Mount Washington climb a challenge to bikers

This unrelenting ribbon of pain, reached up…up and into and above the clouds, leading each of us to the summit of Mount Washington. This true Beast of The East, an alternately paved and hard-packed dirt and gravel undulating sinew of dragonian earth, is always pitched up, never allowing us to catch our breath; disturbingly eroding our aerobic reserve until we are each experiencing a major indebtedness.

The 1990 Mount Washington Hill Climb, on Sept. 6, was our third consecutive brush with dementia. Peter MackIntosh, a soon-to-be-wed 30-ish Bangor man, has led our way to the top each year. Known as the “Wet Man” because of his incredible ability to create moisture when he bikes, his youth and cross- training serve him well in contesting the average 12 percent grade.

Jim “Buster” Hill, a mid-30s Fort Fairfield export, both resembling and labeled the “Short, Fat Man,” because of his penchant for homemade and exported beer and his belly’s startling accommodation for same, has followed Peter.

“Buster”, a pure biker, eschewing even the horseless carriage, rides a weekly century (100 miles) all summer long, and rarely allows a day to pass all year without settling into the saddle of one of his five bikes.

Sooner or later, usually later, I make it to the summit. As the “Old Man” at 47, my preparation for this annual agony involves a series of short, long and hilly rides, coupled with year-round group aerobic exercise, this aimed at achieving two goals: Arriving at the “top” before the sweep of race officials picks up the lagging riders still on the mountain at the two-and-one-half hour mark; and secondly, prevention on the way up of the “Big One” — an ignominious fate not unthought of by most riders of my bulk and cardiopulmonary insufficiency.

As we waited at the starting line with three hundred to four hundred other racers, the butterflies of fear just a fluttering, we could look to the summit and see sparkles of light as transport vehicles, our ride vehicles back down the mountian, inched along, resembling far away satellites against the barren space of the mountain. The clouds were enshrouding neighboring peaks, their imperceptible drift portending an uncertain summit condition.

Two years ago, we were drenched in rain fired by gale-force winds, barely able to see even the ground through the pea-soup fog. Today, at 6 a.m. the summit was said to be ice-covered and having a wind chill temperature of -13 degrees.

How to dress is a perennial debate — as is which tires to mount, and gearing to place. Will it snow, rain, sleet? How windy will it be? Now it was 9:30 a.m. and the bottom temperature was 45 degrees, but the wind was swirling. I knew I would get warmer for a while as my body rebelled against the opposing gravity of Mount Washington. But how warm? How chilled, as the temperature dropped as we climbed, sometimes dramatically, as wind blasted us on switchbacks?

Then we were off…the race was on…for some. For me, a survival experience, a test of the climbing muscles pitted against The Mountain. My engine, my heart, would hopefully pump in support.

This year I made it to about Mile Five of the eight-mile trek before I had to place a foot on the ground, to rest a bit and calm the coronary clatter heard in my ears. At the end, a seemingly vertical finishing climb up a 20 percent grade led me mercifully to the finishing line.

The Wet Man was snapping pictures. The Short, Fat Man was looking for souvenirs, wishing no doubt for a cold one. And the Old Man was finished — his personal flagellation for another year mercifully relieved as he looked down on the clouds and felt the sun and wind at once.

We had improved our times, the beast was but another road again, Peter was dry, Buster was but a downhill away from his next beer, and I was quickly nearing my resting heart rate and feeling older yet.

Chuck Tingley is a resident of Bangor.