THE DEATH RIDE : Tortuous 116-Mile Course in Alpine Terrain Is an Uphill Struggle for Hardiest of Cyclists

“I’m convinced that if General Custer’s men had known they’d all die, they still would have gone. It’s that ride to glory.” --Joe Goebelt, a Death Ride veteran

No one has ever died on the Death Ride. “If someone were to die,” one of the event’s promoters said, “it would not be an appropriate name.”

But this ride can push even the toughest cyclist to the brink: Its course runs 116 miles and only 20 of that is flatland. The rest is pure Sierra Nevada.

Last weekend, 1,770 bicyclists answered the siren call of these mountains. They came to the town of Markleeville, just south of Lake Tahoe. They came for the uphill struggle, the downhill racing, the 14 hours and five mountain passes that are the Death Ride.

Less than half of the cyclists who set out at 6 a.m. on that Saturday were able to finish. Some contented themselves with completing only a portion of the course. Others were picked up, exhausted, at roadside and carted over the finish line by truck. A couple were taken away by ambulance.

The Death Ride is not a race. It is a test of endurance and will. The goal is not to win but to finish.

“This is a cult,” ride director Curtis Fong said. “They come out here to kill themselves.”

The Scovills of Thousand Oaks threw themselves into this madness. This year’s Death Ride was the family’s second. Peter Scovill and his two sons--avid bicyclists and rock climbers--heard about the ride from a friend and entered for the first time last year.

The eldest Scovill, a 44-year-old data processing manager, never made it to the starting line for that ride. A week before, he broke his collarbone while training in the hills above Thousand Oaks. His eldest son, John, 21, reached Markleeville but lasted little more than an hour. Coming down the course’s first mountain, he lost control of his bicycle, flipped over the handlebars and broke his collarbone.

Mark--the youngest Scovill at 19--finished the ride in 13 hours. So did family friend Hans Keglor, 20, also of Thousand Oaks.

So the Scovills and Keglor returned to Markleeville last weekend with varying motivations. Mark did not train. He said he never trains. Hans decided to enter only at the last moment.

Peter and John prepared for months in advance. For them, this ride would be revenge. They arrived in Lake Tahoe a few days early to acclimate to the ride’s 7,000- and 8,000-foot altitudes. The night before, the two stayed up until midnight tuning and re-tuning their bikes.

“After last year . . . I’m doing it to prove to myself that I can do it,” John said.

The Death Ride has existed for nine years on the fringe of competitive bicycling.

Greg LeMond, America’s best-known bicycle racer and winner of the 1986 Tour de France, rode this course twice in years past. But that was because he grew up in nearby Reno. He no longer comes to Markleeville. None of the top names in cycling show up. There is no prize money for winning, no corporate sponsorship or television coverage.

Yet, the ride has survived, and thrived, by word of mouth. What started in 1978 as a gathering of 17 friends has grown into an event that attracted nearly 1,800 cyclists from across the nation this year.

Most of these riders fall somewhere between the hard-core racer and the mere bicycling fanatic. The Death Ride offers three different courses: 50 miles over one mountain pass; 75 miles over three passes; and the five-pass, 116-mile ride. Almost half of the riders opted for the five-pass ride. Three-hundred and thirty-six women were among the field. The Death Ride had, until this year, been a timed race. But rising insurance costs forced promoters to change their event to a “bicycle tour.” They took away the time clock and added the words “Tour of the California Alps” to the ride’s name.

This change made little difference to most of the riders. First of all, riders said, anytime you put two bicyclists together on a stretch of road, you are going to have a race, time clock or none. In addition, the appeal of the Death Ride lies in the challenge. It’s allure is probably tantamount to that of many of the endurance events that are becoming popular--long-distance rides, 100-mile runs, triathlons.

“In traditional racing, everything goes to the winner and everyone else is more or less a failure,” said John Marino, founder of the Race Across America, a bicycle race from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. “I think that what people are discovering with long-distance cycling is that it’s very gratifying. The old saying is: You don’t have to finish first to be a winner. You just have to finish.”

And, the promoters did not take away the mountains. Nor did they change the familiar logo on the entry form: a human skeleton riding a 10-speed.

