Mt. Greylock Century - July 10, 2010

For those of you looking for a vertical challenge, I think we found one. The Mount Greylock Century in the Berkshire Mountains has been a tradition since the 1970s and an event I have wanted to do since former TCC President Joe Groeger first mentioned it to me about 5 years ago. The route features over 9800 vertical feet of climbing, including a trip up (and down) Massachusetts' highest point, Mt. Greylock at an elevation of 3490 feet. Once you're done with Mt. Greylock, which is a Category 1 climb on the European scale, you're still faced with two Category 2's, a Category 3, and a Category 4. If you're looking to average 20 mph, this is not the route for you.

Photo by Dave Jacobowski: Expo Teammate scaling the Mt. Greylock switchbacks

This year's Greylock adventure included four TCC'ers - Skip Kuzel, Agatha Pohorylo, Dave Jacobowski, and myself. Showers had been predicted, which was enough to dissuade about half the normal riders to forego the experience, including the incomparably wimpy Mr. Jeffrey Buske, who was subsequently harangued mercilessly on Facebook. The skies grew grayer as we headed west on the Mass Pike toward Lee, and by the time we got to the starting point north of Pittsfield a steady rain was falling, a meteorological condition that would accompany us for about the first 70 miles of the ride.

We hooked up with Dave's Expo Wheelman group from central Connecticut for the first few miles of the ride, pedaling easily on a flat bike trail for the first 5 miles or so. Mount Greylock comes at about the 10-mile mark and climbs about 2300 vertical feet over 10 miles. While it is not a particularly steep climb, it is relentless, and I was happy to have a triple chainring. About halfway up the hill Mr. Jacobowski decided to show his stuff and headed in front of the group on a solo slow-motion breakaway, fighting the rain and a steady torrent of water flowing down the road in the opposite direction. I caught him about a mile from the top and he graciously awarded me the yellow jersey at the top, which in fact I was already wearing in the form of a yellow tyvek raincoat.

After composing ourselves with some chocolate chip cookies at the summit, we headed down the north side of the mountain, which drops much more steeply for about 2500 vertical feet. Because of the wet road conditions, we had to hang onto our brakes the entire way down with speeds on the straightaways of no more than 20 mph and no more than 10 mph on the switchbacks. We all decided this is a climb/descent that would be better done on dry roads. By the bottom of the hill, all of us were shivering, with Skip the worst for wear since his sense of machismo at the start required that he leave his raincoat in the car. We attempted to remedy our chills with a stop at the Family Dollar store in North Adams, where Skip and Agatha bought "rain ponchos" for one dollar apiece. They were essentially garbage bags with a neck hole and hood, but they did the job.

From North Adams we headed into the second climb of the day, a 5-mile 1000-footer up Route 2 to Whitcomb Summit. On the long descent off of the high point, we saw a sign announcing that the Hoosic Railroad Tunnel passed under the road at a depth of 1040 feet. We proceeded to drop all of that height, ending up at the low point of the ride at the 50-mile mark. As soon as we finished going down we turned onto East Hawley Road, which climbs back over 1000 vertical feet over a 5-mile distance. We all agreed that this climb was tougher than Greylock itself due to its steeper grades and the fact that we'd already done two major climbs. We got passed by two young whipper-snappers on the way up the hill and I gave chase for a couple of miles. Just when I thought they would succumb to my relentless pace, they cruised by me talking to each other and buried me in their wake. In a nod to their climbing prowess and youthful exuberance, I relinquished the yellow jersey for the balance of the day.

The event organizers had a nice lunch spread at the top of East Hawley Road and we re-energized ourselves with peanut butter and jelly bagels and pasta salad. After lunch the demeanor of the ride changed somewhat, with no more enormous climbs but lots (and lots) of smaller equally steep climbs. Judging from the vertical profile on the website, there were six or seven additional climbs of 200 feet or more, which led us to coin the slogan of the day, uttered by one of us somewhere on each twisty uphill "But wait, there's more!".

The rain let up late in the ride, which made for decidedly more pleasant riding conditions. At about 90 miles we turned west on Route 9, and started down a hill that continued all the way back to the finish, a very pleasant (and relaxing) way to complete a ride that provided an arduous test for all of us. I'm thinking we'll do this ride again next year, but without the rain.