2021 Dirty Dozen Information and Results
• Competition results
• Danny Chew's summary of the 2021 event
• Photos
• List of riders for 2021
• Sponsors
• Finish line videos
• Dirty Dozen jerseys

Point totals and placings:

Open Competition

Women's Competition

†Not an Official Finisher
If two riders have the same point total at the end then the tie breaker is who has more wins, 2nds, 3rds, 4ths, & 5ths, etc. if needed.

2021 Summary and acknowledgements

The 38th Dirty Dozen (DD) was held on Saturday, October 23rd. With the event cancelled in 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, riders were happy to be back despite the light rain and temperatures in the 40s° F at the start. By noon the rain had stopped, and before the event was over the temperature had reached a high of 53°. At 9 am, just under 300 riders started in seven groups separated by about five minutes each. Because our usual lunch stop shelter in Millvale’s Riverfront Park had been rented out, we instead used a parking lot in Millvale owned by Brian Wolovich. Rialto Street—aka Pig Hill—was not used this year because of its complicated traffic situation. In its place, Berryhill Road returned to the lineup. Thanks to the earlier DD date there’s no longer the threat of the winter closure.

Both the open competition and the women's event had new winners! In the open competition, newly crowned ACA criterium champion 22-year-old Dan Uhranowsky led through the entire event, winning seven hills and scoring 118 points! His time margin over second place on Canton was the biggest I have ever seen in all DDs! He became the third person to win the prestigious double crown—ACA club championship and a DD victory in the same year. I (Danny Chew) did it in 1984 and 1985, and Stephen “Steevo” Cummings did it in 2010. Dan Uhranowsky had placed third overall as a DD rookie in 2019. The second place finisher from 2019 was second again this year—Alec Ratzell with 112 points. Four-time DD winner Ian Baun was third overall with 99 points. Ian suffered a tire puncture on Sycamore Street, but still managed to take fourth place on the climb and fix the flat tire in time to compete on the next hill, where he took second place. Rookie Ian Harris was fourth overall with 41 points. On his tenth DD, Larry Weber won Boustead Street and finished in fifth place overall. The fourth place finisher from 2019, Connor Brem, was sixth overall this year. He had cleat trouble on both Canton and Boustead, which cost him opportunities to score. But he still made it up both hills. His father went to West Liberty Cycles to buy new cleats, and gave them to Connor atop Welsh Way, where he had still managed to take fifth place.

Chris Helbling has helped me run the DD for many years now (a big thanks!). He rides in the lead open competition group, blows the whistle to start the hills, and usually scores points. This year, after taking fifth place on High Street, his heart went into atrial fibrillation. I saw him at the lunch stop after this. At the bottom of Suffolk, he turned around and rode home slowly. His wife Kathleen took him to Urgent Care at Shadyside UPMC, and he was transferred to West Penn Hospital. He is OK, but missed the awards ceremony at East End Brewery.

Sixty-three-year-old John Brockenbrough kept his record as the oldest DD points scorer, scoring eight points this year. Sixty-two-year-old David Hearn took a very impressive third place on Center Avenue. The eight points he earned there along with a tiebreaker let him narrowly beat Brockenbrough in the overall competition. Matt Waller told me he doesn't like the super steep hills, but does very well on the longer ones. He scored 47 points this year, winning Suffolk and Tesla, but he failed to make Canton on his single try. Similarly, as a DD rookie in 2019 he scored 37 points, but failed to make Canton after at least five tries. Canton can become a huge mental block, but I told him this all goes away once you finally make/conquer it. There were only 35 riders in the lead, open competition group, and 20 scored points.

Sixteen of the 20 women in the women's competition scored points. With four-time winner Stefanie Sydlik absent—because she was in a rowing race with her husband Aidan in Boston—and with 2018 winner Shaena Ulissi having just had a baby, the competition was wide open for a new winner. Using a low gear of 40 x 42, rookie Hayley Wickstrom dominated. She tied the record for the all-time DD high score, getting only one point less than a perfect score, 129 points! This matches my score in 1988, Betsy Shogren’s in 2009, and also Sydlik’s in 2015. Wickstrom and her husband Samson McHugh have a bike shop in Swissvale: https://waxwingcycles.com

Second place went to Minori Minagawa of Dublin, OH with 109 points. In third place was Alison Merner of Buffalo, NY with 96 points. In fourth place was Ulissi with 82 points. Seventh place rider Jen Damon rode right into the sidewalk and tipped over on the kicker before the cobbles on Suffolk. After doing the last hill, she went back to Suffolk and rode the entire hill in order to be an official finisher! In 2016, third place rider Colleen Grygier—spouse of Glenn Pawlak of Big Bang Bikes—did the same thing on the same hill. Rookie triathlete Jennifer Reschke had scored 25 points before Canton, where a crash took out about half the women's pack. She went over backwards, and her bike was unridable. I heard that one woman finally made Canton on her 10th try! Who was this? At the lunch stop in Millvale, rider Erin Yanacek played her trumpet as all the women sang happy birthday to a fellow rider. Who was she? Nine women chose not to compete and rode in the other groups.

By the top of the last hill, the time gap between the first and last groups had stretched to over two hours. The finishing times:

Open        2:50 pm
Licensed    2:55
Club        3:50
Women       4:05
Fan Club    4:30
Enthusiast  4:55
Party Bus   5:08

Thanks to the crew who worked the food stops—Ron Lutz and his son Eric, Dave Shaffer and his daughter Bella and son Ezra, and their friend Jayden, and Sha Zhoa. Thanks to Dave Norton for delivering 600 bananas from his Trader Joe's store. Thanks to the officials who scored the hills—Jerry Lynch, Cassie Schumacher and Jill Geisler judged the women’s competition. Cliff Spiegel, Mikhail Evstiounin, Jonathan Pratt and his brother Paul, and newcomers Sandy and Dave Rovelli judged the open competition. Thanks to Abby Ritter, Mimi Colaizzi and Jill Geisler for doing event day registration. Thanks to the many rangers and marshals for keeping the DD safe—Chris Helbling, Jason McCullough, Neil Donahue, Ted King-Smith, Carl Hubel, David Fox, David Hamburger, brothers Doug and Dave Riegner, Edward Leonard and Erin Yanacek, Ian Pollock, Jeremiah Sullivan, Ken Mowry, Mark Ellermeyer, Russ Manski and Suzanne Kinsky, Sara Horsey, Ian Cartwright, Vinay Chaudhary, and Jon Klonowski. Thanks to Gary Baun (Ian's father) for driving a support vehicle for the open competition. Thanks to Chris Helbling's brother Mike for driving a support vehicle for the women's competition. Thanks to my brother-in-law John Perezluha for driving me around all day.

Photos


Open Competition winners with Danny Chew.


Women's Competition winners with Danny Chew.

Sponsors

Thanks to Aero Tech Designs for providing bicycle keychains and for creating the official 2021 Dirty Dozen jersey and donating a substantial portion of the sale proceeds to Danny.

Thanks to Brian Wolovich for letting us use his parking lot for the lunch stop in Millvale.

Thanks to Biketek Pittsburgh for hosting Friday check-in and registration.

Thanks to Cobden Street Block Watch and South Side Slopes Neighborhood Association for providing refreshments and a restroom at the top of Eleanor Street.

Thanks to David Norton for generously donating bananas to the riders.

Thanks to East End Brewing for providing free tastes and for hosting the awards ceremony and after-party.

Thanks to NuGo Nutrition for again donating lots of NuGo bars for the riders to enjoy.