Death Ride 2025

I never got around to sharing my training approach to Death Ride, now that it’s over I can also share results. Let’s get right into it. Next month I’ll return to wider ranging topics with a focus on research into energy expenditure, AI, and what I’ve been building.

I started training for the Death Ride in August 2024, after a bit of recovery from my Softrock 100 attempt. August - December was focused on rebuilding my long ride. When I started I was only riding about 45 miles for a “long” day, as I had not been on my bike regularly in ~8 months. A typical long ride looked like this:

I took the same super-incremental approach to cycling that I had taken to running, increasing the mileage of the long rides about 10% each time. I alternated my Saturdays between long Zone 2 days and tempo work, in which I focused on 20 minute efforts in Zone 3.

My tempo work might be called “upper Zone 3 / low Zone 4” by some, to skip the semantics I defined it via at home lactate testing and used my power at 3-4 mmol / L which was in the 180 - 190 Watt range at the beginning of this training block. Since I was doing no other intensity work I felt pretty good about using that range and my consistency and recovery from the efforts suggest that I got it right. You can also see how several months of focused endurance + tempo work shifted my lactate curve down and to the right by March 2025.

This was important because to ride long climbs at the right intensity with my current gearing, I needed the additional watts. Anyone who wants to do Death Ride or something similar needs to be smart about their power to weight ratio and their gearing. More on that in a moment.

I got back up to 100 miles by the end of the year and it was time to start focusing on vertical gain.

The long hilly rides culminated in one of my favorite loops to Felton, up Zayante road, down Hwy 9 to Boulder Creek for a second time, and up Bear Creek. 8,800’ of vert, a lot but still a far cry from the Death Ride:

Starting in November I layered in heat training which I did 2 or 3 days/week for about 3 months, before taking a break to focus on power. I came back to the heat training in the 6 weeks prior to the event. My protocol was simple, one hour on the Kickr smart trainer at 150 - 165 Watts, with no fan, and a few layers of clothing and a hat. At first this was miserable but after a while I grew accustomed to this special flavor of suffering and almost enjoyed it (emphasis on almost). I always followed with HVMQ ketones in an effort to spike the EPO and blood count. Per my Function blood work, it’s not clear that it helped, my hematocrit did not show any notable increase above it’s usual fluctuation.

June was the last full month prior to the ride, and included 12 days of business travel across 4 cities and 9 time zones, so I tried to structure my training around that to load up the last long miles before leaving and try to “recover” on the trip. We went to Tahoe 12 days before the ride so I could get some altitude acclimation, I alternated short Zone 2 days with a small-medium dose of Zone 4 climbing intervals on a few days and LOTS of general physical activity (SUP on Lake Tahoe, hiking, etc.). Garmin says I was acclimated to 6K’ just before the event, which “feels” about right and I think was at least in part due to the heat training I did along the way.

Finally ,the event itself. It was a really good day, hot at the end but not too hot, breezy on the first and last 5 miles but no discernable wind on the Monitor-Ebbett’s-Pacific Grade section.

As you can see the day dragged out a bit, I had hopes of a “7 handle” on my ride time, but it was not to be. You should really think of Death Ride as 6 climbs, here are my stats for each of them, in order of their location on the route. I went into the ride at about 154 lbs. in case you want to scale the climb rates for your power/weight ratio.

The two sides of Monitor were sublime (the whole course is amazing but the early morning on Monitor is special), I could write a whole newsletter on the scenery and the vibe. I had my first ride on the struggle bus at the bottom of Ebbett’s 1 when I transitioned from descending into climbing and my left adductor started to cramp a bit. I flirted with cramps all day but they never went full tilt and hobbled me. They did make me very cautious on Pacific Grade 2, which is an easy enough climb that I was able to back off the power and go up it easy. I needed the recovery because Pacific Grade 1 is steep. The grade touches over 20% in places. IOW, you’re doing > 250 Watts or you’re walking. There’s no in between unless you have really low gearing. I had a 34 × 30 low gear. This really stings the legs after already doing close to 9,000’ of climbing over the first 3 passes, and explains why my VAM and Normalized Power (NP) were highest on PG 1, even though I was starting to fatigue. ChatGPT knows:

As far as my fueling regimen, pre-ride consisted of: oatmeal, coffee, Maurten BiCarb, Legion Pulse pre-workout, DHA, and a Red Bull in the car on the way to the start. During the ride I was doing 2 hours of Maurten 320 (one bottle per hour with 1 packet, so 80 g CHO per hour) followed by one hour of Espresso Hammer Gel (90 grams CHO for the hour) to top off the caffeine stores, with some LMNT and Pulse in ~ 20 ounces of water. I rolled out with 2 gel flasks (4 shots of Hammer Gel each) and 3 packets of 320 to refill at aid stations. When that ran out I just started using Pepsi and Hammer Gel from the aid stations. I rode with a third water-only bottle which I used to drink from and to spray on myself when things warmed up. I did a good job of keeping on top of it until the last hour when I made my only big execution mistake of the day by rushing through the last aid station. I paid for it in the last 10 miles of blast furnace and the 300’ or so of climbing to the finish line seemed to drag out forever. My Garmin said the temp hit 104 degrees but I’m skeptical, it felt more like 94. Still hot…

BTW this Yeti coffee press rocks although the white finish seems more fragile than I expected and it scuffs pretty easily. But it brews awesome coffee. Highly recommend. It was Christmas gift from my awesome girlfriend Vicky who was also super helpful after the ride when I was useless.

Logistics - we stayed at Desolation Hotel in Hope Valley. Really charming cabins, if somewhat small and minimalist. Awesome bedding though, important for those like me who are sleep obsessed. Great ambience with one mentionable “gotcha” - the highway noise from Hwy 88/89. It’s not terrible but not you will notice it. They have a nice little restaurant / outdoor bar, some hiking trails and lots of swings & benches to sit out in the outdoors, and a sauna. Definitely check it out if you are looking for local lodging.

I hope some of this is useful to somebody planning their own Death Ride or similar experience. If you have questions, ask me anything.

Cheers,

Karl