Devil Mountain Double Century
The stretch by the windmills of the Altamont Pass was decidedly one of the more gentle parts of the Devil Mountain Double.
The Devil Mountain Double, with about 18,000 feet of climbing, has the most net elevation gain of any double century in California. Conveniently, the start of the ride was just 20 or so miles from my home in Fremont. Who would have guessed the hilliest double was almost right where I lived?
The Ride
Miles 0-20
I arrive at the Marriot Hotel in San Ramon and unload Canny from the Porsche just after 4:00a! Registration is inside the hotel, where George Pinney, the organizer of the ride, informs me of two things: 1) Regardless whenever we start, the gates at Mount Diablo State Park (Mile 10) will not open until 5:30a, and 2) to qualify for a course record, one cannot start early and must start at 6:00a. For the latter, I merely laugh and say, “Well that won’t be a problem for me!,” and decide that I’ll just start at 4:30a, even if that means getting to the gate at Mile 10 early.
Leaving with another rider, I manage to stick with that plan, and we ride at such a leisurely pace that the ride could have effectively been a 196-mile ride instead of a 206-mile ride. Yet, I still arrive at the opening gate 10 minutes early, long enough for me to find a bush and make my obligatory fluid contribution to the landscape, and long enough to cool down completely, as if I ever warmed up in the first place.
Finally, a ranger in a Chevy truck pulls up, opens the gate, informs us that “it’s 3300 feet to the top over 11 miles”, and wishes us, “Good luck on your race!” And so we’re off! I am about the 6th person to start up the hill, although several people would pass me on the way to the top. Slow and steady, I think… must conserve energy!
Half an hour later, the sun breaks through the horizon and I am 1/3rd up the hill. I am still pacing myself uncharacteristically well, and hence am not even close to spent at this point. I turn on the buzzer on my Polar heart rate monitor to audibly warn me whenever my heart rate exceeds 165 bpm. Up the entire hill, it only beeps once or twice, underscoring what a moderate pace I am going at.
And finally… a sign declaring “Summit-3900 ft” is just ahead! What a gratifying sight! It took 1.5 hours, and it is now 7:00a, but the longest climb of the ride is now over with, and just 186 miles to go. “I can do this!” I think over and over to myself.
Miles 21-77
The reward for the long uphill, of course, is a awesome downhill! There were hairpin turns everywhere, but the road for the most part was remarkably smooth, wide, and free of cars. Perfect for practicing downhill handling skills. This freefall would last for 40 or so minutes!
Finally, however, it tapered off into San Ramon, and we were back in rolling country. Soon we are in Morgan Territory, where there’s yet another rest stop. I stop only briefly as I’m still feeling remarkably good at this point. I ride for another hour before the characteristic windmills east of Dublin are in plain view. “To the Altamont!” is the rallying cry.
Ah, yes, the Altamont Pass… was it not over 3000 feet in altitude? At least when Goldie, my ‘69 MGB was only running on 3 cylinders, she would have some problems maintaining speed up it. The Hekaton Century of 1996 included this pass, too, and it didn’t seem insignificant. But today, after riding up Mt. Diablo, it hardly seems like much of a climb. In fact, in virtually no time, we reach the subsequent climb–Patterson Pass. This is steeper but still not too steep or long.
“I can do this!” I once again think to myself. 50 miles has passed, including the tallest climb and two passes I was once apprehensive about, and I was *still* feeling very fresh! The scenery is nice, as the hillsides of the Altamont and Patterson Pass are still green, and the weather just about perfect. My spirits are very high. What a great day, what a great ride!
Miles 78-116
We are now heading in the southerly direction, towards San Jose. Mt. Hamilton, perhaps the climb I fear most on this ride, is still 70 miles away, and I decide I must conserve energy at least until then.
None of the terrain from Miles 78-116 look incredibly steep, but I am using the granny chainring for most of it! On some seemingly gradual portions, I am going only 6 miles an hour. I can’t help but think that I am going way too slow, but the other riders I can see are riding at aboout the same pace. Slow and steady, slow and steady…
Hours pass on by at this seemingly slow pace, but patience comes in handy at this pace. And finally, the lunchstop is just ahead! At last, a place with real food! And belying the slow pace I was going and the 10 hours or so on the bike at this point was a feeling of relative freshness, one that was ready for the challenges ahead.
Miles 117-167
I spend half an hour at lunch, including waiting 15 minutes for the restroom and chowing down a decent chicken sandwich. I spend a little while stretching my legs, and taking a couple of pic’s before calmly hitting the road again. The much-anticipated Mt. Hamilton is nearby! 
The first ten miles are relatively flat with a few rollers. Thank goodness we will climb only the backside of Hamiilton, which is shorter than from the frontside and starts at 2000 ft in altitude, but is reputably quite steep. When does the climb begin though, I keep thinking. I’d cross a “cattle guard” and then hit a small uphill, only to be descending shortly again. Come on now, let’s just get Hamilton over with!
And finally… there it is! I can see a couple of cyclists above me in the distance, out of the saddle, going at very slow speeds. My speed is now reduced to 4-6mph. I pull out the map. “5 miles of this,” I think, “just 5 miles…” 
To my satisfaction, I am actually catching up with a couple of cyclists, although there is one particular cyclist who would pass me up… multiple times. I’d be riding steadily and he’d pass me up pretty easily, but then I’d see him again on the side of the road, just resting. Then when he’d see me, he’d get back on, and pass me up again. Hmmmm, that’s one way to do it, I think. I’ll stick with the slow and steady method though, thank you!
