. Driving across Nevada is
always an exciting experience, a sand dune here, a craggy mountain there and
wide open roads. Arriving in Death
Valley at sunset topped the esthetic pleasure charts.
Skip arrived the next morning and we went for a
big carbo breakfast. By 1:00 we had reassembled and check out my
bike and were ready to take a short 20 mile ride to loosen up. I had carefully planned my strategy
for the Century:
Carbs
and a brief rest every ten miles, food
drink all the time and water ad libidum from the camelback. We
started out and in one mile I bonked!
That boded ill, however, it all
made sense. Jet lag, a very dry climate, a high carb breakfast and no lunch. Having figured out the problem, I munched on some peanut butter
crackers and headed back to the General
Store for candy bars; they worked their magic. Back on the bike for a nice loping 17 miles and the world was
all rosy again. Lesson learned: stick
to the plan all the time!
March
5 dawned bright, beautiful and cool! (Tour leaders note: I always bring good
weather.) The Double Century
riders left at 6 a.m. and Century riders left in waves every 15 minutes
thereafter. We were warned to watch
for the droves of wildflower enthusiasts who would start arriving from Los
Angeles in the early afternoon; they
weren’t kidding. Single file was the
order of the day. The first 17 miles
offered long rolling downhills next to a huge dried lake bed which actually
contained ponds of rainwater from the heavy spring rains.
The
first rest stop was at Badwater; Skip
had gotten there about 10 minutes before so I knew I was moving along
well. We don’t really ride together
given our relative strengths – we start together and if we meet up during the ride fine, otherwise it’s a cold beer at
the finish; that takes the pressure off
both of us . About 200’ up the cliff over the parking lot was a
small sign marking “Sea Level”. The food was adequate but the drinking
water provided was foul; it tasted as if some borax left over from the 20 mule team days had been added. I hated pouring that stuff into my new
camelback but I did. The food drink
crystals helped a little.
About
3 miles down the road, rounding a bend we were hit with a brisk headwind. Thirty more miles of this, I grumbled. Ten miles further on the road surface
turned to shredded wheat. Potholes and
fissures were abundant and the traffic was picking up. The vibration was bad; looking down at my
computer it had shaken off the aerobar and was dangling by its wire. Several
riders were already complaining
of headaches. I wondered if the roads
going north were this bad – it turned out they weren’t. At about 45 miles I had a close encounter with a Porsche passing an RV in the
oncoming lane. He must have thought I
was a mirage! I veered off the road
into a warm sand dune and flew off the bike.
Time to take stock. My hands
were tingling. Directly ahead of
me were two quick rollers and a triple
black diamond hill (up), a rotten road
surface and persistent wind. The
hours in the gym had really paid off, I
was much better on hills than ever before and my cardiovascular status had
improved considerably. The feeding
plan had worked; I was full of energy.
But was I enjoying this....NO!
In the back of my mind were the 8 rollers (UP) at the end of the
ride. I had enough carbs and water to
make it back to Badwater. What really
turned me around were the happy faces of the first returning riders flying
along at 20 mph with a wonderful tail wind.
I rested for a few minutes on the dune,
and turned north with no regrets.
It would be a 90 mile day.
The
tail wind was glorious, the sun was high and hot and I felt terrific. I did
start looking about for a place to answer nature’s call but Death Valley offers
no cover. I stopped twice on the way
back – once to reapply sun blocker and once to seek some shade behind an SUV
and chat with the woman who was sagging her husband. It was his first C,
too. She gave me a bottle of
cold spring water to mix my food drink in – bad water begone!
At
Badwater, I headed for the biffy and noticed a small pale rider tucked between
the garbage receptacles. She looked
really sick. “Yes” she said, “a friend
was helping her”. She had no water at
hand-- some friend I thought. At the
food tent I informed them of the problem and asked for a cold soda for
her. The friend finally showed up and
the guy in the parked ambulance had his first customer.
Skip pulled in about 3 minutes later; he had
waited a while for me at Ashton Mills but then continued on to the Pass. Skip eats hills but the ride down the
pass was terrible – the road surface was rotten and he was on his brakes the
whole way. We lunched with the first wave of Double C riders. I passed on the sandwich and stuck to my
gooey carbs and soda.
The
ride back always seems faster and we still had a little tail wind and clouds
now covered the sun. The 8 rollers
were l*o*n*g but not beyond my abilities.
I
made the top of the last one and hit the downhill run back to the Ranch. The training had paid off, the feeding plan
worked, I didn’t bonk, and I had done 90.2 miles in ten hours
including breaks. Skip was waiting at
the finish. We locked up the bikes and
headed for a cold beer. While we were in the bar, a Double C rider
popped in for a $10 double espresso (for which he had to borrow money); he still had 70 miles to go.