I recently added some new (old) galleries to my photo site.

I shot a bunch of Ilford HP5+ film earlier this summer, and the results have found their way into the Rainy Weekend and Shannon & Rob Wedding galleries. HP5 is a sort of legendary but low-tech B&W film. Although I am happy with the composition of these pictures, I am very dissatisfied with the combination of HP5+ film and whatever developer Colortek was running on their B&W line (supposedly Kodak T-Max). The results are much grittier and grainier than I prefer. Usually I do my own developing, and I always use either Ilford DD-X or Kodak Xtol.

I think this fall I will try something different: maybe shooting more color, or more chromogenic B&W film.

Can you believe it’s almost September?

Race day was Saturday August 21.

Weather: 70 and sunny at the bottom; 46, clear, and uncharacteristically calm at the peak. There was a nice 5 MPH breeze above treeline. Visibility: 75 miles.

Total climb: 4,727 feet over 7.6 miles
Average grade: 12%

Race result: 1:23:46
Finishing: 182/526

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

I am pleased to announce the “soft launch” of my new photo gallery site: http://photos.scottosphere.org/.

Some exciting work is underway behind the scenes and I will be announcing the addition of more galleries as they become available. There are many improvements over my old, homebrew system: more speed, a better interface, and higher resolution top the list. Many of my old photo galleries (2002–2009) will be re-appearing under this new site, enhanced with searchable captions and keywords and, in many cases, improved quality.

Thanks for your earlier suggestions on how to do this. As always, I welcome your feedback.

July 18 was my one opportunity to attempt Mt. Washington by bicycle before race day. I had a couple of goals in mind: finding a reasonable pace and testing my hill-climb setup.

It’s worth pointing out that the ride is much too steep and long for conventional road bike gearing to make sense—an efficient cadence would not be possible. It seems like everyone has an opinion about what makes a perfect setup. Some people run with a road triple crankset up front, or maybe a compact crank. Some people install a mountain cassette on the rear wheel, which usually requires a long-cage mountain derailleur to go with it. Since I have only one road bike, and re-tuning derailleurs is not my idea of a great time, I came up with a different configuration: a mountain crankset, holding only a 22T chainring on the front, and a conventional 12–25T road cassette (and standard derailleur) on the back. With this setup, I can achieve better than a 1:1 gear ratio. And the only parts I have to swap out are the cranks, bottom bracket, and chain! (Shame on Shimano for making road and mountain bottom brackets very slightly different.) One unfortunate consequence of having the bike configured for hill-climbing is that my top speed on level ground becomes about 8 MPH, which can be embarassing if you’re actually trying to get somewhere.

We stayed at a friend’s cabin in Tamworth, then drove up at the crack of dawn. There aren’t many opportunities to catch me awake and alert at 5:30 AM, but this was one, as the road would close to bikes after 7:00. Bad news greeted us upon our arrival, though: in spite of the stunning sunrise and picture-perfect weather on the ground, the course was closed due to high winds. Above treeline there was a steady 55 MPH breeze gusting to 70. Apparently they will run the race in winds up to 45 MPH, but beyond that apparently people have difficulty staying upright. After much moaning and groaning and re-checking of wind speeds, it was determined that we would be allowed to ride only the first two miles of the auto road. So up we went. It was the hardest two miles I’ve ever biked! At least there was a bonus: we were permitted the unusual opportunity to ride our bikes back down. Wheeee!

After all the bikes had cleared the course, the auto road opened to cars. We paid the toll and drove to the top so I could study the route. Check out the day’s pictures here. As you can see, the weather above treeline is just as intimidating as the slope of the road!

One of my “resolutions” for 2010 was to join a cycling team and start racing. I have fallen a little short on that task: although I trained all winter and even took a bike racing class, my summer schedule filled up so quickly that joining a team started to seem like a waste of money. But months ago, when snow was still falling and everything seemed possible, I seized upon a moment of mid-winter hubris and signed myself up for one epic race: The Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb.

For some background, let’s turn to a description of the course from a September 2004 article in Outside magazine:

The Rockpile, as Mount Washington is unromantically nicknamed, towers 6,288 feet above sea level. We’ll be climbing the uppermost 4,727 feet, over a mere 7.6 miles. (For perspective, one of the toughest races in the Rockies, the Mount Evans hill climb, near Denver, rises 7,000 feet over 28 miles.) With an average grade of 12 percent and sustained stretches of 18 percent (highway grades rarely exceed 7 percent), Mount Washington is steeper than L’Alpe d’Huez or any other climb in the Tour de France, Spain’s Vuelta, or the Giro d’Italia. Mile for mile, it is arguably the toughest one-day bike race on the planet.

There are a whopping 72 turns on the Auto Road course, and the longest straightaway is only a few hundred yards—on dirt. Most hill climbs ease off at the top, allowing riders to drop into a more muscular gear and enjoy a burst of acceleration. Not on Washington. In the final 100 yards—a section alternately called the Corkscrew, the Ladder, and the Wall—the grade steepens to a horrifying 22 percent.

So there it is. Why did I sign myself up for this again? It’s true that I enjoy riding on hills. And I do score reasonably well on that golden metric of hillclimbers, watts per kilogram of body weight. But this is starting to sound a little intimidating. There’s no coasting: if you stop pedaling on this hill, you’ll fall off the bike. And at a “race pace” of 5–6 MPH, drafting isn’t much use either. Will I even be able to eat or drink? Will my custom hillclimb gearing provide the right ratios for efficient riding?

The Mt. Washington Auto Road is not normally open to bicycles, but to help answer some of these questions, the organizers allow for one unsupported practice ride a month before the race. And with the actual race coming up on August 21, that practice ride is happening this Sunday. More to come!