# Washington State Hill Climb Championship



## borregokid (Jun 9, 2005)

This forum is kind of dead around here. Time to talk racing again. I havent done any road racing for a while-only two all year including a crit where Gnarly was on the side laughing as I got lapped by a woman-DFL. :blush2: 

The Hill Climb this years is on Saturday, Aug 16th at Crystal. The week before is the last Indie mountain bike race at the nearby Ranger airport. That has a big hill climb that is done twice in the expert category. Train for that and six days later come back and do the road climb. My son is racing for Fanatik out of Bellingham so he is probably coming down with a crew. Who else is in? 

http://www.wheelsportcycling.com/2008 WSHCTT Race Flyer Rev2.pdf


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## Gnarly 928 (Nov 19, 2005)

*Probably..*

Hey BB..

I'll probably come up and get my tail kicked again by that mt. Dunno what it is but I do worse than my usual "poor" at that particular HC..But I like the mountains around Ranieer and for some odd perverted reason, I like TTing up hills..so I may see you there. Today it Larch Mt. down here near Portland..My first race since spring.. I've been a 'fair weather' racer this year so far..only racing when conditions are perfect. The Deschutes R TT festival was 100% perfect..some others I planned got rained out (for me).
Don Hanson


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## Gnarly 928 (Nov 19, 2005)

*Larch Mt. = O.U.C.H.*

O.U.C.H. is the acronym for the Oregon Uphill CHallenge..who's tee shirt slogan is:

"Because anyone can ride downhill" 

About 4k' of elevation gain over 16 miles near Corbett, Oregon.

Fun...? Don Hanson


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## borregokid (Jun 9, 2005)

In theory I could be racing in the same category as my son. The mountain bike series pushed all the 50+ riders into a new category this year of 45+ so I am getting used to finishing in the bottom third or worst. The other big hill climb in Washington is the Mount Baker Hill Climb in September. It drew about 600 riders last year. The fees I found to be rather steep at $53-$78. Most of the schwag and of course the cash purses goes to the top riders. The WS hill climb at $28 including lunch afterwards and some decent schwag looks like a bargain in comparision. Good luck today!


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## heliskyr (Feb 21, 2005)

I've always wondered why the WSHCC is run up Crystal Mtn Blvd. It's a nice climb from a grade perspective, but the road surface is SO AWFUL! At least you're not riding down it...

The road to Mt Baker is 1000% better-- I'd love for WSDOT to finally do something about Crystal's Rd. I know it sees a lot of abuse from the plows, but much less than the Mt Baker road.


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## Gnarly 928 (Nov 19, 2005)

Hey, have fun at Crystal. I am headed south to Corvallis and the OBRA state TT race, instead..Closer for me and I've not done that course (40K and flat, with wind). Winning pace is around 25mph for my age..That's moving for that distance.

Good luck in the mountains there.
Don Hanson


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## Gnarly 928 (Nov 19, 2005)

Why does WSBA not have true 'age category' racing? If they did, I would certainly race more up there, but as they structure their Masters racing...The category I fit into usually contains the fastest racers that aren't in one of the traditional Category classes. Borrego has noticed how odd Washington's Masters class structure is, also.

That's the main reason I chose to go to OBRA's TT rather than Crystal...OBRA's age-category structure gives me a race against my peers..
Don Hanson

Don Hanson


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## borregokid (Jun 9, 2005)

Whew! It was pretty warm for the Hill Climb. I finished it in a recorded time of 32:54 which was about 3 minutes slower than two years ago. The overall winning time was also about 3 minutes off the course record. Everyone was about two minutes slower than normal. There was a pretty decent breeze blowing against the riders in addition to the heat. Mountain biker Nathan Bannerman covered the course in 24:45. Its been the first time in a while when I havent had anything on the race calendar. I guess I will just have to ride around.


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## Gnarly 928 (Nov 19, 2005)

*Good job*

The heat is a real performance drag. What is with WSBRA and their getting results out? Still no times on the website and I hear it takes all day to post them even right there at Crystal..

Now, OBRA, they have results out in about 15 minutes after the last rider's finish..

Speaking of results: I did the 40k OBRA TT championship last weekend rather than the Wa. St. Crystal HC and felt pretty good with a time of 1:04. 48. After an hour of all out racing, I was just 6 seconds off 4th place and 18 seconds out of third (in my age group) so that was pretty encouraging. The weather was perfect with just a little wind and a flat smooth out and back course (~25mi. for you metrically challenged) and not too awful hot at my 10am starting time.

Don Hanson


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## borregokid (Jun 9, 2005)

Yeah, It takes a couple of hours to post them and the times are basically all hand calculated so there seems to be room for mistakes. I wished I had set my bike spedometer at the start because my time seemed a little slow. I hung around till the end again and walked away with some swag as did about half the people who stayed. 

Did you get a TT bike? It looks like I need something faster. Thats a pretty impressive time you posted. I was telling myself a couple of weeks ago if I had just been "6 minutes faster" I could have had third place. The guy who won the Cat D has probably won the past three years here at the HC. His wife also won and posted a pretty fast time of under 30 minutes.


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## Gnarly 928 (Nov 19, 2005)

Did you get a TT bike? It looks like I need something faster. Thats a pretty impressive time you posted. 

