Hill climbing. Hmmm. I’ve got a road by my house, by my gross calculations its about a 5 percent climb average for a mile. Seems wicked steep to me! I may have to try it just for kicks!
The Sept 11 date was 2010. This year’s race is Sept. 10, 2011. With the interest shown by all you Mass guys, I’ll about ready to plunk my money down for this one.
Steveyo: your comment about plunking money down got me thinking: Is there a reason to sign up now? For instance, are there a limited number of rider slots which would cause registration to close early? I am very committed to doing Greylock. I don’t want to lose my chance because I was asleep at the switch.
Also, how does one calculate average % of grade? The hill I live on climbs about 380 feet (I think) over 2 miles of winding road. I think this should be a good training run - but I don’t know how to calc the grade.
Edit: it climbs 400 ft over 1.5 miles
I plunk the money just as a commitment for myself - that way I can’t bail out. I don’t know if Greylock sells out.
I recalculated using DavidP’s Google method, and the average grade is 8.7% There is some flattening out in the middle, so the lower and upper uphill sections are steeper. The upper section calculates to a 10.9%. A great practice hill in my backyard (about a 10 minute drive)!
Amen to that! I did that for the NY marathon in November. I am currently planning on doing Greylock – sounds very cool. Just need to figure out how to hill climb on my muni for an hour! Details…
I’m not sure I’m going to make an epic writeup for this one.
The day was all but perfect, cool, clear and sunny, with the only imperfection being a persistent headwind for much of the distance. I drove up with a first-timer, Kai, who brought his Torker DX24, complete with knobby tire.
My sixth time in this race, I tried using 137s on my KH29 this time. (I’ve used 165s and, more recently 150s). Shorter cranks were great for spinning during the less steep sections, but there were some steeper stretches of the race that I pretty much needed to stand up on the pedals, and this was much slower than seated spinning.
I was gunning for the uni record of 1:10, or at least my own PR of 1:15. Alas, to get a really fast time, one has to train hard (I didn’t), and also ride really fast. With several long sections of stand-up pedaling, I still managed to get close to my PR, but not quite there. Here’s a link to the GPS profile, for you propeller heads out there.
Kai finished strong, with a burst of power and a broad grin showing that he had way too much energy left in reserve. I expect a much faster time out of him next time, when he knows more what to expect.
Raymond, who’s training for the Lake Placid iron-man in a month, finished soon behind Kai. He said he’s always been a below-the-knee amputee, and learned to ride a uni as a kid. But, he also said he hadn’t ridden his in a long time. He was riding a stock KH29. He certainly takes our sport to another level.
This race breaks out into the open about halfway up, and the crystal-clear views of the Adirondack mountains and lakes stretched to the distant horizon. That alone was worth the price of admission. One other highlight was two cyclists did the race and then got married on the summit. Very nice spot to tie the knot. Kai and I hitched a ride down in a minivan with part of the wedding party.
That’s right, Lewis. Near as I can figure it, it was a bib number mix-up.
I was the first unicycle to arrive at the summit (bib #734), with 1:18:56.90, and the second unicyclist was Kai Pisila (bib #733) with a time of 1:34:14.32. Our times are both recorded correctly.
Raymond Viscome, the one-legged unicyclist, had a bib number of 537 (registered as a Male 50-59 rider), and a posted time of 1:13:50.56. I glanced at my watch as Raymond finished, so I know he was four minutes behind Kai. Looking at his bib number, I realize that 25 minutes were subtracted from his time as if he’d started in the Men’s 50-59 age group. All three unicyclists at the race started in the first wave, but since Ray’s bib was in the 500s, 25 minutes were subtracted from his time as if he’d started in the 5th wave, and his time should read as 1:38:50.56.
Ray and I discussed this after the race and agreed that is what happened.
Congratulations! I’d love to one day travel up your way to take on one of those epic mountain climbs. I love to climb on my uni but really not too much to climb around here more than a 1000-1500’ sustained. Pretty awesome effort guys!