Posted: Tue May. 24, 2011 8:25 am
I signed up for this event thinking it would be something new and my first event of the season. It's one of those events that limits entrants and this one was full at 200 within about 1.5 hours of posting. The down side for me turned out that it was the same day as the LSRR. But I did not know it at the time of signup. Helen and I went up the day before and stayed in Conway close to the start. Thunder storms were threatening for later in the race morning but the start was cool with little wind.
The event has a wide range of entrants there were 45 individuals in the three person TT category and there were age and sex categories all the way up to "Older Than Dirt" 75+. I was in the Grand Master age range of 55-64 in which 23 of us finished. There was a Super Grand Master age group of 65 to 74 too. I noticed there a lot of older riders both male and female in the event.
This course starts out near Conway, NH and follows the Kancamagus Highway (Rt 112) to the top of Kancamagus Pass. The course climbs very gradually the first 10 miles before nearly leveling off for another 5 miles. Then the last 4 miles of the 21 mile course are fairly steep, averaging 7% grade with short steeper sections.
I started out about number 10 in my group, we went out at 15 second intervals. I felt good and had the Tarmac up to low 20's mph in no time had the good wheels and aero bars on it. With in a few min I was passing guys and felt comfortable. Then I heard someone behind me. Slowly I started to be passed so he went by and I started pacing myself without drafting on him. after a few min I passed him back and we played that game for awhile, then I had to let him go, (must have been his skin suit and full TT bike setup.) Anyway after that I road by myself occasionally passing other riders. Then I got passed again by two other riders in my group. Knowing how I felt and that they had made up quite a bit of time to just pass me I knew there was nothing I could do. I continued to give it everything I could and ended up 6th in my group and 37th overall averaging just under 17 mph. I was surprised that for much of the race you could carry 18-21 mph without much problem then on the steep climb you go down to 8 -10. After the finish I grabbed a banana, big pretzel and water before heading back down the course. Some riders had there cars at the top and some took their bikes back down for the big downhill. I choose the bike ride and no sooner got the bike up to 35mph and it started to rain hard. Fortunately Helen got the rain down the mountain first and started up to catch me part way. I saw her along side the road under our shamrock umbrella and pulled over at the next rest stop glad to be out of the rain. Aside from the danger of going down hill in a storm it was darn right cold.
Everything worked fine on the bike except for the aero bars moving around a bit and I had one close call going up the Kank. While passing another rider a car in the oncoming traffic lane was being passed by a group of motorcycles on a double yellow. They went by me at 60-70mph with less than a foot between me and the first one. It even scared me. I was pleased with my results and will do the event again. I think a three person TT would be great fun too.
Dan
http://www.northeastcycling.com/Hillclimb_Races.html#kanc
this link is to several climbs in Northeast
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