Bicycle hill climb race et for Wawawai grade

Six and a half miles of naked incline await the brave souls who enter the Wawawai Grade Hill Climb March 7.

Two dozen or more cyclists will start at the bottom of the grade at 12:30 a.m. and race all the way to top of the grade.

“It’s such a hard incline- there’s no switchback at all. It’s pretty steep all the way up,” said Ted Chauvin, organizer of two bike races at Wawawai March 7; Wawawai Landing Time Trial and Wawawai Grade Hill Climb.

Chauvin is a member of KRYKI sports, a bicycling club out of Seattle which is sponsoring the race. The races will be run according to USA Cycling guidelines.

Participants pay $20 for an individual race and $35 for both races. They must also pay a day-license of $10 and can register on the day of the race.

“I hope to turn it into more of a permanent annual thing,” said Chauvin.

He plans to advertise the races on a state cycling Web sites and invite cycling groups from WSU and the UI.

The second race, slated to start at 11 a.m., will be a round-trip of 12.4 miles along the river road.

[They’ll] go out 10 kilometers and then turn around and come back…It’s pretty simple,” Chauvin said.

Chauvin said he worked to get permission permits from Whitman County Parks and the Army Corps of Engineers,

Chauvin is a research assistant professor at the WSU branch in Spokane. He went to school in Pullman for his bachelors and masters degrees and cycled for WSU while he was a student here.

He had a hand in the creation of the bike race that accompanies the annual National Lentil Festival in Pullman.

“This isn’t my first encounter into promoting bicycle events,” he said.

To register, e-mail Chauvin at [email protected].