by Russ and Sheila Stevens

In many respects, participating in the Devil Mountain Double Century was much like riding any other bike ride in that it was a day of seeing friends, enjoying beautiful scenery, eating lots of food, suffering and achieving a great sense of accomplishment. The only difference was that in the devil mountain double century, there were a lot more of all of these things, especially the suffering. OK, the sense of achievement was also quite high, especially when we (Russ and Sheila) rolled our tandem into the finish line having completed 206 miles and 18,000 ft of climbing in 17 hours.

We started at 5:00 am with many familiar ACTC faces including Franz Kelsch, Gary Franck, Art Cruz, Paul Duren, Udi Yuhtjman, Steve Saeedi and hopefully soon to be member, Larry Garvey, and his friend Colin. Larry has ridden with Mike McGeough and has recently started coming out for LDTRs.

The chill of earlier in the week was replaced with comfortable 50 degree morning temperatures. We started out wearing arm warmers and our AWESOME Furnace Creek 508 vests that we got from Franz and Paul V. as a thank you for crewing (and likely an incentive to repeat this year). It was a comfortable, social pace out to the base of Mount Diablo when someone in the peloton quipped, “Hey are we done yet?” Russ responded, “Well, we are remarkably close to the finish.” Who knew how witty he could be at 5:15 am.

The ride up Diablo was beautiful. We could hear all sorts of critters in the dark and could see a long trail of red blinkies going up the mountain, followed by a spectacular sunrise that illuminated the hillsides and valleys below. We didn’t mess around trying to push big gears, we spoke to granny early and often throughout the day. Between 1 and 2 miles from the top, we saw Gary and then Franz descending. That would be the last we saw of them.

It was breezy at the top so we did not stay long before starting back down with Larry. Downhill is a new experience on the loaner bike (most of you know our tandem has been in the shop for two months now with a cracked frame). Now the drum brake control is in back so Sheila has more influence on descending speeds than simply making whimpering noises and high pitched screeches. It is a bit of a balancing act, but we seemed to work well together and our descending skills really improved as the day progressed.

We had an uneventful climb up Morgan Territory and saw Dave B (I think this is new guy Dave from the LDTRs, but not sure), Steve S. and Udi at the top. After a safe, controlled descent down the backside (Russ commented he, David Hoag and Gary Franck basically dive bombed this part last year) it was on to Altamont Pass with Larry. Despite cruising at a pretty good clip into a mild headwind we were easily passed by about 20-30 riders doing a road race on that same section of road. That was fine, as we were still a little ahead of our prediction to be at the Mines rest stop by noon, an hour before the 1 pm cutoff.

Patterson Pass was remarkably calm (wind speed wise) which was a pleasant surprise. It was warm, but not crazy hot like last year. Sheila thought it was the best she’s ever felt on that climb – then again Russ doesn’t usually put a rest stop right before the “Oh my *!” summit. We saw Steve Saeedi and Udi again at the water stop. We never saw Steve again, but he must have passed us somewhere because he was loading his bike onto his car when we got to the finish. We chatted a bit before pushing on to the summit and to Mines Road. We did the summit fairly quickly (for a tandem), picked up some serious speed on the descent, and unfortunately lost Larry in the process. We spent a few minutes waiting for him at Mines, but decided we needed to just press on at our pace.

While climbing the first pitches of Mines we slowly caught up to a rider named Reeve from Tahoe. We were surprised to catch him because he had a really low jersey number indicating that he not only finished DMD last year in the heat, he must have had a really good time (as a side note, Russ’ number was 4 — Sheila’s was 135). Sheila complemented Reeve on his low number, and he dejectedly responded that this year was not going nearly as well. Turns out he had a derailleur cable and bolt problem that cost him a side trip to a bike store and 1.5 hour delay. We rode with him for about 5 minutes when his chain suddenly dropped. We stopped up ahead, waited for him to get rolling again and in the process quickly made a new friend. He was so taken aback that we stopped that it seemed to really improve his attitude. As we were cruising with a tailwind though the mellow portions of Mines, he commented on how we really made a difference in his day and allowed him to physically and mentally recover. We were so surprised at the effect that just a small pause and a little company could have on another rider … it made our day too.

We saw LOTS of friendly faces going in the opposite direction on Mines because of the Mount Hamilton Challenge. First was Dave and Deb (and probably others I did not pick out) who were cruising along at a really good clip, followed very closely by Barry Schwartz. A while later we saw Kryia Adams and Guy Neenan. By far our most memorable encounter was when our friend Wyatt (who we met on the Patterson Overnighter) actually turned around and rode back up the hill with us for maybe a mile or so – that deserves some sort of award! By this time Reeve was asking if there were any cyclists out there today that we didn’t know!!!

As we neared the last summit before the junction, we inched up on Paul Duren who we hadn’t seen since Diablo. We broke away on the descent (of course) but we met up again over lunch.

Lunch at the junction was a nice, albeit quick break. We didn’t want to spend more than 20 minutes at the stop, so ordering a burger was out. Turns out, in true Quackcyclist form, the rest stop workers had ordered burgers and fries in advance. Sheila was very excited about this and quickly grabbed a burger to share with Russ. Russ thought it was one of the best tasting burgers he had ever had. Paul Duren left lunch before us and Udi was at lunch when we left.

