# What speed do you get on Monitor Pass ?



## Pierre (Jan 29, 2004)

Going down the back side towards the 395, what speed do you get ? There are a bunch of long stretches of straight downhill there. I was up to 44.5mph last saturday, and I bet you can reach around 50, but I'm scared when there is side wind so I used the brakes.


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## alamere (Jun 23, 2008)

You might want to check out the following web page. It allows you to plug in values (in metric units) and it will calculate the max theoretical speed

http://www.analyticcycling.com/DiffEqMotionTerminalVelocitySlope_Page.html

Remember to set available power to 0 because your gearing at 40+ mph probably won't allow you to add any.

It can also be used for a climb to calculate power output given speed and slope. (Change the avail power for a given slope until the speed matches how fast you were climbing.)


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## Ridgetop (Mar 1, 2005)

I took this pic in the last Deathride after slowing down about 10mph.










Don't do this at home .


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## raypung21 (Apr 20, 2009)

Ridgetop said:


> I took this pic in the last Deathride after slowing down about 10mph.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I don't think I would try this at home!


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## LouD-Reno (Mar 28, 2006)

Not the east side.... but I crack 50 mph pretty regularly on the west side in a couple of spots...... coming down towards Heenan Lake.... and then again on a couple of the straight runs below Heenan...... yee haaaa !!!!


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## ericm979 (Jun 26, 2005)

I've hit 45 on the east side and 50 on the west side, which is a little steeper. I can't go quite as fast during the Death Ride as there's too many other bikes going much slower (and a few going faster).

One time, not during the Death Ride, I was riding down the east side. A pack of Lamborginis passed me (leaving plenty of room). At the bottom I stopped to wait for my friends, so I went over to look at the cars. The drivers of these $200k cars were all "dude, you were going so fast! Is that bike made of carbon fiber?" Pretty funny that guys with expensive cars were all excited over my $650 chinese CF frame.


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## DasMud (Jun 8, 2003)

57mph coming down the west side in the '07 Death Ride. Very fun fast decent. Not my favorite, but one of the faster ones.


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## Fogdweller (Mar 26, 2004)

I hit 57 on a solo ride two years ago (Markleeville side) toward the bottom where it gets steep and straight. I knew I was movin' then glanced down at the speedo, did a double take and slowly squeezed the breaks. Age and fatherhood have changed my riding quite a bit.


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## ratpick (Jul 31, 2008)

52.2 mph on Monitor yesterday


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## chuckice (Aug 25, 2004)

48.6 with not a lot of effort..damn fast descent if you wanted to push it!


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## nor_cal_rider (Dec 18, 2006)

I hit 48 and slowed down yesterday on the west side of Monitor....might have gotten a bit more, but I was more than comfortable at that limit. I saw lots of people FLY by me on the east decent, and I was doing 44 mph.


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## ukbloke (Sep 1, 2007)

54.3 mph yesterday on the west side and this was with compact gearing.


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## gpelpel (Oct 7, 2004)

53.99 on the East side Saturday, 50.1 on the West last year. Had to go slower on the West side this year because of traffic and headwind.


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## husonfirst (Jul 15, 2006)

I'm not a fearless descender. I'm a fearful descender. I get close to 40 mph and I'm on the brakes. I did the Death Ride in 08 and some guys were bombing down the mountain.


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