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Whiteface Mountain Uphill Bike Race.
June 17, 2006
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7.9 miles, 3555 feet elevation gain
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Last year, I became the first person to unicycle up Whiteface Mountain, in New York's Adirondack mountains: (2005 Whiteface story). It hurt, a lot. It hurt so much I was not really sure I wanted to do it again. This feeling was strongly reinforced by riding in the Mt. Equinox race shortly afterwards: (2005 Equinox story), which I'd committed to prior to Whiteface 2005, and before tasting the exquisite pain of cycle hill-climbing.
It took almost a whole year for my aging mind to soften the memory of that agony to a dull ache, and I plunked down my entry fee just weeks before this year's race. I certainly hoped for some competition, but from frequenting the unicyclist.com forum, where the great majority of active unicyclists congragate, I knew I'd be in a one-man division, as I was in 2005. That left me with a clear goal as I trained, which was beating my "record" time of 1:59:14.
Since one-wheel riders (and cyclists, in general) are so well connected online, I knew Mike, who climbed Mt. Washington, steeper with 1200 feet more gained, in a time of 1:45, and Ben, who did it in 2 hours flat.. I knew I needed crush my record to have any chance of keeping it, should someone like Ben or Mike show up next year. You can be sure I picked the brains of those two riders, and gleaned advice from the entire online community for any and all tips on hill climbing.
From this council, I decided to use the same "Kris Holm" uni with its 29-inch wheel, but to increase my crank length from 150 mm to 165 mm. During my training rides, one and a half more centimeters of crank arm increased my leverage much more dramatically than I'd expected, and I was conquering some roads in the Heldeberg hills south of Albany which had always stopped me before. Another change I made to my cycle was a smaller volume tire, still fat by road-bike standards, but lighter than the slick I'd used in 2005.
Mike had two other notable pieces of advice. One was to pump up my tire really hard. This seemed to help somewhat to keep the uni from pulling sideways down the crown of the road, often quite steep on the banked curves, which was a huge problem for me last year. The other was a simple chestnut of wisdom, that "pain is a good thing."
Besides equipment changes, I had a couple more reasons to hope. My main assett as I attempted to beat the record was improved riding skill from practicing a lot. In last year's race I'd had less than a year's experience with a unicycle, including a long, slow learning curve, and I was wobbly, flailing, and wasting all kinds of energy. Since then, having done many 20 mile road rides and lots of trail riding, my technique is much more solid, with less upper body motion. Also, though the weather was warm, it was noticably cooler than last year's crushing heat, and so this, too, was in my favor. I was hoping to ride it in one and a half hours, but I wasn't telling anybody that.
Arriving at race central on Wilmington's beach, I parked at the end of a long line of cars and got out my unicycle to ride up the road leading to the registration tent. Hundreds of grim-faced bicyclists were changing clothes, prepping their bikes, and warming up, and seeing me, they had one of two different reactions. Either they smiled and said, "Hey! You're back!", or they showed expressions with varying combinations of amusement, doubt, surprise, and pity. One woman said "You're not really going to try this race on that, are you?", and, faster than I could respond, she was informed by two other competitors that I'd already done the race last year.
Hanging around before the race, I begged several cups of water from Jameson, a photographer with her shop right near the start, as I wanted to keep my camelbak (water-backpack) full for the ride up the mountain. Then I lined up in the first wave and got ready to ride. At the starter's signal we were off and I was a bit chagrined to see everyone take off much faster than the speed at which I'd planned to ride. I knew my pace, however, and I wasn't going to burn myself out early in a foolish attempt to stay with this pack of endorphin junkies.
Plodding along comfortably, I decided to try to reach the tollbooths, at a distance of three miles, without a dismount. Last year, I'd stopped to rest at least a half dozen times in that first stretch, and now I remembered why. This first part of the race offers several sustained, steep sections and I felt a familiar burning pain growing steadily in my thighs. Remebering Mike's mantra about pain, I concentrated on just spinning my wheel and staying relaxed. Trying to stay within sight of the slower cyclists, I made it to the tollbooths in one go, which got me thinking that it would be cool to do the whole clmb without a dismount, if I could.
I couldn't. But I did make it past four miles and well onto the flanks of Whiteface's neighbor, Mt. Esther, before I decided to take my first rest. I sat on a rock looking out over the hazy mountains to the northwest as I gulped water in between gasps. I knew I had a better pace at this point, because last year I'd stopped well over a dozen times before I'd made it this far. I consciously tried to keep my break short and soon hopped back on the uni and began spinning again.
