The innagural Alta Alpina Challenge was put on by the Alta Alpina Cycling Club on June 13.
This ride was developed to provide a new venue for riders to build their own challenge whether it be a seven-mile ride for new riders or kids, or the full Kid Carson Challenge of 27 miles intended for beginning riders or riders who want to bring their kids.
Many parents brought kids in trailers to give their youngest children the thrill of riding in our Sierras. For more ambitious riders, options of riding one to eight passes were offered on the menu.
This is a ride put on by riders who have experience with developing the Death Ride for many years to what it is today for riders who want something fresh and new.
This ride was put on with the great help of many volunteers from many groups, the largest group was the Hung-a-Lel-Ti Washoe community.
Many thanks are due to these groups.
This ride started what we hope is a great relationship between the club and the local tribe.
Many riders ride on Diamond Valley Road and Carson River Road as beautiful and almost traffic free roads. The club uses the roads for our club road races, club rides and even the Carson Valley Classic: the District Championship Road Race in late July. The club put on four training rides for the tribe's youth to get familiar with riding the Kid Carson. Our Washoe neighbors staffed the whole 27-mile Kid Carson loop. All of the comments received for the support on this loop were extremely appreciative.
In addition, these volunteers were responsible for much of the lunch and dinner preparation which was appreciated by riders on their way to meet their own challenge. The volunteer efforts cannot not go mentioned without the great efforts of the club and Michael Bayer who was the ride director.
Details for organization and rider treatment did not go unanalyzed or discussed and debated.
Personalized wrist bands, rider numbers (with the rider's name printed), bike tags and ride routes (left here, right there, big hill here), personalized start times based on rider estimates of speed and desired distance, raised the rider treatment to a new level. More rider support in the form of a variety of endurance level products from Hammer Nutrition and Clif Bar Products, coffee, tea, soup, melons etc. etc. etc. was also noted by many riders.
The ride just about filled up its 250 rider limit. About 100 riders signed up for the eight-pass option, 25 for the Kid Carson and the rest were riding one to six passes. If the reader can recall, June 13 was Carson Valley Days, which made for pretty nice and cool weather for a parade and valley festivities, but the mountains saw some spotty weather. When the ride started at 3:30 a.m. (this was for some eight-pass riders) there was light rain on Kingsbury.
Now riding early in the morning, in the dark, in the rain on the way to 7 more passes and 160 more miles does not sound fun, but many riders were making the trek with amazingly great attitudes.
The next pass was somewhat kinder to the riders up Highway 89 to Luther Pass. Carson Pass, the third, was pretty cool for the riders, and the team had prepared coffee, hot chocolate, tea, soup, and other food for the conditions. Later in the day, rain came to visit the riders and provided a brief challenge to those on the pass.
The next was Blue Lakes, which the Alta Alpina Junior team rode to give the riders on-road support for flats, mechanical issues, hand up food if riders needed it. This too had spotty showers. On the Junior team's way down, they were greeted by a shower at the top of Blue Lakes which soaked feet and clothes for the long 20-mile descent. This made for a chilly downhill. In Hope Valley, sleet greeted the team, yet just like the Challenge riders, a great attitude and outlook kept the team going.
For a few of the junior riders, this was their longest ride and highest climb of their whole lives. At 60 miles, this was a big ride for anybody. The riders went back to Turtle Rock Park for a great lunch. Some riders stopped there and some went on to meet their challenge. These riders went on to ride both sides of Ebbett's pass followed by both sides of Monitor Pass. The riding went on into the night with all riders finished by 10:30 whether they finished their challange or not.
All of the comments from the riders, volunteers and other staff have been overwhelmingly positive. Even one eight-pass rider who had to be turned aournd because he didn't make the cutoff on Monitor pass happily responded with something to the nature of: "That is OK." This is the best-supported ride ever and will just make sure I come back next year.
It has been a lot of work for many people and for a long time, but it appears that it has been a great investment for the club to build a ride with even more success and increased rider experience.
The club looks forward to meeting the challenge of doing it again next year.
How many people finished? Less than 20 people earned the privelege to wear the Alta Alpina Challenge Eight Pass Jersey.
Mel Maalouf is The Record-Courier's cycling columnist and the junior team coach for the Alta Alpina Cycling Club.