On the day before this year’s Death Ride, a Markleeville local in a pickup truck drove by the ride’s headquarters, where hundreds of bicyclists waited in line to register.

“How much do they get for winning this thing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” someone answered.

“Nothing? They gotta be nuts.”

Just after 4:30 a.m., a trumpet sounds reveille over Turtle Rock Park in Markleeville. It is dark outside as the public-address system blares Jimi Hendrix’s wailing, screaming guitar solo, “National Anthem.” Riders wearing colorful jerseys and tight, shiny riding shorts huddle against the cold, pacing, waiting for the start.

Peter Scovill picks at the breakfast provided to riders: scrambled eggs, sausage and pancakes.

“The adrenaline gets flowing in the morning,” he says. “You feel a little queasy.”

John, Mark and Hans Keglor sit nearby. The Scovills’ uncle, Russ Snow, a 34-year-old ski patrolman at Heavenly Valley ski resort, has come along to ride a portion of the course. The five men wear matching blue-on-white jerseys.

At 6 a.m., the sun rises over the Carson River and approximately 1,800 bicyclists pedal south toward Ebbetts Pass.

This first leg of the course climbs 3,200 feet in 10 miles. Bicyclists follow a narrow, rock-strewn road that twists into the mountains in a series of switchbacks bordered by steep, pine-filled canyons and small lakes.

Barely three miles into the ride, a number of riders have been waylaid by flat tires. This day will be as tough on machinery as it will be on humans. Most riders carry spare tubes and tires.

The first riders arrive at the top of Ebbetts Pass by 7:15. There, an aid station offers water, soft drinks, fruit and cookies. The fastest riders turn immediately and return along the same route they had just climbed, trying to keep a pace that will put them across the finish line in under 10 hours. As time passes, riders of lesser strength arrive and stop to rest.

“Is there a coroner up here?” one man asks breathlessly.

Hans Keglor and Mark Scovill reach the summit at about the middle of the pack. Peter, John and Snow follow 15 minutes later. All say they feel strong but are surprised by the difficulty of that first climb.

“You play this little game,” Peter said. “You keep saying, just get up to the top of this next knoll and then it’ll be easy. But you get over that knoll and there’s another one.”

In the very same hills where riders see pain and agony, promoters of the Death Ride see gold. The ride is a financial boom for the 1,200 people of Markleeville and Alpine County. John Brissenden of the Alpine County Chamber of Commerce estimated that the 6,000 riders and spectators who came to this year’s Death Ride spent $1.4 million at local hotels, private campgrounds and restaurants.

At $20 per rider ($10 for the one-pass riders), plus souvenir and food concessions, the Death Ride brought $60,000 to its promoters, the Alpine County Chamber of Commerce and several local charities, Brissenden said.

The average participant, according to a survey conducted by the event’s promoters, earns more than $40,000 a year, tends toward the age of 30 or older and disdains hard alcohol. (“They do like their beer and wine, though,” Brissenden said.)

It is not cheap to bicycle as seriously as these people do. As one rider put it, a $400 bicycle is like a youngster’s Huffy in this pack. Most cyclists have put at least $700 into their bikes, and hundreds more into clothing, helmets and shoes.

With these demographics involved, Death Ride officials believe their event would be perfect for corporate sponsorship. They have tried to downplay the difficulty of the ride this year, fearing that the “Death Ride” image might scare away potential sponsors.

But this year’s course might have been the toughest in the history of the ride. Although it was shortened 34 miles from last year, the first phase of the race took riders over the three tallest mountain passes. Thus, to the their delight, the hard-core racers were able to put the difficult part of the course behind them during the cool of morning. But the average riders were caught on the steep slopes in afternoon temperatures that reached 90 degrees.

The Scovill gang heads downhill from the top of Ebbetts, unsuspecting of the conditions that lie ahead. Everyone is feeling strong. Mark and Keglor, the faster riders, quickly pull away.

Just as quickly, misfortune strikes John at nearly the same point in the course where he had fallen the year before. Turning into a hairpin corner, his rear tire blows out. He must stop for 20 minutes to repair the damage.

