Saturday 5/22 Kancamagus TT (21 miles)

Rick Hardy     Posted May 23, 2010 1:34pm

Saturday 5/22 Kancamagus TT (21 miles)

The Kancamagus Time Trail other wise known as “Crank the Kanc” has been running for more than 15 years.

http://www.northeastcycling.com/Hillclimb_Races…

I have been racing it for more than 10 years. In the past couple of years it has grown in popularity. The race starts on the Conway side of the pass and runs to the summit of the pass to an elevation of 2855 feet. Then course consists of 10 miles or so of gradual climbing before leveling off for an addition 5 miles before the real climbing starts for 4 miles at approximately 7% grade with some steeper ramps ending at the top of the pass. This year the weather was warm and comfortable with starting temps in the 50’s reaching maybe 70 by the finish. It is often not the case at this time of the year. Back in 02’ it snowed with so much snow at the top of the pass the race had to be shortened. (My race report on that edition included below). A few years later it rained with temps in the 30’s and 40’s- not fun but makes for epic tales of racing .

I race the Grand Master’s (55-64) category with an early start 9:07 with riders going off at 30 second intervals. The key to this race is to conserve especially at the beginning so as not to blow too early on the initial climbing and to save something for the real climbing at the end. I always race this course with my powertap. As a strong aerobic time trailer my goal was to be conservative with the wattage and to maintain a cadence of 90 rpms or better to the main climb. Invariably I will have riders blow by me in the early stages of the race only to come back to me on the flats or on the climb. I purposely started slow and only by 14 mins. in did I feel loose. This year in the early stages of the race I felt sluggish and slow and seemed that my power was even less than what I was targeting 200- 210 watts and seemed less that last year’s output at this time in the race. Once through the initial 10 miles of gradual climbing and on the flats I started to kick it up (22- 23 mph) and caught a number of riders who passed me earlier. This race presents a unique combination of time trialing and climbing. After the initial 15 miles of time trailing you see a sign indicating turns ahead, when you see that sign the climbing will start , you have to immediately flip a switch from TT mode to climbing mode in an instant as the climb begins immediately

(see elevation chart)

http://www.northeastcycling.com/Hillclimb_Races…

After 15 miles on the aero bars I could not wait for the climb if only to switch positions on the bike. If it is warm this is the time that any wind dies down and the sweat in your eyes begin on the climb. One does not often wish for a head wind on a climb! but this is the time. The climb is steady with some steeper ramps of more than 7% and this is when the payoff occurs if you saved yourself in the early going. I felt strong and relaxed holding steady cadence / tempo of 75+ rpm. 250 – 260 watts. I ran a 39 × 28. I wished I could manage a faster cadence. I continued to pass some riders and got passed by some others. After 10 years I am getting to know the course and on the upper levels I could look across the ravine and spied the overlook building at the parking lot of the top of the pass. That meant ¾ of a mile more of climbing and time to ramp up the pace. I clicked up a gear or two and began the final assault getting out of the saddle for the first and last time ion the race . The finish never comes soon enough but finished around 1:25 three minutes faster than last year and only two mins. off of my pr of 1:23 done in 03

My account of 02’s race in the snow:

Please excuse the length of this post as this gives me the opportunity to highlight my all-time cycling hero – Andy Hampsten an American pro cyclist who has a number of notable palmares such as winning the Alp d’Huez stage in the Tour. Andy is most famous as being the only American to win the Giro d ’Italia. Andy won the Giro in 1988 in one of the most famous stage victories of all time when he survived the day “when the strong men cried” – the Passo de Gavia stage in a raging snowstorm.

Andy’s exploits were never far from my mind during the day’s events on Saturday May 18th.

This year the weather forecast the week before did not look promising. For most of the week the forecast called for rain on the day of the race. I kept on trying to convince a friend of mine whose condo I was going to stay that the forecast would be wrong, and I hung on to any scrap of information to support my hope. One Boston TV station thought that the rainstorm would pass to the south of Boston sparing the north of any precipitation. My friend Peter was kind enough to let me stay at his condo regardless as to whether he would participate or not, and for that I am forever grateful as you will see. The day before I anxiously checked out the weather forecast from the Boston Stations on the web as well as from the Mt. Washington observatory. The forecasts stated intermittent rain showers; well intermittent is better than steady rain I thought! On the ride up on Friday I was dismayed when the sun continued to shine and the clouds did not roll in fast enough. The storm as it appears would arrive just in time for the race. Talking to Peter during the day he was still undecided as to whether he would stay and race but told me that if he decided to return to Boston, he would still allow me to use his condo. I arrived at his condo in Intervale to find Peter was no where to be found and had decided to return to Boston. I was on my own. Awakening at 6:00 Saturday morning the day of the race I was afraid to look out the window and while still in bed strained to hear for the sound of raindrops on the windowpanes. Getting up and looking out the window I found that the roads were dry! By the time I finished shaving the clouds had opened up. The temperature was now hovering around 40 degrees. Not a pleasant prospect! There was really no decision to make, I drove all the way up to North Conway, and I was not going to turn around just to drive back home. My thoughts and resolve at this time centered around Andy Hampsten facing the Passo de’ Gavia in the Giro, I reasoned all the participants were going to have to face the same conditions so suck it up!

