Mountain Biking Up Mount Washington

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Outside Magazine September 2004

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Out There
Tribe of Pain (Cont.)

WELL BELOW the badasses, I'm grinding along with the tribe. I hit the Horn, the midway point, at 43 minutes, on track to finish under my goal of one hour and 30 minutes and perhaps under the magic 1:20 "top-notch" time, an honorific earned by only 77 men and three women in 2002. Long views stretch in every direction, especially to the northeast, over the Great Gulf Wilderness. On practice day, at this same spot, a veteran rider tricked me into believing I was near the top.

"You're not far now," she deadpanned, setting me up for a demoralizing final 3.8 miles. I'm wiser now but can't help feeling excited that I'm zipping along in such ideal conditions, pushing toward a stellar time in my first race.

By Five Mile Grade, a brutal section heightened by an unimpeded view of the entire ridge, the road starts taking its toll. Riders on the upper slopes have tossed everything they don't need—packs, clothes, food, spent water bottles. Around me, polite small talk has been replaced by muttered expletives and the occasional wry observation: "You know you're going slow," says the man next to me, "when the blackflies catch you."

Weather has always been Mount Washington's X factor. The highest sustained surface wind speed on earth, 231 miles per hour, was recorded on Washington's summit in 1934, and during 30 years of the Hillclimb, there have been some epic days. In 1986, icy roads cut the race distance in half. In 1990, the temperature dipped below freezing, with 30-mile-per-hour winds. (This is in August, remember.) Two years in a row, in '93 and '94, the whole thing was just plain canceled. The last three years were remarkably nice, but this year the veterans have been skeptical.

"People are getting a bit spoiled," Andy Orsini, the chiseled 43-year-old race director, warned at the pre-race meeting. "If you ask me, we're definitely overdue."

He's right. The punishment is unleashed on the last switchback of Five Mile Grade, where I plunge into the hostile world of fog and wind. It's impossible to see, difficult to stay on the bike, and suicidal to take a hand off the handlebar to grab a water bottle.

Spent riders are lying on the road. A WOMAN GETS BLOWN OVER four times in a mile. My goal is elemental: Don't get knocked off. DON'T STOP.

As Spamman knows, everyone is humbled by the mountain. One year he pedaled so furiously in the first half-mile that his crank fell off four times. Another time he had to enliven his excruciatingly slow progress by singing the Supremes' "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Finally, there was the day in 2002 when he heard a croaky voice behind him: "Keep a straight line, sonny!" Spamman figured he was about to be passed by some speedy young whippet, but the voice belonged to a gray-haired woman.

"I couldn't hold her wheel," he laments. "Granny dropped me."

Pedaling into the gale, Spamman is determined to stay on his bike, worried about his $4,000 investment getting kited into the beyond. Neil alternately walks and rides, giving in to the elements. Fantasizing that I am locked in an Everestian battle for survival, I dig out a packet of Gu, tear it open with my teeth, gulp down the contents, and feel a surge of energy hit my legs.

Much of the field is going nowhere. Dozens of spent riders are walking, standing, and, in some cases, lying on the road. A 120-pound woman named Debbie will later report that she was blown over four times in the space of a mile. My goals are now elemental: Don't get knocked off the bike. Don't stop.

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