Month: July 2018

membership, road conditions, schwag, weather

A Little Update on Recent California Alps Cycling Activities

Welcome new members! We’re so pleased to add the following active members to our merry band of troublemakers:

  1. Scott Anderson
  2. Karrie Baker
  3. Mario Carmona
  4. Roy Franz
  5. Greg Hanson
  6. Richard Harvey
  7. Joe Watkins

Thank you all for joining. We look forward to our upcoming adventures together!

We’ve adopted a stretch of Highway 89 (from Camp Markleeville to Turtle Rock)!

As part of our mission, we help the communities in which we live, work and ride and so are very pleased to be able to help keep our local roads clean. We’ll be out doing a bit of litter pick-up later this week. Stay tuned for an after-action report.

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Yup, that’s us, we’ve adopted this stretch of Hwy. 89

Thunderstorms have been a daily ‘thang…

The weather here has been pretty crazy lately with a daily dose of thunderstorms. You can pretty much set your clock by them as they’ve been starting about 2:00 p.m. Yesterday’s storm dumped over a 1/2 an inch in just a few minutes with our weather station showing a rain rate at that time of about 3.84 inches per hour! Be sure to check out our Weather Conditions page regularly for real-time updates.

Jerseys, bibs and shorts will soon be arriving!

Thanks to many of you for your pre-orders. We’re working with Castelli now on finalizing our order and so we’ll soon have your stuff here. Once it’s arrived we’ll reach out to those that have ordered schwag and make final preparations for launch, (okay, shipping but I just liked how that sounded). Oh, and a bit of a surprise…wind vests! Check ’em out:

california alps cycling, cycling, sierra cycling, cycling in the wind
Our new windvest will supplement your cycling wardrobe nicely, we think.

Lastly, the road conditions, photo gallery and video pages have been updated. Take a look!

We wish you a wonderful week of cycling, mountain biking, hiking or just hanging out. Whatever floats your boat, eh? Be safe out there!

 

1/2 centuries or centuries, deathride, rides

The Monday, er Tuesday, After

Happy Tuesday morning Deathriders! I hope you are doing well, not too sore and brimming with fluids now that you’ve had a couple days to rest and recuperate. We hosted eight (8) riders here at California Alps Cycling . That number includes me – I don’t know, can you host yourself?

Anyway, our tally is as follows:

  1. Five (5) Five-pass Tour finishers including one first timer, Mr. James Hurst
  2. Three (3) Three-pass Tour finishers (myself included)
  3. Funny…Five Five-passers and Three three-passers. Go figure!
  4. Two (2) of our legacy members, Scott Keno and Shane Trotter, were some of the first to sign the board at the top of Carson and the boyz also earned some cups – check out their Strava profiles (see the CAC membership page) if you’re so inclined
  5. Congrats to all!

How did you do? Share your comments on this post and let us know!

Click here to check out our photo gallery including a bunch of pix I took during the day. By the way, if you’d like to share some of your images, send ’em to me via email. Note: images sent our way are ours to use as we see fit (we won’t photoshop ’em or do anything too crazy, honest).

Why are we up so early?
Why are we up so early?

A few other things to mention:

  1. We’ve received seven (7) membership requests (thank you!) and as soon as we’re done processing ’em we’ll add you to our CAC membership page. If you’d like to be a member, we’d love to have you join too!
  2. For those of you who pre-ordered jerseys, bibs or full kits, we’ll let you know when they’re in and get them shipped your way promptly thereafter.
  3. We’ll be getting our merchandise catalog on the site soon. We had quite a few riders interested in our “Let’s Kick Some Passes’ Asses!™” signs and so we plan on offering those for sale as well. Alas, one of them was taken home by someone without permission. Hopefully it brings back good memories and they don’t use it as a frisbee or sumfin.
  4. Later in the week, or early next, we’ll get some of that “data that matta” from the Alpine Chamber and CalTrans add publish a post.
  5. Interested in a Deathride cycling camp or clinic? Good, because next year we’re going to offer one! We talked to so many neophyte riders and we have so many experienced ones here at C.A.C. so we thought: “why not put them together?”

A big shout out to all of the amazing volunteers, motos, medics, CHP officers, CalTransers and anyone else who pitched in to keep us safe and happy. THANK YOU!

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Last, but certainly not least, we want to thank you for stopping by our booth and being a part of one of the greatest cycling events on the planet! See you soon. Ride safely!

– Mark

deathride, rides

The Deathride (aka The Tour of the California Alps) Cometh!

Yup, it’s that annual right of passage that takes place right here in the little town of Markleeville, this Saturday, July 14th. The 200 or so residents, including yours truly (and my wife and two felines), will soon be joined by a few thousand others.

Thanks to CalTrans (and our local Chamber of Commerce, as well as a bunch of volunteers) the roads are ready, signage is up and most importantly, the port-a-potties are in place.

Oh, and speaking of CalTrans…They’ll be doing a bit of rock etc. clean up on Friday so that the roads are as clear of debris as they can be for Saturday. If you see ’em please be sure to thank them. They do a lot to keep our roads in order.

Road closure sign - Hwy 88 and 89 junction
Yeah, that’s right. No cars until noon. Sweet!

Ebbett's Pass closed sign
And…no cars on Ebbett’s for a good chunk of time, too.

For those of you who’ll be joining me, and other members of California Alps Cycling, we urge you to be safe and obey the rules. Please say thanks to the folks in the town who are supporting (and in some cases, tolerating) us because it is a bit disruptive, you know?

For the locals who are putting up with us and our crazy ways, THANK YOU! WE REALLY APPRECIATE YOU!

We invite riders, support crews and residents to stop by our booth tomorrow. We’ll have some cool t-shirts for sale and you can pre-order your Castelli CA Alps kit too.

castelli jersey
The jersey from our CA Alps Cycling kit.

And, we’ll be happy to regale you with stories from last year, give you suggestions and answer any questions that you may have. 

We wish you good luck on your ride and remind you to ride your own ride and remember to have fun and don’t be too hard on yourself. And, when you get to the top of Carson, you can add your name to “the Board” and be memorialized for all time!

victory board_deathride2017
As a Five-Pass Finisher in 2017, I was honored to add my name to “the Board.”

Have a great day on the bike, be safe and Let’s Kick Some Passes’ Asses! ™