This exercise would continue for the first 3 miles. Then, seeing the cyclist on the side of the road actually lying down, I finally shout out, “Hang in there… there’s still two miles to go!” The cyclist looks at me and, in an almost irate tone, “NO! There’s less than that… WAY less than that!” Basically I just shrug and say, “Less than that? Okay, cool!” and take off. The cyclist gets back on his bike again until a sag vehicle comes by, when he shouts out, “HOW FAR?” From the vehicle’s external speaker is a loud exclamation of “ABOUT TWO”. At that point I chuckle and mumble under my breath, “Told you so…” The cyclist behind me now all but gives up in frustration. I never see him again… 
I figure at that point I will reach the top in about 25 minutes, but with a mile to go the road levels out considerably! Woohoo! I had just conquered the climb that had been firmly in my mind for weeks! And now it’s just going downhill for the next hour or so!
The descent down Mt. Hamilton and up the Monster
“The descent is long and most welcome, but most riders look entirely wasted by this point,” I recall reading in a ride report from a previous year. Alas, while I was descending, I saw very few cyclists to be able to verify if that was true this year, until a number of cyclists passed me up!
Usually, I pull all of the stops on the downhills, seemingly able to get in a far more aerodynamic tuck that the other riders, but as with previous descents on this ride, the Mt. Hamilton was laced with hairpin turns galore. As there were many blind corners, I was extremely careful. To my amazement, other riders were frequently drifting into the other lane and cutting corners to save time. But the most gutsy move had to be when I and about 7 other cars were stuck behind a very slow descending pickup truck towing a horse trailer! A couple of riders, being extremely impatient, pulled into the other lane, and blazed right past all of these other cars… a very dangerous maneuver, considering that one could hardly see what was in front of this truck with all of these hairpin turns. I followed their lead, however… and now we were jamming!
Jamming enough that we missed a rest stop and didn’t realize it until overshooting it by 2 miles. I needed water pretty badly, but I was NOT turning back.
And now… the famed Sierra Rd. lies ahead! I descended this road one day with my friend Dave in the pouring rain, and on that day, one could not have paid me to go back up that thing. I call it the Monster… it is so amazingly steep! Alas, I would only realize that this was the same road when I come to it…
Slow and steady, I think. Soon I am grinding away in my lowest granny gear (a 32X21) and am only spinning at 35 rpm or so… good for not much more than 3.5 mph! The guy behind me on a new aluminum Specialized Allez gives up after weaving for a bit and starts walking. He is almost keeping up!
But I continue on, and after 15 minutes or so, he is out of sight. A support vehicle does come by, which is extremely fortunate for me because I have absolutely no water. After a quick fillup, it’s back to grinding. Fortunately, Sierra Rd. gets less steeper at the top. And finally…
I made it! The last significant beast of the day. Only 3.5 miles, and it took an hour! What a climb!
Miles 167-181
Now it’s all descending until we get to Calaveras Rd. This is where I’ll do most of my climbing workouts on the East Bay. It starts out with a very steep, but very short climb (”The Wall”) in which I am only going 4-6 mph. I usually can burst up it at 10+ mph, but not with 160 miles in my legs! But very soon it levels out and it’s just a splendid tour by the Calaveras Reservoir with sweeping turns. See my review of the Primavera Century for more details (and pic’s) on this area.
Darkness is now approaching, and my front Vistalight headlamp is being quite ineffective. I am riding very slowly now, not being able to see to well! The guy on Specialized bike who was walking has even caught up to me at this point, which is good because he actually has some decent lights!
We get to the rest stop at Mile 182. There is no stopping us now!
Miles 182-206
Just 24 miles to go! I can’t help but feel the ride is anticlimatic at this point, having conquered Mt. Hamilton, Sierra, and Calaveras Road. Palomares Rd. is just ahead. I now ride with two guys of 45 and 55 years of age.
We get to Palomares very quickly, but it’s totally dark over there. Fortunately, the other two riders have good lights, and I changed the batteries in my Vistalight at the rest stop. The other riders are in shape despite their age, and I am hardly keeping up! I can’t help but feel the irony of the situation,
“At my age,” one of them laments to the other in a very casual, conversational tone, “I no longer worry about my times; I just worry if I can finish!” The other one chuckles and says, “Me too!” I, on the other hand, am very quiet, not wanting to lose these guys who are lighting my way. Wish I could be as in good of shape as they are at their age!
Palomares, which started as a gradual uphil for the first 5 or so miles, is now downhill for the next 5. We now get some lighting help by a Dodge Caravan support vehicle, all the way to Castro Valley! Just 10 miles to go. Alas, the climbing does seem to pick up a little.
But the excitement of being so close to the finish leads us to mock these small climbs. Heck, we’ve done so many signifiicant climbs for the day, many of which took 1+ hours to climb, and everything seemed so easy now. But yet, I am almost astonished to see the Marriott’s Hotel at which I started at 18.5 hours earlier. For months I wasn’t sure how I would fare on this extremely difficult double century–the hilliest of them all in CA in terms of total vertical gain–and here I am, feeling relatively strong, proud, and happy. I did it!
Ride Data
- 206 mi.
- 4:29a start, 11:01p finish –> 18:32 hours
- Average Speed: 11.9 mph moving, 11.1 mph overall
- Max Speed: 45 mph
- Total Climbing: 18,000 ft!
Rating
(1=ho hum; 5=best)
- Scenery: 4
- Support/Organization: 5
- Food: 4 Well stocked!
- Weather: 4 Actually, I would have given it a 5, but the others were complaining of the heat, esp. on Mt. Hamilton.
- Relative Difficulty: 5
- Overall Rating: 4. A super-challenging, well-supported, and gorgeous ride!