Pizza Man

Yesterday I did the first of the fall "Low Key Hill Climb" series here in the Bay Area. This first climb was a 93 rider mass start 5.3 mile route with 1940 feet of climbing. The steepest part of the climb is the first 2 miles, after which it flattens out for about a mile before climbing for the last 2 miles.

From the gun (car horn actually) a couple guys take off real quick and I follow. The 3 of us separate from the rest of the pack fairly quickly. After about 2 minutes, guy # 1 starts to slow and #2 and I go by. I stay on his wheel for about 5 more minutes (with great difficulty), but then he slows down, so I attack and open up a small gap. I figure I'll be alone from here to the top and settle into a pace I think I can hold to the top.

Then, just as the course starts to flatten out I hear someone coming up behind me. I glance back and think it's a motorcycle (a very quiet one), but then as he goes by I see that it's a guy on a fully faired recumbent.

Needless to say, I am totally stunned! I have never been passed like that on a climb before and this guy's ride had to be 50 pounds with the wind fairing and big saddle bags he had on either side. I sprint up to his wheel and try to catch a draft, but he's going about 25 and we're still climbing, though slightly. I just can't hang and I have to let him go.

He disappears out of site and I never see him until I get to the finish line.
I manage to set the DFer course record, but the guy on the recumbent beat me by nearly 2 minutes!

Then I find out he has a 500W electric motor on it. Oh, that explains it.

Speedster22

UmneyDurak

Umm.... was he part of the race, or just some guy riding around?

mynameistom

I think its safe to say he was the latter

Snuffleupagus

Nice job on the course record!

bvfrompc

Do motor paced records count?

Crash716

I think that means you have to sell your bike....


it's rule # 371 of the road racing rule book!

BigSean

Congrats on the record. That guy actually got 100 points for some reason. I guess he is in his own motorized class.

deanp

That would be very dishearting while still on the road, and then very funny after you found out about the motor at the finish. Good job keeping your focus and staying within yourself.

edzo

yeah sounds like motorpaced


you may want to have an asterisk next to your name

waterrockets 

I think I would have created a new user name for this post

Those fared bents are amazingly slippery.

Pizza Man

I thought it would be a funny story considering Patencad's Saturday thread. The recumbent guy who beat me was actually mentioned in that thread as the guy who rides the faired yellow recumbent on the peninsula. I wonder how many roadies he's gone by at 30+ on the flats who didn't know about the motor assist and decided it was time to give it up.

He was entered in the race, but scored in his own "hybrid electric" category. At the speed he went by me, I only got about 10 seconds of motorpacing.

I'd like to see how he does on some of the steeper climbs coming up if he comes back.

UmneyDurak

Hybrid electric? Seriously what a hell is the point? Isn't the whole point is to test your physical ability and not how good the electric motor is?

UT_Dude

That's lame. Either pedal your bike, or take the Pcad way out and use a motorcycle for your training. But don't combine the two. So lame.

roadgator

What is there to see, how big his batteries are and his electric motor rating? This guy clearly has no other competition to form a legitimate class with (how would you sanction electric recumbent racing anyway?), so the organizers should keep him of the coarse.

Its kinda cool in a geek/techy way, but just plain tacky in a racing context.

SteveE

It was Bill Bushnell. The KLIMB program is based on data collected by Bill.

Roadgator - When they call it the "Low Key Hill Climb" series, they really do mean "low key".

MtnRide

I thought it was kind of cool - when he passed me I asked a former teammate if it had a motor, cause I thought we were going pretty quick up that hill (and you could hear it whining.) Got me thinking about my commute again, which, of course, depressed me.

The whole event was pretty fun. I haven't really raced in a while and was happy to pull off 5th and take 2 minutes off a PR. For the nay-sayers, it's not really a race, more like an event, so ya get what ya get (or something like that.) Plus, it's an open course with probably the nation's highest per capita rec cycling population.

roadgator

I see, i didn't know he was collecting data and not "racing"--thats pretty cool actually. But then why did he need to be on the hill at the same time?

garysol1 

I don't see the point to that at all. Might just as well be on a motorcycle......with a couch for a seat.

EDIT: Never mind...just read 2 posts above

ratebeer

I think that was actually Ted Simpkins, the former Olympic swimmer, with the two minute gap.

Good to see those hill climbs draw a crowd! I was supposed to do those with my time trial partner but I checked some of the courses and did some calculations... I would actually roll backward on some of those grades.

ratebeer

ps. Do you know how the series was scored?

SteveE

I doubt if he was collecting data on Saturday. It's not a sanctioned race and the folks who put it on basically allow you to ride anything you want. I'm sure Bill won his category, too!

Pizza Man

It's scored as follows:

(median time for your category)/(your time) = your score.

Since there was only 1 rider in the Hybrid-electric category, he had the median time and scored 100 points.

There were 81 men and the median time was the guy in 41st place (35:48).
My time was 26:05, so my score was 137.25

I didn't mind having the recumbent guy in there, it's nice to have someone to chase up a hill, but I wish he would have at least stayed within sight.

Ted Simpkins wasn't there.

blavelle

you should build a faster elec. recumbant and race him. Maybe its not good for cycling but damn I think that would be a lot of fun.