Mt. Washington hillclimb cancelled

Riding Advice
1

So, I wasn’t signed up, but Mt. Washington is a race I one day would like to do. I do other hillclimbs and this is the big Kahuna, at 7.6 miles with 4700 ft of climbing. (The unicycle record was set in 2005 by aspenmike - who else?!?).

This year, it was to take place yesterday, 8/18/2007. Unfortunately for the 600 riders signed up this year and coming from all over, this year’s race was cancelled due to incredibly harsh weather. It costs $300 to sign up, plus travel/lodging expenses, and they DO NOT issue refunds.

Here’s an article about the cancellation: http://www.velonews.com/race/dom/articles/13124.0.html

2

Oh, that’s going to pee off alot of people. :angry:

3

Man, that sucks. Short of a tornado or lightning storm, I don’t see how you can justify cancelling a race like that and not refund the competitors. I was thinking of doing it after Unicon next year. Would have to think twice about it now.

4

If they can’t offer any form of refund, part of this is probably due to the fact that most of the money got spent. The whole race was set up, everybody was there, permits and insurance were paid for, etc.

Weather sucks.

5

Essentially, there was a tornado. Sleet, freezing rain, and 90 mph winds on a wide open treeless peak is a good reason for cancellation. People sign up knowing that this could happen and they take their chances.

6

I can understand the fee not being refunded if the racer cancelled but they should give a credit towards next year’s race IMO. The entry fees the promoter charges on all of their races should be buffered to cover this happening occationally.

7

I could deal with the wide open treeless peak better than I would handle the road up the mountain.

For those of you that haven’t been up there, there aren’t any guard rails, the road is wide enough for just 2 cars. There are sections of this road where if you made a minor driving mistake there us nothing to stop your car and you would go off the road and plunge over a 1000 ft. cliff. (I’m not exaggerating)

I drove up Mount Washington yesterday, Tuesday 8/22/07. The weather was clear with 100 mile visibility. I was nervous driving my car on the dry road.

I have that much more respect now for the unicyclists that rode up the mountain last year. You guys were incredible.