Peeling the Onion

The second stage of the Death Valley Road Stage Race, held on June 12 and 13th, features the Onion Valley Road climb, a 13 mile climb where the average gradient is 8%.  You should know what that means, cough, cough. 

The course starts in Independence, California, and begins climbing immediately.  Here's a picture from up on the switch backs that I found online, as well as a course profile.  This will be quite the experience.

Here's the course map:




I bought a compact crankset just for this race and the one in the fall (there's a second edition with the first stage remaining the same, and a different second stage). I learned my lesson on Mt. Whitney. I'll use the standard 53-39 on the first stage, with probably an 11-27 ten speed cassette, then change the cranks to the 50-34 on the compact for the Onion run. It should be fun. I'm looking forward to this even more than the District Road Championships held the week before in Bakersfield. By comparison, that hill is barely a pimple compared to the climbing in store on this weekend. A total of 13,400' of climbing over the two days, 8200' on the first day, and then a very concentrated 5200' on the second day.

Here's the socks I won at Mt. Whitney!