Impressive? Impressive is one of my friends, Dave Russel, who ran in the Masters 65+ and did a 59:28! He's pretty serious about time trialing.

I rode my Ridley Noah, which has a seat mast that you can reverse the saddle mount and get it way forward into a Time trial position. I have some TT bars and a disc wheel, and a TT helmet, too. I am just 'learning' how to TT, so I was really pleased that my bike felt so good (?) during that kind of effort all out. At that speed, you need aerodynamics to keep it up for that long..
Don Hanson


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## borregokid (Jun 9, 2005)

My son has a TT bike. He is not married. I am not sure about a 5k bike that you ride maybe 10x a year. Its still cheaper than a lot of other sports. I only saw one guy on a TT bike yesterday and that was Rocky Crocker from Wenatchee.


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## goneskiian (Jan 13, 2005)

The winner of the 1/2 field rode his TT bike as well. Shawn Howard, also a fantastic Mtn biker, was on his P3C from the picture I saw. He had the second fastest time of the day only 3 seconds behind Nathan. That was a great ride for Nathan by the way. I've never heard of him but if he's a Mtn biker that would be the reason. 

As for not getting close to the record time...I don't suspect we'll see anyone close to that for a while unless Ian McKissick shows up next year. Maybe I'm wrong but McKissick has had a fantastic year on the bike with quite a bit of time spent off the front of European UCI races (did you happen to watch the Criterium International or Tour de Suisse coverage?). I talked to Ian yesterday and he's got his eye on breaking the Mt. Baker record this year. I believe he's got some friends ready to give him a great lead out like they did last year which means they'll show up on their TT bikes and drive it to the base of the climb and launch him.

I rode my Ridley Noah as well. I love this bike. It's not the lightest out there but if I was worried about weight I wouldn't be a bike racer!  It was a tough day though as it was darn hot. I went quite a bit slower than I was hoping to, but can't be too surprised as I didn't do any specific climbing training for this race. I only scored a top 10 because only 10 1/2's showed up! :lol:

Cheers!


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## borregokid (Jun 9, 2005)

Some of the fields were pretty small. My son took first in one of the Cats. Guy like Gnarly and myself have to slug it out with riders that are slightly younger than ourselves in I think a pretty decent size field. Hey thats life but I would still like to find a category to sandbag in. 

Heres a good one goneskiian and Gnarly, the top mtn bike rider in the State had this year had a very average bike that was probably pretty heavy and had a value of maybe $600. He wasnt even sponsored, paid his own race fees and everything. Be interesting to see if he crosses over into road racing. 

I heard those guys were really crazy last year at Mt Baker leading the way up the hill for the guy from Bellingham only to have the Montana rider slip into 1st. The Baker HC has gotten pretty competitive. Anyone finishing in the top 20 is pretty fast. Maybe Floyd Landis will show up? Last year it was Ned Overend.


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## Gnarly 928 (Nov 19, 2005)

*Floyd? I heard he was in Borrego last winter.*

I heard those guys were really crazy last year at Mt Baker leading the way up the hill for the guy from Bellingham only to have the Montana rider slip into 1st. The Baker HC has gotten pretty competitive. Anyone finishing in the top 20 is pretty fast. Maybe Floyd Landis will show up? Last year it was Ned Overend.[/QUOTE]

That Mt. Baker "climb" sounds a bit 'sketchy' to be classed as a hillclimb with a flat run in like that where team tactics come into play.

I think there is one similar in the San Francisco area..The Mt. Tam (or maybe it's Mt. Hamilton)..or some such...The team I ride for, Z-team, has a huge presence there in the Nor Cal area and they always bring about 20 guys to get one guy a win...Burn everybody out on the flats except the best climbers, then they go on as a smaller group till near the top, where there are some rollers and false flats. There, they again work as a team, with one guy sitting-on till the very last pitch. They do lots of blocking and messing up the pack to get away...Mass starts are fun, but with a relative flat run in, they are more like a real road race..
Don Hanson


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## goneskiian (Jan 13, 2005)

borregokid said:


> I heard those guys were really crazy last year at Mt Baker leading the way up the hill for the guy from Bellingham only to have the Montana rider slip into 1st. The Baker HC has gotten pretty competitive. Anyone finishing in the top 20 is pretty fast. Maybe Floyd Landis will show up? Last year it was Ned Overend.


Yeah, the craziest part was the guy from Montana was on the same team as the guy from Bellingham (who was getting the lead out) but had brought his own friends from Montana to help him out. So, after the race when the guy from Montana had won and broken the record (and received the multiple thousand dollar prize for doing so) all the guys who had been leading out the guy from Bellingham (and who actually dropped the guy from Montana at one point) went to the guy from Montana (who was on their team but didn't know they were going to be there leading out the bunch) with their hands out to get their cut. 

Maybe too much info but yeah, crazy stuff.

I know this because I was on that team last year and heard all the stories but wasn't actually there myself. 

Baker is definitely a hill climb as it gets quite steep towards the top. The run in isn't exactly flat either as it's got some quite large "rollers" before the final climb starts.

It would have been really cool to race Ned Overend. I don't know who's going to show this year. Maybe Tyler Hamilton will show with Santiago Botero, Victor Hugo Pena and Oscar Sevilla to lead him out! :lol:


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