| Re: Potential good news for Mt. Washington access.
Booker C. Bense wrote:
> _ Actually, it's not THAT steep, except for a few hundred yards
> at the very top. It's just incredibly sustained, 12% for 7+ miles[1]
> most of which is hard packed dirt. If you plot dist vs elevation
> you get a nearly straight line. I've both ridden up and run up it
> and in my experience riding up it is harder.
>
> _ It's not allowed to ride down it and it's only allowed to ride up
> it twice a year as part of an anuual race that has a lottery for
> entries and a very high entry fee. Descending it on skinny tires
> would be very unpleasant, it would be a blast with fat tires if
> you didn't have to worry about cars wandering all over the road
> with driver's watching the scenery. I think you'd have a hard
> time fighting "rational basis" ban on cyclists.
Mountain bikers ride fire roads like that all the time. The mountains of the
western US are riddled with them -- 4000' climbs at over 10%, sometimes over
15%. Rims get hot, but not enough to blow tires. So I don't see what the big
deal is. There are a bunch of roads around here with sustained grades like
that, but nothing that long -- 2-3 miles at most.
However, when you have such a road that's a magnet for cyclists, you have a
management problem. As mentioned, that particular road is privately owned, so
there may be liability concerns too. I say people ought to be free to crash if
they want to, but unfortunately US law and insurance doesn't work that way.
Matt O.
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