Sunday, May 31st, 2009

Road: OMG, I Will Be Riding the Death Ride in 40 Days!

A fellow road diva, Cara, cannot make it, so she very kindly offered her spot on our mailing list. Erik and I were on our way home from our mountain biking ride at Annadel. When I read the email on my iPhone, I jokingly said to Erik, “maybe I’ll ride the Death Ride this year,” and he replied not jokingly, “I think you should.”   He’s done the ride (5 passes) more than a decade ago and will most likely be out of town on the weekend of the ride. I had heard that the registrations got sold out within 5 minutes after they were open, so I never gave it any thoughts.  After one round of email exchange, I was just informed that the spot is mine. Oh my god!!!

Death Ride Website

Ride Date: July 11, 2009

I have not even ever ridden a century yet!!! It’s going to be exciting.

Post Script: Click to see what happened 40 days later.

5 Responses

  1. # Patrick Herlihyon 01 Jun 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Fantastic Mei! Maybe I’ll see you there 🙂

    I’m so excited as this approaches. I’m planning to head out for a ride of Highway 4, including part of the Death Ride course on June 21 (from RBR).

    The downside of signing up for the Death Ride is all the road training is keeping me off my MTB. After July, I’m headed to Coe every weekend I can, hopefully before it is closed (if that is really going to happen)!

  2. # mudwormon 01 Jun 2009 at 2:26 pm

    Hehe, lucky for me, due to this unexpected entry, I’m setting my expectation very low. I’ll just go and have fun. No pressure on how many passes I must finish and no pressure on getting a fast time. I do plan on increasing the miles on my road bike. That won’t be hard to do since I did not ride on the road at all from late Feb to late May. But I’m having too much fun on my MTB, so I don’t want to sacrifice it. I’ll be going to a MTB demo this weekend and ride at Downieville for three days around June 20.

  3. # Patrick Herlihyon 01 Jun 2009 at 3:36 pm

    I’ve seen your climb times for W Alpine and others.. you’ll probably beat me to the top of the first pass but I may go further 🙂

    Have fun in Downieville! Love those trails!

  4. # Patrick Herlihyon 07 Jun 2009 at 6:01 pm

    Hi Mei,

    That was me who yelled hi was I was flying down W. Alpine while you were climbing. Glad to see you’re out training 🙂

    I did the Sequoia Century (200K) today and tacked on an extra 30 miles riding to and from the start. 152 miles/12,157′. I think I’m nearly ready for the Death Ride 🙂

    Good to see you and Erik out there!

  5. # mudwormon 07 Jun 2009 at 8:27 pm

    Hi Patrick, yes, yes, I heard you. When my brain switched out of my climbing mode (meaning blank) and reacted, we were already 50 feet apart. But the coincidence cracked me up and I kept chuckling the rest of the way up. I didn’t know about the Sequoia Century until we stopped to help the woman who went down. She over shot the corner and lost control right in front of our eyes. I hope she recovers fast. Wow, the ride you did was looooong. But you know what, I could have told you a while ago that yes, you are ready for the Death Ride. I have no doubt! We had a great ride too. Will post soon…