Less than a week ago, I had not even heard of “Ski, Shoe & Fatbike to the Clouds”, North America’s toughest 10k. In fact, I didn’t sign up for the race until last Thursday, after harassing all of my cycling buddies for someone to join me on this adventure. The race includes approximately 6k of the Mount Washington Auto Road, which is pretty special as the road is only open to cyclists 2 other times during the year, and this is the only event where they let you descend the auto road on a bike. This immediately piqued my interest, and after a sanity check that the stock gearing on my 35+ lb fat bike would be sufficient to get me up this rockpile, I pulled the trigger and registered. It seemed like the perfect balance of challenging & slightly dangerous.
The race started out with a rolling 4 kilometers through the Great Glen trail system, before heading up the relentless avg 12 % grade of the Mount Washington auto road for an additional 2200 ft elevation gain over 6 kilometers. I was mentally prepared for the grueling climb. However, I could not have fathomed how difficult soft snow patches would make this race. It became equal parts concentration, power and finesse to stay lined up in the ruts and tracks. A quick glance at the scenery or loss of focus for just a second was all it took to lose traction and end up off the bike. Remounting on such a slope and regaining traction with tired legs was trying, but I feel my CX skills saved me today for sure.
The race ended above treeline at ~4000 ft, with temperatures around 10 degrees, which felt like -10 F with the windchill. It was a game of finding my drop bag, stripping off sweaty layers & bundling up as quickly as possible in order to tackle the 6 kilometer descent before my core temp dropped too much. I switched out to a full fleece balaclava, down jacket & gore tex wind block jacket for the descent & headed down the mountain. I did not think to bring another pair of gloves for the descent, since I rode up in my warmest snowboarding gloves. Big mistake – I felt the sweat start to ice up during the descent. leaving my poor fingers in a world of hurt. I took turns curling up my fingers on one hand into a fist inside each glove while the other hand feathered the brakes. I stopped briefly to try to find hand warmers in my pack, but gave up and decided my best bet was to get down from elevation as quickly as possible. Luckily, I was able to ride right to my car, start the engine & get myself warmed up and into dry clothes very quickly.
I set out today to challenge myself vs. the mountain, but ended up taking 1st place women’s fatbike. My thought at the end of the day was “how awesome is it that I have the fitness to do an event like this on a whim?” A day like this makes all the mornings on the trainer during the long cold winter all worth it.
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– Jen Murphy
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