2012 Bogus Basin Hill Climb

Quick Stats

Time:  1:14:44

Distance:  14.96 Miles

Climbing:  3,358’

Can I get a Do-Over?

The 40^th annual Bogus Basin Hill Climb took place on Sunday, Aug 18^th and I decided to experience this race first-hand and get a “benchmark” for climbing to the top non-stop.

I wish I could say that I had an incredible race and defied gravity like a tiny Columbian climber.  The truth is that I rode somewhat uninspired.  Racing while uninspired leads to uninspiring results.  I had a hard time mentally getting into the race but I rallied for a strong finish, and then botched the finale by attacking on the final corner…only it wasn’t really the final corner…it was two corners before the final corner.  Doh!

I think it is very ironic that I came home from the hill climb and saw this article titled “The Transcendent Pain” on Bicycling.com.  This would have been a good read over coffee BEFORE the race.

Tran-scend-ent

-          Beyond or above the range of normal or merely physical human experience: "a transcendent level of knowledge".

-          Surpassing the ordinary; exceptional.

Being a mass-start hill climb with 200+ people, it would have been a big advantage to line up near the front and try to stay with the stronger riders.  I had no idea that you need to get to the start line 15-20’ early to secure a good starting position for this race.  I finished my pre-race warm-up at 9:20am and the lineup was already 100 yards deep.  Lesson learned.

I thought that “pacing by power” would be the smart thing to do in this race but now I am not so sure.  I think that next year I will turn the power display off and just “race”. (Of course I will capture the power data so I can look at it later because I am a numbers geek)

At least I have a lot of room for improvement.