2004 Mount Washington "Hill" Climb by Jon Orcutt
In Feb. or March I signed up for the race up Mt. Washington. I spent a lot of time in that area as a kid and have hiked up the mountain or parts of it in all seasons. The bike race to the top has been getting a lot of attention in recent years and I figured I ought to give it a shot.
The race was this past Saturday. I got up to New Hampshire Friday. Picked up my race number and, with my partner Karen, walked up the first two miles of the auto road to get a feel for it. I had heard about the relentlessness of the climb and a lot of what we walked up was damn steep. But there were sections of relatively low angle in there as well.
If you don't know much about Mt. Washington, it's the highest peak in the northeast. It has a partly paved road to the 6,300 foot summit. The road is about 7.6 horizontal miles and climbs about 4,725 feet, for a 12% average grade. The peak sits at the convergence of several weather influences whose combination produces a lot of wind and precipitation. Of the handful of times I've been on the summit, I've had good visibility once. The weather station there claims the highest-ever recorded winds (about 230mph). The race often attracts top climbers.
I wasn't sure what to expect for the race. There's a lot of talk among people who do it of altering bikes for super low gearing, taking off non-essential parts like brakes and front derailleurs, etc. I wanted to get low gears without going over the deep end of setting up a special bike or buying stuff I would never use otherwise like long-cage derailleurs, etc. A lot of people advise having at least a 1:1 chainring/rear cog low gear, but I couldn't tell if they were racers or more recreational riders. My stuff is Campy - I was able to borrow a Campy 29 set from Noah G., who had it from a trip to the Dolomites. The front was a little more complex since Campy doesn't make chainrings for a double smaller than 38 or 39. I settled on an FSA compact set - 50/34, though that got me deeper into equipment than I had hoped since it required swapping the Campy BB for Dura-Ace in order to install the thing. I've been climbing reasonably well and can grind out a low cadence when I have to, so I just hoped this set up would get me up the mountain.
My father came over from the coast of Maine to be part of the scene. He was going to be my ride down the mountain (you have to have a car ride down because cycling would be suicidal) and ride a century around Mt. Wash. with friends the next day. We stayed in a place about 8 miles down the valley from the base of the auto road/race start. I woke up in the middle of the night and heard hard rain falling. The race has a “weather date,” but it only applies to stuff like severe electrical storms, really high winds and ice on the road.
We got up early and ate muesli and yogurt and caffeinated cliff bars we had been hauling around. The rain had slackened and I decided to ride up to the race start as part of warming up. That took me on a several mile climb through Pinkham Notch, which seemed like the Prospect Park hill to my goofy little gears. I had opted for the long-sleeve Kissena skin-suit, since it was cool out, but I didn't need pockets for the short outing. There was no way I was going to be able to eat going up, I had new tires and there's no glass up on the road. I had a plastic rain cape over it for the warm up, since it was still really wet and probably in the low 60's, tops.
Word at the start line was that the temperature differential wasn't much - it was in the mid-50's at the top. However, you couldn't see very far up any of the mountains. It was obvious we'd be riding up into the clouds. After seeing my dad and Karen off (the ride-down-cars go up before the bike race) I continued to roll around on Route 16. It started pouring pretty hard again for a while. I warmed up for close to an hour and a half before getting bored and fairly cold. I found that the ski touring center building across the highway from the start was open so I went in there and found decent bathrooms and a warm place to cower and stash the rain jacket. I had a window view of the start line so I didn't head back out until the last minute. The 600 riders start in four waves at 5 minute intervals. Because I had never done the race before and am not a Cat. 1-2 racer, I was lined up with my age group (40+), which was in the third wave (if you're Cat. 1-2 or have previously put in a time better than 1:20, you get to start in front). Once the 2nd wave was off, I ran out, jumped on and rode over to the line up, where I got to shiver for a few minutes until the gun.
Out of habit I lined up in my big ring, which was unnecessary since the only flat part of the course is about 50 yards long. As we hit the first slope I immediately dropped my chain shifting down (the 50-34 seems prone shifting in that direction). I couldn't shift it back on while facing up a steep hill with no chain, so had to hop off and re-set. That cost me a little time and put me at the back of my start wave. Still, I got going and immediately felt happy the race was happening and going uphill after all the build-up. The low gears were allowing me to move pretty well up the steep stuff. The road has mile markers and altitude posts at the 1000-foot intervals. In the first mile I had moved up through the 40+ group and was passing some of the 30's. I went pretty quickly to the 34x29, even if I could've pushed something bigger, since there seemed no use is stuffing the legs at the bottom. I shifted up here and there when the angle lessened.