We rolled out of the junction right on schedule and went easily down San Antonio Valley. We were admiring all the YELLOW poppies (compared to orange) and Sheila made the comment, “I wonder if Gary and Franz had time to notice any poppies today”. We caught up with Paul D. again on San Antonio Valley, but slowly pulled away as we started the climb just before Isabel Creek. As usual, the backside of Mt. Hamilton was where the real suffering began. From the start of the climb at mile 5, we eagerly anticipated each decreasing mile marker. Reaching mile marker 4 took forever. Mile marker 3 seemed to take even longer, so just before we reached it, we took a break at Donny’s well. Russ was very excited to see the well running again as it was stopped during the LDTR two weeks early, but we were dismayed to see that the “Donny’s Backside” sign was no longer there! We both stuck our heads under the ice cold water. It was AMAZING. Another biker stopped to do the same and the three of us might have looked ridiculous, but it felt like heaven. We couldn’t entice any others to stop there, but everyone we saw on the backside took at least one stop somewhere on the way up. Clearly, we were not the only ones suffering. After cooling off, getting to mile marker 2 seemed much easier and Russ even commented how we did it fairly quickly compared to the last two miles. We stopped at the official water stop 1.5 miles from the top. By this time our schedule was slipping and Russ wasn’t looking too good. We made a final push for the top but were ground to a halt literally 50 ft below the real summit when Russ’ legs cramped severely. Knowing lack of salt was the issue, Sheila force-fed Russ some salty cheese crackers. After a brief pause we were finally able to make it to the top, now about 20 minutes behind schedule. The descent offered some much needed recovery as did the Mountain Dew and potato chips at the Crothers’ rest stop. Many thanks to club member, Tim Schacher, for once again hosting the stop at his house.

Thinking we felt pretty good, we left Crothers and headed off towards the dreaded Sierra Rd. We didn’t even make it to the first plateau by the church before Russ cramped up again. We downed our last salt packets and started to pedal on. Fifty feet later, we looked to our left and noticed Eric and Connie Jorgensen’s garage door was open and looking oh, so welcoming. Sheila said, “Maybe we should stop in”. In a complete departure from his driven nature, Russ totally surprised her by immediately turning the bike into their driveway (remember, we were only 5 downhill or flat miles from our last rest stop). We sheepishly rang their doorbell and asked for some salt. Eric, always the host, complied and even raised the ante by offering bananas and potassium tablets. It was like Bicycling Trick-or-Treat. We kept our stop short, but that five minutes of laughing and smiling was an incredible spirit lifter. Eric and Connie continued to work acts of kindness by cheering on later riders as they passed.

Somehow, we actually made it to the top of Sierra. Without going into too much detail, we will admit that there was some walking involved on one of the steepest parts, but it was only one of us and for less than 50 yards. Sheila was relieved when Russ admitted it was just about as hard to move the tandem uphill when she was not on it. Regardless of what the truth is, being able to talk sweet on a tandem at mile 160 on Sierra is a remarkable trait!

With the tough climbing behind us, we met Alta the goat and got our picture taken. Ken Holloway was at the rest stop and everyone was cheering us on.

The wall at the turn onto Calaveras was miserable, but short and the rest of Calaveras was downright pleasant. We saw several of the final Mt Ham Challenge riders going the other way and on one of the corners, passed Brian Chun who was clearly finishing up whatever combination of roads he had strung together to take photos of the riders from both DMD and the Challenge. We were now about 50 minutes behind of our original schedule, but the only thing that mattered was still getting though the twisting of Calaveras before dark. Russ could already taste the hot dogs to come in Sunol at the rest stop. After a quick cruise down the flat part of Calaveras, we arrived at Main Street at 8pm just as it was getting dark. Ben Waters was volunteering and served up some fine food. We quickly (in our minds) refueled and pushed on. We were really going to do this!!!

Niles Canyon stinks on most days, but it is awful in the dark. Palomares was a welcome relief even though it meant more climbing. We traded bright headlights and the sound of rushing traffic for a pitch black rural road and chirping frogs. Descending in the dark was very controlled as there was NO WAY we were going to risk an accident this close to the finish! Only 15 miles to go.

Norris Canyon is really just a kid (baby billy goat), but in the dark and starting at mile 200 we still noticed every last bit of it. We can’t express the excitement we felt when we reached the summit and knew that it was literally “all downhill from there”. We rolled into the Marriott parking lot at 10:00 pm – exactly 17 hours after our 5 am start, and 1 hour behind schedule. We were the fastest tandem for the day, but I guess also the slowest if we got all technical. We were the only tandem stupid enough to attempt the DMD this year.

Dinner at the ride finish was a delicious selection of four pastas, garlic bread, brownies and Martinelli’s cider served in the classic Quack glasses. The real treat was being able to sit on something other than a hard bicycle seat. We found out that Gary finished at 7:00 and Franz finished at 8:30. We later found out Larry stuck it out and also finished at 2 am. We are not sure how everyone else fared, but we look forward to reading any ride reports people feel like contributing.

We really want to express our appreciation to the Quack Cyclists and all the volunteers out on the course who did everything in their power to enable people to finish short of turning the pedals for them. This was the hardest thing we have ever done, but the Quacks really helped us to finish (the good weather did not hurt, either).

A few parting statistics as to what it took to complete the DMD:

• 1 borrowed Co-motion Speedster Tandem (thanks to Bicycle Outfitters) with an 11-34 rear and a 30-42-54 front.
• 206 miles
• 18000+ feet of climbing
• Temperature: 49-92 degrees
• Rolling time ~15 hours, total time 17 hours
• Average power output (when pedaling): 248 ft-lbs/sec (combined)
• Calories expended: ~17,500 (10,500 for Russ, 7000 Sheila)
• Calories eaten during the ride: 6900 for Russ, ?? for Sheila (yeah like I am going to ruin a guilt free eating day by listing it all out just to count up the calories!!!)
• 0 flats or mechanical issues