By this time, groups of cyclists from later waves were riding past me, and some were commenting that I was faster than last year, because of the longer time it had taken them to catch me. After the five mile mark and a sign saying 3307 ft elevation, I knew I was more than halfway in both distance and vertical gain, and a cyclist with whom I'd chatted earlier was slowly pedalling past me. Noticing his watch I asked him for the time, and he said it was 6:23. I'd been riding 53 minutes, and I now had the first concrete idea of my pace. So far, so good, keep spinning.
After I passed the six mile mark, I was looking up at the finish, past the two huge hairpin turns, and, though I wasn't quite screaming from the pain, I decided to take another quick rest. After few more cyclists went by grunting "Almost there" to me, or maybe just to themselves, I got on again. I managed to ride to about 7.5 miles, just below the final turn, and took one more rest stop. Even though my legs were now feeling like butter and seemed like they were forgetting how to pedal, I knew how close I was and intended for this to be the last stop.
Alas, it was not to be. The last stretch of road from the final hairpin is steep and the wind was reminding us we were almost a mile in the sky on an Adirondack peak. The rock walls on both sides funnelled the wind straight into our faces and the bikers were all bending as flat as they could to pedal through it. Though it's awkward, I also tried bending as far forward at the waist as I could without handlebars. With my legs disobeying my brain, and my balance thrown off by the strange riding position, I was blown backwards, cursing loudly, off the uni, twice more before the finish.
I fought my way past the worst of the wind and regained a bit of composure, when realized there was a cheering crowd urging me on the last few meters. Some folks were running along with me, high-fiving, and many were cracking wise about my mount. I heard one guy shouting "shift gears, shift gears!" (I can't), and another told me to go back down and ride the other wheel up. I usually respond to such jibes with sarcasm, but, from my fellow racers, I ironically felt accepted, like I'd been given a key to the exclusive hill-climbing washroom.
Focusing on the clock through my sweat-fogged glasses, I saw I'd made my goals with time to spare, finishing in 1 hour, 25 minutes, 53 seconds. I pedalled up to where the timer rips the race number off the bib, and doing some calculations in my head, I realized I'd broken my record by 33 minutes and 21 seconds. I hopped off, hoisted the unicycle up to the requisite, celebratory, overhead position and shook it up and down, gratified that I posted a unicycle record which someone is going to have to work darn hard to beat.
After that, I ate and drank at the race tables, put on some warm layers, and wangled a ride down with Rob (aka Rocky), his son Shey, and Diana (aka Palamino Filly). We chowed excellent food at the barbecue back down at the beach, and I accepted my prize for winning my division. I'll be back next year, but I doubt I can cut off another half hour from my record.
--- Steve R. aka Steveyo
Officially, I was 185th out of 217 finishers. There were an additional 10 DNFs.
WHITEFACE MT. UPHILL BIKE RACE
WHITEFACE VISITORS BUREAU JUNE 17, 2006
WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN
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OFFICIAL RESULTS
TC - Total Climb 3555 F
WEATHER: CLOUDY START TEMP: 77 F FIN TEMP: 59 F
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BIB COMPETITOR--- FINAL RANK Nr TOWN SURNAME+NAME CLS NAT/YR TIME
1 200 Burlingt Harpp, Jason M-2 /23 45:10.7
...
100 15 White Pl Steinel, Gary M-5 /53 1:06:58.2...
...
185 156 Delmar Relles, Steve UNI /43 1:25:53.1
...
217 102 New York Van Hoesen, Lois F-5 /59 1:58:04.3
Some photos:
Here I'm just starting, asking a spectator "Why are they all so serious?"
http://pathendrickphotography.com/WF...BK/wbk5704.jpg
High fiving folks in the crowd:
http://pathendrickphotography.com/WF...3b/wbk5539.jpg
http://pathendrickphotography.com/WF...6b/wbk5853.jpg
Fighting a head wind at the finish:
http://pathendrickphotography.com/WF...3b/wbk5541.jpg
http://pathendrickphotography.com/WF...3b/wbk5542.jpg
http://pathendrickphotography.com/WF...3b/wbk5543.jpg
Done!
http://pathendrickphotography.com/WF...6b/wbk5855.jpg
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