Tom Blumenfeld
Thulman Eastern/Chesapeake Wheelmen Racing
Baltimore, Maryland

     October 6th, 2000 dawned hot and dry in Las Vegas, Nevada. Although the searing sun had managed to stare the gaudy, shameless lights of the gamblers' mecca into temporary subservience, there was still little that could be done about the perpetual clatter of bells and buzzers in the lobby-casino of the Westward Ho hotel as we checked out and performed a last gear check prior to our departure from this Desert Diamond. My friend and fellow road cyclist Pat Dillon (unattached), and I, Tom Blumenfeld (Thulman Eastern/Chesapeake Wheelmen), had flown our machines to Vegas from Baltimore the night prior, and painstakingly assembled them in the hotel room, which we handily converted to a tiny, temporary pit area. Saddle heights were meticulously set and checked, wheels were examined for true, and deraileurs were adjusted. Pedal wrenches, allen keys, and related accoutrements were strewn across the beds like so many surgeon's implements. Any neighbors who were still awake at 1:00 A.M. might have puzzled over the shrill ratcheting of spinning rear hubs, or the alien sigh of a floor pump exhaling repeatedly into a pair of Michelin Axial Pros. We were here on business, and it was very serious business, indeed. We were en route to the southern California desert to ride the Death Valley Double Century.

     The Death Valley Double, one of several back-to-back centuries among California's Triple Crown Series, is a notoriously unforgiving ultramarathon which snakes through 200 miles of the most heat-stricken, desolate landscape on the North American continent. Staging from Furnace Creek, a mere angstrom of civilization in the central Death Valley National Monument, the ride seductively whisks unwary riders 25 miles northwest, under cover of darkness, to the miniscule settlement of Stovepipe Wells, and then back to Furnace Creek, at an enticingly high rate of speed. There, however, the sun peels the desert's starlit pall away from it's face and shoulders, revealing its true, skeletal features. Now, careening southeast toward Badwater, a fetid pool of uncongenial brine which is nearly 300 feet below sea level, and the lowest point in the continental United States, riders become singularly aware that they are not in the palm of a gentle giant, but on the back of a kraken! By the time the cyclists execute 6- and 10-mile ascents across two consecutive passes of the Amargosa Mountain Range, descend to the turnabout point at Shoshone, negotiate the back side of the previous climbs, survive a blistering 16-mile descent, and press past Badwater in total darkness on the return leg to Furnace Creek, they will have survived 9,200 vertical feet of climb over gradients ranging from 2 to 12 percent, searing heat, and an abject absence of shade. Death Valley's singular beauty and stark, lethal purity constitute a fantastic paradox that is magnified exponentially when experienced from the cockpit of a road bike. And this hostile environment has never encountered two more willing combatants than these brazen roadies from the green, lush east.

     As we rolled onto Las Vegas Boulevard and aimed the van westward, it wasn't long before the glistening spires of the Desert Diamond had receded into the arid haze behind us. As impressive as the city's man-made crystalline castles initially were, their glitz seemed faddish, temporary, even vulnerable in contrast to what lie ahead. As the density of artificially contrived structures thinned into golden desert, virtually the only vestige of man's presence was the ribbon of asphalt which thrust itself, like a javelin of onyx, toward the mountains, the Guardians of the Desert. It was as if these impassive sentries, upon our approach, had awakened and begun to heave from the desert floor to mark our passage into their domain. The mountains, for countless eons, have exercised autocratic charge over everything in their seemingly interminable domicile, conspiring to divert even the insolent wind and rain at their pleasure. And as we neared Furnace Creek, the behemoths seemed to enclose us, as if in a coliseum, establishing an adversarial tone. So be it. We would be Gladiators, then. We would contest the Giants with trained legs and tuned machines. We had flown 3,000 miles with our machines in tow, and would scale their twisted, macadam spines, mount their lofty, armor-plated shoulders, and make them give us what we came for.

     The ride to Stovepipe was uneventful, but that's not to say that it was anything less than intoxicating, even in darkness. Alone, in tandem, and in tiny groups, riders rolled into the first sag stop to refuel and regroup. Many hours in the saddle lie ahead, though, and not much time was expended in pleasantry. Pat and I had been among the first to depart Furnace Creek, but even as we finished refueling, the relative stillness was interrupted by the intermittent mating of cleat and pedal. One by one, flashing tailbeacons began turning back from whence they came, before being summarily absorbed into the predawn blackness like hot ashes falling into volcanic dust.

