2011 Season in the Books     Bigger and Better BUMPS for 2012

You all know Alphonse Karr’s famous saying – plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. The more things change, the more they stay the same. And so it was in the 2011 BUMPS season – despite new scoring changes, nothing could change one, immutable certainty: Marti Shea would become the women’s series champion. Shea won all eight races she entered, shattering her own Ascutney record by more than a minute and a half along the way. The last time Marti Shea lost a hill climb was . . . . well who knows? Monks were probably still insisting that the Earth was flat, and the bicycle hadn’t been invented yet.

But while Shea’s star continues to shine above the rest of the competition, BUMPS for most riders remains of story of participation and personal accomplishment rather than victorious dominance. To wit: in 2011, 17 riders were honored as ironmen (and women), having competed in all nine races in the series. That was more than double the iron-person number for 2010.

When you have close to 1,000 riders entering at least one race, there are obviously many stories to tell. But at least two provide an encompassing picture of what BUMPS is all about. Jim and Sandy Dannis were not just ironman and ironwoman, they were an iron team, entering all nine races on a tandem, despite the fact that there is no official BUMPS category for tandems. And if the Dannises inspire an appreciation of the familial bonds of cycling, they might have to take a back seat (pun intended) to Pete Murphy and his brood of grandchildren. At 77, Pete was the oldest rider to enter a BUMPS race; grandkid Jake Harasyko, at 10 years old, was the youngest.

Of course there were a number of riders that were in it to win it, whether in the overall competition or in any of the seven age categories. While Shea might have been an unstoppable force in the women’s overall competition, topping second-place Liz Feeney by more than 100 points, the men’s overall battle was a horse race to the bitter end. Robert Douglas emerged as the winner, but five other riders were within 40 points of Douglas’s total. Douglas is the third overall winner in three years of BUMPS competition

He was also the winner of the highly competitive Men’s 40+ category, and Larry Reid took home top honors in the Men’s 50+ category, which, next to the 40+ group had, had the highest number of participants. (In fact, roughly two thirds of the participants were between the ages of 40 and 59.) Those older guys do like to go uphill. An honorable mention should also go to Gerry Clapper among the 50+ riders. Clapper entered only four 2011 BUMPS races – effectively eliminating him from being in the running for the age-group title – but he never finished worse than sixth overall. Some of those older guys can go uphill very fast.

So with the 2011 season now put into the past tense, it’s time to look forward to 2012. BUMPS organizers met at Okemo in November to wrap up business for 2011 and make plans for the season ahead. The big news: a new event will come into the fold, with the addition of a race up Wachusett Mountain in eastern Massachusetts in May (exact date TBD). Otherwise, the status quo will march forward into 2012, with the additional support of new, major sponsors.

Stay tuned for updates. And as always, your input is welcome and encouraged. Feel free to use the contact link on this web site to send in any comments, no matter how innocuous they might seem, or contact any of the individual event organizers. Winter might be settling in, but May and the beginning of the race season is not that far off.