August 21, 2008 - Mt Washington Win

10 years after former team rider Robbie Dapice won this prestigious race, Phil Gaimon took the 2008 edition of the Mt Washington Hillclimb. You can read the complete article on cyclingnews.com

Gaimon Wins Mt Washington Hillclimb, August 16th

Last weekend, I had the good fortune of contesting the Mt. Washington Auto Road Hillclimb in New Hampshire. The legendary race climbs 6000 feet from sunny New Hampshire to “the worst weather in the world” at the peak, where the highest wind speeds ever have been clocked at 260 mph. A direct tailwind at that speed might have been fun, but I suppose we were pretty fortunate to enjoy mostly mild conditions (it hailed).

Reaping the benefits of experience, I showed up with some proper granny gears. Still, it’s a hillclimb, so there’s not much to report: I went hard from the gun, and held it the whole way up. One rider stayed a few feet behind me for 10 minutes or so, but he eventually cracked, and I finished almost two minutes ahead of 2nd place. More importantly, I improved 1:20 on my time from July, only 5 minutes short of Tom Danielson’s all-time record (which is now on my long-term to-do list).

With most of the big climbers out in Utah, the result isn’t that amazing, but it was still a great race to win, especially looking over the names of previous winners, like Tom Danielson and Tyler Hamilton. It was also a good opportunity to score some mainstream exposure for the team, as I was interviewed by tons of reporters, from Velonews to the local papers.