Pat and I, too, didn't waste any time beginning our return to Furnace Creek. The pre-dawn temperatures were kind to us, but we knew that daylight would eventually be at a premium, and every turn of the cranks put us at an advantage. Accelerating, we spun along in the starlight and, the darkness having robbed us of spacial reference and peripheral vision, it was only through our legs that we were able to sense changes in gradient. Still, it's a peculiar sensation to climb a moderate grade into what appears to be a black velvet curtain that yields with every stroke of the cranks.

Pat Dillon at speed en route to Stovepipe

     Finally, the waking sun allowed us a glimpse of the horizon, and we welcomed the gradual return of our frame of reference. Smooth, rolling macadam and a slight cross-tailwind afforded us the luxury of effortless high speeds, and by the time the sun had commenced its daily ritual of sand painting, we were leaning into Furnace Creek. There, we relinquished our spent primary lighting systems, stuffed our jersey pockets with fuel, and remounted, aiming our machines into the sun and toward the ancient, pitiless sentinels which scowled at us, helmeted by the clouds.

     The approach to Badwater was even more rousing to us than that of Stovepipe Wells, largely due to the bright sunlight and our renewed awareness of our surroundings. The black carpet of asphalt, the only unnatural occurrence within view, unraveled before us, drawing our machines toward Badwater with an almost foreboding ease. For most of the way, vertical walls of rock to our left ushered our passage, as if deliberately shunting us toward the waiting Titans that we would ultimately engage. To the right, though, was a vast stockade of Giants which lorded over a seemingly interminable, featureless expanse of sand, borax, and salt, and admonished us with the remnants of the lakes which had tried to upstage them so long ago. But we were committed now. Brazenly, we pushed big gears toward Badwater.

     It didn't seem long, nor too terribly painful, before we found ourselves banking into the minor, mildly curved descent to Badwater itself. It is as it sounds. The actual name of the locale refers, most accurately, to an absolutely flat expanse of sand, salt, and choked earth, nearly 300 feet below sea level, which is home to an inhospitable, brackish pool of water which reshapes itself continually, contingent upon rainfall, and in which almost nothing survives. On all sides, however, the Giants make themselves evident. Some were within arm's reach, others were what seemed a half world across the desert, but they seemed to oversee the flatland as if it were a vast arena of sorts, where some survivalist drama would be played out. And, in fact, it was.

     There was a rest stop at Badwater and, by now, riders were thankful for the opportunity for some social, as well as physical, sustenance. The cyclists' gregarious nature tended to increase as darkness waned, it seemed, and among the pleasantries, there was no shortage of banter about the infamous climbs that awaited us. It was common knowledge among the tiny field of ultramarathoners that most of Death Valley's climbing occurs in the latter hundred miles, but relatively fresh legs write checks freely, and everyone was operating "in the black" as we rolled out of Badwater, southeast, toward the Giants.

It didn't take long before Pat and I were at speed again. Occasionally, we rode together, two abreast, on roads which it seemed that we owned. And at other times, at whim, we would join small pacelines, trading pull for draft, and formulating plans of attack for what lay ahead. It was during those big-ring, marauding runs along the serpentine, flatland ribbon that Pat and I entertained riders' questions about where we were from. The Thulman Eastern/Chesapeake Wheelmen colors that I was flying prompted most of the queries, but when our curious colleagues learned that we had flown our machines out here specifically to look DV in the eye, they knew we wouldn't blink. And we never did.

Pat pushing big meat out of Badwater

     As the sun arced higher, the ambient temperature rose exponentially, and the asphalt shimmered in subservience. Two more rest stops, which were welcome despite the fact that the dedicated support crews were now hard pressed to keep the fluids cold, evaporated behind us as we brawled through 6 miles of unanticipated headwinds from which there was absolutely no shelter. The scrub brush seemed to shrug in confessed helplessness as we ground by in small gears, trying to hide from the desert's steady, hot breath. At last, though, we swung out of the wind, but true relief was not to be had just yet. We had mounted the devious, meandering backbone of one of the Giants. And we had 90 miles on our legs.