Pikes Peak Hill Climb

[Ben]

Like so many great things in life, this is awesome and terrifying at the same time.



I love that the PPHC exists. Along with the Isle of Man TT and a handful of other races/events, if it were first proposed today the organizers would get laughed out of town. Too dangerous, too irresponsible, too uncontrollable, too environmentally unfriendly, just too much. Thank God we had a sense of humor way back when.

[christian]

Alas, I have to disagree. I co-drove Lauchlin O'Sullivan in PPIHC in 2003 and Travis Pastrana up the hill in 2005. I think it's profoundly boring. The road is extremely wide, totally well-graded, and quite predictable; pretty much every national rally in the US is fundamentally more frightening and dangerous. In a tube-framed, 1500hp monster, it might be fun, but in a 400 hp rally car, it's a snore-fest. I think Dakar, the IoM TT, Rally Finland, and the 24 Hours of Nurburgring live up to the hype. PPIHC just doesn't.

[Blue Jays]

It is better/faster driving than I could muster!

[Nierman]

Interesting perspective, christian. You've certainly graduated to a level of thrill* like many VSers graduate to owning and appreciating a custom ride. Whereas a novice/beginner rider might not be able to notice or appreciate the differences between a $1200 Trek and any rig built by the fine folks here. They're just out on a bike and enjoying the newness. And GoPro's wide angleness likely adds to the thrill in this video - I liked it. I just don't see how you keep from tagging spectators!

*thrill and skill, I should say

[Ben]

Alas, I have to disagree. I co-drove Lauchlin O'Sullivan in PPIHC in 2003 and Travis Pastrana up the hill in 2005. I think it's profoundly boring. The road is extremely wide, totally well-graded, and quite predictable; pretty much every national rally in the US is fundamentally more frightening and dangerous. In a tube-framed, 1500hp monster, it might be fun, but in a 400 hp rally car, it's a snore-fest. I think Dakar, the IoM TT, Rally Finland, and the 24 Hours of Nurburgring live up to the hype. PPIHC just doesn't.

To me, this is like arguing that, because it's not the Alpe d'Huez, the Galibier is weak sauce.

Also, here is another counterpoint:

[christian]

Fair enough. Perhaps I'm just jaded because the organizers at PPIHC always hype it so much. It's like every sentence uttered at the drivers' meeting starts with, "This is the most extreme race in the world..." like "This is the most extreme race in the world, now let's hear from the mayor, the fire chief, the caterer, the guy who's in charge of ham radio communications."

I can't see the videos thanks to a corporate firewall, but I hope the second one is Vatanen in the Peugeot ("Climb Dance"). That's a good video, and it's pretty baller when he drives with one hand while shielding his eyes from the sun with the other.

One funny story though - in 06 we were recce'ing (writing pacenotes) on the hill in a rental car. So we were driving up and down all day long basically. On the down hill side, at Glen Cove, they have a park ranger in a little hut. As you pass, he comes out and takes your brake temperature reading with an infrared thermometer. Lots of dopes ride their brakes the whole way down, so the idea is they stop them half way down, make them park if their brakes are too hot etc. After a few hours of up and down, we were pretty bored, so Travis and another driver decided to drive and and down without touching the brakes, just using engine braking. We had a bet going to see who could get the lowest temperature reading on the rotors. We won with 72d F (ambient air temp, too). But a couple of the downhill hairpins were pretty freakin' dodgy. There's a big difference between a rally-prepped Subaru WRX STI going uphill and a Chevy Malibu Maxx rental going downhill.

[christian]

BTW, don't take that last comment as a slam on municipal employees or ham radio operators. I is one of the latter.

K1BCE

[Flying Pigeon]

There's a bike ride up it now. 24.5mi / 7700' gain with +20% grades @ 14k'.

They do it by renting the road for day. The event is quite a privilege because bikes haven't been allowed up it in years.

I rode the inaugural one last year and got the experience i was looking for and then some. A whole dimension beyond Mt. Evans seems to be the consensus. Not that it'll change much but they're gradually paving the last remaining couple miles of dirt (which was decent hardpack suitable for road tires).

Before the ride I watched some of these youtubes of rally cars to scout out the course -- and it didn't look anything like that slowed down to 3 hours.

[Sean in CA]

Vatanen in action. Turn the volume up!

[Flying Pigeon]

Wow.. effen' hell. Less pavement = a lot better footage!

Watching those crazy assholes make their 10 minute suicide attempts, it looks like they get the same effect I had there on me push-bike. The view in those upper switchbacks is of blue sky just beyond the edge of the road. No earth is visible at all.. with no guardrail to interrupt the view straight out to the horizon.

Pretty freaky on the way up, and sickening as hell on the way down.

[Blue Jays]

Vatanen in action. Turn the volume up!

Too bad about that silly music getting in the way of the engine sounds.