I was only concerned really about two things, being able to warm up adequately without having to wait too long to start in the rain, and more importantly what the descent will be like after the race. As I said last year in dry and cool conditions the descent was uncomfortable when descending at 45-50 mph, to do such in these conditions was not something I wanted to think about. Just in case I prepared a bag with a ton of dry clothes to be delivered to the summit of the pass.

I drove to the high school and was not surprised to see the registration table manned and riders registering. By then the temperature was dropping and was now 38 degrees. I was lucky in that I was allowed to bring in my trainer to warm up inside the warm and dry high school. First issued resolved. I set up my trainer by a window to watch the weather. Now it was starting to snow. While warming up I was conversing with another rider warming up on his trainer and he offered me a ride back down. Second issue resolved. I was one lucky guy!!
Some time later we were told that the race organizers were going to have to shorten the course from 21 miles to 17 miles as the Kancamagus pass was covered in snow! The first rider was scheduled to be off at 9:00. My start was 9:17. There was supposed to be a pre-race meeting for all riders at 8:55, I decided to stay indoors as long as possible. You can ride from the high school to the start as it is about 3/4s of a mile, but we were lucky again as the race organizers allowed us to drive and park near the start as to be able to stay as dry and warm as possible. My clothes consisted of arm and leg warmers, a helmet cover, and shoe covers, not so much for warmth or protection.
Soon it was my time to be called up to the start, riders going off at 30-second intervals. I decided that I would be more comfortable spinning a high cadence in the little ring especially facing a headwind, incline and the worsening weather. I decided to try to keep generating as much warmth as possible and not to bog down in the big ring. This was a going to be a day of survival more than racing for time. It was all snow now, but the snow at the start was melting when it hit the road.

It was not long into the ride that my yellow tinted glasses fogged completely up and I was not able to see more than three feet in front of me, my hands despite my thin gloves were wet and frozen to the aero bars. I could not see the bike computer. I was now in my own world for the rest of the race. I was passing people and would only see them when they entered my three feet of vision. Not being able to see anything I would have to listen for the sounds of tires in he rain and now slush in the road. Luckily there were not many tourists out driving on the road today looking at the mountain vistas. Occasionally I would be startled from my own little world when someone would shout words of encouragement from a competitor’s support car. Three other riders may have passed me during the race, but it was hard to actually tell.
It was somewhat un-worldly not being able to see while time trialing. I had to guess what the incline was and what the gearing shifts should be. When I was running out of gear I would shift and when getting bogged down I would shift. I could not feel much, when attempting to shift I found that it was very hard to move my arms from the aero bars to the hoods. Snow had actually accumulated on my forearms! All that you could do was keep the legs moving to get the race over and to generate some heat. After some time as the road begun to rise steeply upward some figures appeared on the side of the road. The shortened finish was near. I was told to look for the blue tent in the side parking lot coming up, getting out of my saddle climbing the last few hundred yards was an experience, my arms and legs felt locked in place, my arms felt very strange on the hoods as I climbed, the sensation was like the width of my bars were much too wide for my arms! I managed to pass a couple of more people in those last few yards. I was able to locate the couple that offered me a ride down. Taking off my clothes I noticed that the leading edge of my helmet, clothes and bike were encrusted with snow! In a very short time I was shivering uncontrollably. We piled into the car with the heater full blast. It was difficult to talk due to the shivering. Driving back down we could see people still ascending,. Unfortunately hot showers were not available at the high school, so I drove back to Peter’s condo for a shower and to get warm. In this race I only managed fourth for the Masters. On the drive home there was snow still clinging to any high points on Rte 16. Radio forecasters called the storm a Nor’easter, and the storm set a record as the latest recorded snowfall in the region. Most of my teammates in the BRC were going to race the Sunapee road race that day. Later I found that the race was cancelled because of snow as well.
For those of you interested attached below is Andy Hampsten’s description of his ordeal at the Passo d’ Gavia,.

It can be found at:

http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=…