Cypress Challenge – The BMW of North Shore Hill Climbs

This is definitely the more glamourous of the two major North Shore hill climbs. 2011 featured a BMW pace car, lots of corporate sponsorship, good schwag, photographers, and almost 400 riders of all different ages and abilities. This isn’t just because the climb is a little less gruelling than Seymour, it’s also because it is exceptionally well organized and promoted. For example, right now, open up a new tab and google the tem “Cypress Challenge”… Guaranteed you’ll find the actual event page. Now try this for The Seymour Challenge… see what I mean?

This event is put on by Glotman Simpson Cycling and is a pure fundraiser for pancreatic cancer. In 2011, the event was in memory of Jack Poole and brought in over $125,000 in donations for great cause.  The event also got media coverage, had a professional video made up, and had amazing sponsor presence.

Once you get past the glitz and seamless event organization, the climb itself is no easy task.

The event features a mass start from Cypress Bowl Lane, so you’ll have to gage where you think you should start from. (The 2011 winner, Andrew Pinfold, finished in 34:15 as a point of reference). There is a neutral rollout until the beginning of the first switchback. From here, it’s a crapshoot for the first little while. Like Seymour, people will get a little overexcited on the first switchback and blow up before they even get to the good scenery at the second switchback. My recommendation, like Seymour, is to not throw yourself into the hurt locker in the first 2 minutes of the event.

Also keep in mind that there are a tonne of other people on the mountain doing the event so there’s lots of opportunity to get into a bit of a group or use riders in the distance as motivation to get a little more power out of your legs.

Overall this event is pretty laid back and is much less intense than Seymour because it has a good charity event feel to it, whereas Seymour feels much more like a full-blown, mountainside time trial. There is one little catch though… the finish. The finish for the event is at the cross country area, not the downhill area or the powerlines. This means that once you summit (and maybe think it’s all over), you have to take a hard right onto a bumpy, gravelly, pothole-infested puncher before finishing 100 metres up the road. A lot of people don’t know about this so they stop, or get into a ridiculously high gear and can’t make it up the hill to the finish line.

Other than that, enjoy the scenery, try to raise some cash for the cause, and make sure you’ve got an appetite worked up for the apres. This year there was an incredible selection of good food and drinks from the sponsors. But like Seymour, you have to go back down the mountain to claim your calories.