The insanity of this is oddly appealing....
Linky
At the first tilt in the road, "what happens is people fall over," says Mark Reid of Clinton, a middle-of-the-pack rider who has reached the summit by bike three times. "They haven't checked their gears -- they're in too big of a gear or their shifting isn't working right."
The 7.6-mile race to the top of New England's highest peak is Saturday, or the next day if the weather is nasty. With the finish line 6,250 feet above sea level, wind chill is always a factor and precipitation a real threat.
All the numbers are daunting. The road climbs 4,727 feet from its base off Route 16 outside Gorham, N.H. The average grade is 12 percent, with extended sections at 18 percent, and the last 100 yards at 22.5 percent. The top third of the road is not paved. There are 72 turns, with the longest straightaway only three-tenths of a mile, on dirt.
It sounds like torture, but the challenge is irresistible to hundreds of cyclists. This year the field has been expanded from 400 to 550 racers. The race benefits Tin Mountain Conservation Center (603 447-6991) in Conway, N.H.
For anyone who breaks the record time -- 51 minutes, 56 seconds for men or 1:11:38 for women -- the reward is a one-year lease on an Audi Quattro A-4. Tyler Hamilton of Brookline, a pro on the U.S. Postal Service team, set the men's record last year after completing the Tour de France. Marilyn Ruseckas of Warren, Vt., who grew up in Westboro, set the women's record in 1996 and shaved nearly three minutes from it to set the new record last year.
For Reid, biking up Mount Washington is not about prizes or records; it's about reaching a personal peak.
"I wanted a goal of something that would motivate me to get me back in shape and lose weight this summer," said Reid, 38, a computer programmer for Quest Diagnostics who did the race in 1989, '90 and '92 and has paid his $100 entry fee for next weekend. "I had blimped out to 207 pounds, and 175 is my ideal weight. I've got bad knees, too, and the extra weight hurts them. Training for this, I'm down to 185 already, just eating better and riding."