Mt Washington Hillclimb

Mt Washington

The Mt Washington Auto road Bicycle Hillclimb is sponsored by the Tin Mountain Conservation Center each August and runs from the start of the Auto Road to the summit. It is billed as one of the toughest hillclimbs in the world due to the extended steep slopes and miserable weather conditions. One look Mt Washington's profile and you can see why. The first 4 miles are below the treeline, and while difficult, they represent only a prelude of what is to come. As you weave around some rock formations around mile 4 and begin to emerge from the tree, the climb seems to get more difficult Then you see what I call the "death march" which is the slow long ascent of the first steep section of packed gravel and dirt. After finishing this section, you alternate between dirt and asphalt sections until you reach the last big switchback. The best advice I received before running this race was to stay to the outside of this switchback as if you cut the inside line, the steepness is significantly magnified. Once I got there, I knew exactly why I needed to stay to the outside. The inner line was littered with people who had been blown off their bikes and who were walking trying to find a spot to remount. After a torturous few hundred yards, things level out a bit and even seem to get easy until the push for the finish. You know that you have been on a steep hill when 9% is leveling out! Additionally, just when you think you are about to hit the finish, you run into the wall .. the final 23% section leading to the finish line.

The race is difficult to get into due to the recent surge in popularity. In 2005, all 600 spots sold out in under 3 hours. In 2006, all 600 spots filled in under 32 minutes. A second hillclimb named Newton's Revenge has been created to support the overload, but since it is run in July when the weather is typically much better than August, it isn't the same. The 2007 race was cancelled due to extremely bad weather at the summit.

I have ridden the event in 2005 and 2006 and also have ridden the proactive ride in 2006 which was held the day after the inaugural Newton's revenge race. It was beautiful weather for the July practice ride, sunny and little wind. In 2005, the August race was run in drizzle, dense fog, 30+ knot wind gusts and sleet in places above the tree line. I witnessed several riders being blown off their bikes. In 2006, the weather was a bit better, although it was still cool and foggy at the top and just for fun, we were hit by a few short rain showers just prior to the start of the race.

Two good sources of information in this race are the Hillclimb Forum that is run by race organization and a web page called NortheastCycling.com run by another guy named Doug who does a fantastic job organizing data related to bicycling hill climbs. If my pages can be half as information filled as his, I'll consider myself successful.

Here is an interesting plot that I generated with my new Garmin Edge 705 from my 2008 Hillclimb Race. It shows the Gradient vs Distance for this ride.It shows what a killer this climb really is!

August 16 , 2008 Mt Washington Hillclimb Race: Official Time: 1:37:14, 298th overall, 67/134 Mens 40-44 Division

Today was a very interesting day. When we showed up at the base, the weather was warm and very iffy as it was raining for a while. Soon, the skies started to clear and by the time the race began, the mountain was bathed in sunshine. Another change this year was that the start times were pushed back one hour. This was great as it made getting up in the morning very easy. I felt good the first part of the race and was at or better than a personal record at the half way mark. I seemed to get really bogged down on the stretch from about 4.5 miles to 6 miles and the dirt seems to have killed me for some reason. It was warm and that may have also factored into my slowdown. I almost rode into the ditch on the "death march" dirt section at about 4.5 miles. I ran over a rock wrong and it pushed my tire towards the ditch which forced to to crash or unclip. I unclipped, swore a bit and some how was able to re clip in and start riding despite the 15% gradient in wet dirt! I do think this might be what took the air out of my sails for the next 1.5 miles though and when I finally woke up at about 6 miles, I started pushing once again. When I got to the 7 mile mark, a black cloud had enveloped the summit and soon it was raining and hailing. I finished strongly in a raging hail storm. Ah Mt Washington .. nothing like it. Sun, heat, cold and hail all in one day. The final finishers reportedly finished with 1 inch of hail on the ground. The course was fast and there were lots of records set .. except by me! I slipped back a bit this year from my normal finishing time and place. Didn't get good training in I guess from too much work travel. Lol ... See you next year.

The weather was pretty good for this years practice ride. Not as nice a in 2006, but still pretty nice for Mt Washington. I didn't ride real hard here as I had raced up Mt Ascutney the day before. I felt much better on this ride than Ascutney, but didn't really push myself too hard. As a result, I had my slowest time ever here. I have some more work to do before the race in August.

August 19, 2006 Mt Washington Race: Official Time: 1:33:13, 279th overall, 67/134 Mens 40-44 Division

August 20, 2005 Mt Washington Race: Official Time: 1:33:22, 271st overall, 78/140 Mens 40-44 Division

Date	Event	Time	Overall Place	Age Group Rank	Age Group
August 16, 2008	Hillclimb Race	1:37:14	298/537	TBD	Mens 40-44
July 20,2008	Practice Ride	1:37:00	N/A	N.A	N/A
August 19, 2006	Hillclimb Race	1:33:13	279/570	67/134	Mens 40-44
July 9, 2006	Practice Ride	1:34:17	N/A	N.A	N/A
August 20, 2005	Hillclimb Race	1:33:22	271/561	78/134	Mens 40-44