Tim Johnson has become the first cyclist to climb Mount Washington, the tallest peak in Northeast US, during the winter. On February 2, the Redbull sponsored rider climbed the 4,685 feet to the summit on a fat bike in temperatures as low as -28 Celsius with gusting winds.
Mount Washington Auto Road is one of the most notorious ascents in US bike racing, used annually for the Mount Washington Bicycle Hill Climb in New Hampshire since 1973, and as an auto race course since 1904.
The climb is 12.2 kilometres and its infamously brutal slopes average a 12 per cent grade, with a maximum of 22 per cent. Tom Danielson holds the record for the mid-August event with a time of 49:24 set in 2002. Other former winners include Tyler Hamilton and Phil Gaimon.
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Johnson is also a two-time winner in 2000 and 2001, when his fastest time was 53:31. With special permission from Mount Washington officials to ride up Auto Road this winter on a fat bike, Johnson completed the 4,685 feet of climbing in 1:45:48 in wind speeds reaching 49 mph.
“I feel like I was fighting being too hot in the beginning because the first pitch out of the parking lot is one of the steepest pitches of the entire climb. You go from standing still to immediately realizing that this is one of the hardest climbs in North America,” Johnson said in a report on the Red Bull website.
“By the time I got up to the Hair Pin turn (6.5 miles, 5,700 feet), it was really windy, I had no traction and it was really tough to find anyway to keep moving forward. I couldn’t even stay upright.”
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