The second and fifth miles are reputed to have the steepest average grades, and after the second I got out of the saddle for a good while to give the hamstrings and glutes a break. I had figured if I could do each mile in 10 minutes, I'd be good for a 1:15. The plan was on track -- in fact I made it to a marshal claiming to represent the half-way point in about 33 minutes.
Riders had thinned out quite a bit by then, though they were still all along the road, and I was still passing people. At that point, we had gained a lot of altitude, the vegetation had declined to dwarf pines and we were not yet in the clouds. It provided the best scenery of the day. The lower half of the road goes north along the mountain's slopes, coming to overlook a huge glacial cirque known as the Great Gulf, defined by Mounts Washington, Adams and Jefferson. We were looking down on dramatic mountain slopes and low clouds, and up to the beginnings of the tree-less upper mountain. That felt pretty awesome -- racing in a real alpine environment. Up here we first started to get a few wind gusts, but nothing serious. It was raining lightly, on and off, the whole way up.
In the fifth mile, the road traverses back south across the eastern face, climbing steeply and presenting precipices on the road's left side. I started feeling it in here. The road abruptly turns from pavement to dirt in the middle of this steep pitch. The heavy rain had softened the surface so you lost some speed there. Worse was that it became hard to stand without spinning your rear wheel out. Cadence was getting down into the 60rpm area here. Probably could've used another gear, though would I have gone slower using it?
I kept chugging and tried to find a “crown” of the road where the surface was least sloppy. A lot of post-race comments said this mud situation created the worst conditions in recent memory, even though the summit winds were worse last year. In that first dirt stretch, the crown was right along the left edge above the steep drop-off. Along here we left the last trees behind. You could see down and up the slope some, but there were clouds below and above.
The road switched back, heading north again and then west toward the summit cone. This part of the ride is more of a blur to me. We were getting some high winds - it felt mostly from the side and in front. It was pretty steady but there was one side gust that moved me across the road as I came around a turn. I just tried to keep my face down near my stem. I don't remember thinking about anything in particular except keeping the pedals turning and taking in the environment. At some point in here right before visibility went to almost nothing I came up on Sarah Sauvayre (CRCA Metro) and John Caruso (CRCA Foundation) riding near each other. I went by them into the cloud with a “Let's go New York” and received positive but short replies (it was the least- talkative race I've witnessed). Sarah finished 4th overall in the women's race.
Up here near the top the road angle lessened for the most part but being in the cloud made it almost impossible to see. I should've put my glasses in the skin suit pocket because I was constantly wiping water and fog off of them - I would've seen better despite poor eyesight -- but I didn't want to screw around too much. At one point in here, I think I absently rode up a steep pitch in the 27 rather than the 29. Eventually, the pavement returned and I was able to pick up the pace on the “flatter” sections, though it was a constant battle with the wind. I stuck to the road's center line, because it was about all I could see.
Somewhere in here my rear wheel started making bad scraping noises when I went out of the saddle. The wheel didn't seem to be rubbing on anything, so I kept going and stayed down for the most part. When I was dealing with my bike later in the day the hub was freewheeling forward - took it apart and found the clip ring that holds the pawls on the cog-carrier and acts as their spring had busted into three pieces. Dunno if this was the result of extreme torque or what, but I was sure happy the pawls didn't give during the race.
I managed to see the 6 mile marker, then the 6,000 foot marker and the 7 mile marker (can't remember the order of the last two). Ghost-like figures were appearing along the roadside here and there (people who had hiked down from the top). Then the sound of cowbells came through the cloud, and eventually I could hear the yelling and cheering from the decent-sized summit crowd. I was coming up on three or four riders and they were picking up their efforts for the finish. We went up the last bit together, which is a pretty serious wall, but it didn't seem outrageous after climbing steeply for the last 7.5 miles and 4700 feet.
Over the timing mats and immediately you're swarmed by handlers who act like you're probably at deaths door, though I didn't feel that blown out. Coming over the line, I got a nice call-out from summit announcer Richard Fries, who I know through his Ride Magazine. The good part is I was swathed in two fleece blankets right away, and found my father who led me to the car and warm, dry clothes.
> I ended with a 1:14:18 time, good for 36th overall and 7th in the 40-44 category. The 40+ers who beat me were all from the lead starting group, for which I now qualify if I want to do this again.
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