Where are my New England hill climbers who do the Bike Up the Mountains Points Series? Creating a thread for all things BUMPs. You know our mountains. You love them. You curse them. Most of all you climb them: Kancamagus, Whiteface, Ascutney, Washington, Kearsarge, Greylock, Prospect, Applachian Gap.
Let’s talk about the 2023 season now wrapping up and look forward to 2024. If you’re a BUMPs racer, please introduce yourself!
i’m not currently but I’ve been thinking about it. I like mass start racing fine, but I don’t do it a ton, and I like anything that just challenges me to be a slightly better version of myself, so these would be up my alley (as would time trialing but aside from CBTT and maybe a couple others, they’re kind of out of style). For Mt. Washington, I’ve sort of established a personal benchmark that if I could average 300w for an hour I’d consider doing it. While I haven’t done that yet, my ftp is 305 and I’ve done 297 for nearly 50mins indoors on a really hot/humid day, so I’m confident that I could do the hour at my benchmark. I think my style of riding is definitely conducive to mountain stuff, as long as I can find a way to fit the drives in with other family stuff
@hubcyclist - I race BUMPs for the reasons you outlined. Some are mass start and some are TT style. Either way, hillclimb racing is less about tactics and more about power, weight and who is willing to hurt the most. I’ve found there are maybe half a dozen riders that I compete with and depending on who has good legs on which day, there’s still variability in who climbs the best.
You’re racing the other riders but the most gratifying results are always in the race against yourself. The high-effort/low-speed nature of it also feels less chaotic and stressful than the Cat 4/5 peloton in a road race.
If you have never done it, Mount Washington is something you should do, even if you don’t do the series. Great atmosphere. Spendy to enter but worth it for the sense of achievement.
2024 BUMPs Series Calendar so far:
May 4 - High Point Hillclimb, Wantage, NJ
May 18 - Crank the Kanc, North Conway, NH
June 1 - Whiteface, Wilmington, NY
Aug 3 - Mt. Ascutney, Ascutney, VT (planned)
Aug. 11 - Mt. Kearsarge, Warner, NH (planned)
Aug. 17 - Mt. Washington, Gorham, NH
Sept. 7 - Greylock, North Adams, MA (planned)
Sept. 14 - Prospect Mt., Lake George, NY (tentative)
Oct. 6 - Allen Clark, Waitsfield, VT (planned)
Top 4 race scores count in the points total for this year’s standings.