NEBC Women: Breaking Records at George Street
July 29, 2011 By Julianne
2011 George Street Challenge
Worcester, MA ~ July 24, 2011
Course
The George Street Challenge is in it’s 10th year. It’s held on the street where the 1899 World Champion, Major Taylor trained on right in downtown Worcester. The race is an uphill time trial on a narrow 500 foot long road with an average gradient of 18%. Each person starts with a holder at the bottom of the hill with no flat road to gather momentum on. The climb is extra difficult because the road kicks up to 24% just before flattening into the finish.
Results
Julianne Oberle, Women 18-34: 1st Place (new course record!) 31.97 seconds
Lisa Ludwig, Women 50+, 1st Place (new course record for 50+!) 39.43 seconds
Race Reports
Lisa Ludwig
Some friends I ride with wanted to do the George Street Challenge – a sprint up a very steep hill in Worcester, MA. I had heard about it. But given the near 20% grade, it didn’t exactly appeal to me! I decided to go on a ride one weekend with my friends into Worcester to give it a try anyway. I couldn’t even break 50 seconds on my first attempt. On my second attempt I just barely broke 50 seconds! I went home a bit discouraged until I looked up the winning time for my age group from 2010. I was only 2 seconds off! Hmmm… maybe with a little focus on hills I could knock some time off. So I ended up putting time into hill repeats which I never do!
The race environment at George Street was relaxed and fun. Great crowd cheering each of the riders on. I was actually looking forward to the climb! Julianne was there so we did some warming up and supported each other. Congrats to Julianne! She had an incredible day breaking her previous record. And not only did I have fun, but I was really happy with my time improvement over the practice runs. This event was so much fun. Will do it again!
Julianne Oberle
This was my second year doing the George Street Challenge. Last year I spun up it really fast on my old road bike and in the triple chain ring and surprisingly set a course record. This year I had a new bike with compact gearing and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to find the right (easy enough) gearing to pedal through the steeper top section. Also, despite living a half mile from George Street, I never go up the hill so I didn’t try this out until the day before. Eventually, I settled in on 34 x 25 gearing after going back and forth. I was thinking about going up in a harder gear and down shifting but last minute I decided that I wouldn’t shift at all. This worked out for me last year even though the start is less of an incline.
I was happy to see Lisa at the race. She and I were able to warm up and chat before. She raced before I did and she flew up the hill! It was awesome that she won and set a course record!
My turn… It took a second getting clipped in at the bottom of the hill, mostly because I was nervous. There were a TON of people watching! Off I went and my gears decided to change on their own into a harder gear. I was able to shift back without causing any problems or hesitation. I spun a pretty high cadence I assume. Once I got to the steepest part of the hill it hurt and everything started to go blurry. I almost rode into the sidewalk I think. I was happy to get to the finish line. I felt like I went slower this year, but Mark Bowen ran over and told me I finished in 31.97 seconds. That’s about 3 seconds faster than last year! And a new record! Yay! Maybe next year I’ll try to break 30 seconds. And maybe between now and then I’ll actually train on this hill… maybe. 
