My friend Brett Rothmeyer lives in Pittsburgh and was gracious enough to send over some photos of his time during this year’s Dirty Dozen race. If you’re not sure how brutal this race is, watch this and this.
The Dirty Dozen has been called a lot of things, dumb, crazy, brutal, insane, fun and they are all true. When Danny Chew brother Tom and their friend Bob Gottlieb set out to find and climb the 13 steepest hills in and around Pittsburgh, PA in 1983 they surely had know idea that in 25 years time it would grow to include 300 plus cyclist flooding the streets. Every year on the Saturday after Thanksgiving cyclist converge to test them selves on the most breakneck pitches the Steel City has to offer, which includes the notorious Canton Ave, known as the steepest hill in the world at a 37% gradient. As the event grows so does the crowd on Canton Ave. turning the hill into a wild cycling party that resembles the tops of grand tour mountain stages. Here’s to a long and wild future of the Dirty Dozen, do your legs a favor and come out and celebrate next year.
