06-27-07-Front side Monitor Pass-Front side Ebbetts Pass.gpx-t0

An excellent Death Ride training route with Chimene and Sheila – Chimene was on vacation with her family in South Lake Tahoe this week and we were on vacation at our Murphys house, so meeting early for a training ride up Monitor and Ebbetts worked out well – Sheila was able to get kid care so she could join us, too – fun ride with excellent weather and very little traffic – we met at 6:30 a.m. and hit the road by 6:45 a.m. – we did the front side of Monitor Pass in just 1:17 and then the front side of Ebbetts Pass in just 1:50 – in each case, about 10 minutes faster than the Arnie Baker “Just-In-Time” schedule to finish the Death Ride during daylight. Chimene and Sheila still want to leave an hour early, at 4:30 a.m., just to have a little more of a buffer for the day – I told them I don’t think they really need it, but I agreed I’d make the early morning start with them, just for the heck of it – I’ll just follow Chimene with her new super light she got from her husband, John. Back to our ride today – the weather was really perfect – it was slightly cool in the morning, but our jackets were off before even climbing more than a couple miles up Monitor Pass – then the arm warmers came off near the bottom of Ebbetts Pass – since our cars were at the intersection of Hwy 89 and Hwy 4, we were able to dump the jackets after descending Monitor Pass and also got ourselves re-hydrated before climbing Ebbetts Pass. There were very few cars – and we even saw a few bikes going up both Monitor Pass and Ebbetts Pass – mostly people training for the Death Ride, we figured. Great day!