Death Valley Century

[Veronica]

Anyone here doing that ride on Nov. 2? My husband and I will be there on our tandem.

[Veronica]

Okay, so no else went last year. How about this year?

Veronica

[Veronica]

Well Death Valley this year was very hot. 102 when we finished the hundred miles. Out of 300 starters there were 100 DNFs! I'm really glad we decided it was too hot and elected not to try to complete the Double. We're listed as DNFs for the Double :mad: , but we didn't get sagged in like a lot of folks we talked to.

We didn't take any pictures on the ride, which was fairly brutal between the temps, the poor pavement and headwind. But we took a lot of pictures on our hiking adventures and they are posted on our website now. The link is below.

Death Valley is a beautiful place. I don't think we'll do the ride there again (unless they repave!) but we'll certainly go back to hike to some of the places we didn't get to on this trip.

Veronica

http://www.tandemhearts.com/death-valley-2003/index.html

[aka_kim]

Congrats on doing 100 in those conditions! Were you guys able to ride in a paceline the whole way? When I did the ride (I only managed 100k) 2 years ago, I was entirely alone from Badwater out to ??? and back -- very weird out in the desert all alone.

Great pictures too. If you ever get insomnia I'll loan you all 400(!!) of Jesse's recent DV pictures.

[Veronica]

We pulled a group of about 12 for the first 30 miles or so, averaging about 25 miles an hour. It was fun, but it cooked our legs for the next few miles. We told the group to go on and we slowed down to about 18. Much more sustainable. :)

Those are only the best pictures on the site. I think we had about 400 also. It's just such an amazing place. If you ever get a chance to go for a few days, it's well worth it. The canyons were still fairly cool and quite hikable, even though the center of the valley was so HOT!

Veronica