As Scovill works, another rider flies past, loses control and skids to within inches of a 60-foot cliff. The rider pauses to study a wrecked car that lies at the base of the cliff.

“I didn’t even know that cliff was there,” he says, shaking his head.

He scrambles onto his bike and rides off.

Scovill soon follows.

Several miles east of Ebbetts, the course curves up toward Monitor Pass. Here, sparsely vegetated terrain and a continuous incline of eight miles and 2,800 feet replace the lush forest and steep switchbacks of the previous leg. It is warmer now and the pace slows. It takes many riders almost two hours of unrelenting struggle to reach the pass.

At the top, the mood is serious. The Death Ride has begun to take its toll. Medical personnel stationed at this stop observe carefully. During the course of the race, they will tend to the injured and advise obviously spent riders to quit.

“This ride is notorious for getting people from the flatlands to come up here,” says Lyn Mangiameli of the Alpine County emergency medical services. “They tend to think 120 miles is a piece of cake, but they forget they’re at 7,000 or 8,000 feet. These riders overextend themselves.”

Keglor is the first of the Scovill gang to reach Monitor, at about 11 a.m. As had been agreed upon before the ride, he waits for the others. Peter and Mark Scovill arrive soon after. Snow is taking his time and will soon pull out. After an hour, John has still not reached the summit.

“There are a lot of pedestrians down there,” Mark says. “A lot of people walking their bikes up that hill.”

“That’s only two, right?” Peter says, referring to the three passes that lay ahead. “That scares the hell out of me.”

Discussion at the top of Monitor turns to the next leg, which descends along the backside of this mountain and climbs back to the top. Rumor has it that the backside is not so tough.

Finally, Keglor and the two Scovills leave without John. They do not know that he has broken down again. His new rear tire kept slipping off the rim and caused his rear brakes to burn out. He has quit.

The glide down the backside of Monitor is breathtaking, a 10-mile drop with a panoramic view of green valleys far below and distant mountain ranges. But every mile down is a mile that must, eventually, be ascended.

By afternoon, the sun burns on Monitor. There are places where the wind dies to a calm and the riders suffer the full heat of the day. Water runs short at several rest stops. Pick-up vans comb the mountainside for those in search of an easier ride back.

It is 2:30 and the Scovill gang has spread thin. John and Russ Snow are back in Markleeville, finished for the day. Mark sits atop Monitor, dehydrated, and also decides to quit.

Keglor has descended the mountain and is already halfway back up. Peter has stopped at a rest station a quarter of the way up and tries to muster his energy. He looks at his watch and knows he must hurry, forgo several rest stops, to finish all five passes.

By the end of the day, there are half a dozen minor injuries and countless unreported ones--muscle tears and pulls, dehydration, cyclists losing control and falling, only to get back on their bikes and continue riding.

On Ebbetts, the first climb of the day, three cyclists collide with a car at slow speed. Coming downhill, two riders collide and one is hospitalized for stitches. There is one other collision on that mountain.

The most serious injury of the day comes just before sunset. Scant miles short of completing the three-pass ride, a women collapses from heat exhaustion. She is found by the roadside and taken to the hospital.

The heat and the configuration of the course have been tough on the riders.

“We had a lot of people drop out,” said Mike Hedger, a ride official.

The end comes quietly, without drama for the Scovill gang. They wind up sprawled in front of the Alpine County Courthouse, 75 miles and three-fifths of the way through the ride. Peter Scovill and Keglor, both of whom completed three passes, briefly discuss trying for a fourth before dark. They decide against this.

“It wasn’t really a bicycle ride,” Keglor complains. “It was going up a cliff. That’s what it was, a cliff. I don’t think I ever got out of first gear.”

John Scovill sits beside his broken bicycle and frowns.

“I don’t know what happened. My bike was perfect last night,” he says. “My legs are still fine, but I have $2,000 worth of bike that won’t go up a hill.”

Peter Scovill has little to say. He lies on his back, pouring water over his head.

And back at the ride’s headquarters, Death Ride officials continue to dismiss the torturous reputation their event has earned.

“We want people to know that there is some beautiful terrain to ride through up here,” Brissenden says. “We want people to know this ride is not that hostile.”