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2017 PPIHC

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Want to watch the fastest motorcycle run ever up Pikes Peak? At this year’s Race to the Clouds, Chris Fillmore took his KTM 1290 Super Duke R on a record-setting ascent to the mountain summit, with an impressive time of 9:49.625.

More impressive though is the fact the Fillmore broke the record on his rookie debut to the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb.

If you have less than ten minutes to spare, you can watch Chris Fillmore’s run up the mountain. It’s extra enjoyable, because the Pikes Peak organizers thought that the first three minutes of the video should include a voice-over interview with Fillmore at the mountain’s summit, rather than letting us listen to that KTM purr.

Traditionally if you wanted to watch the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, you would have to wake up around 3am in the morning, freeze your butt off in your car for a couple hours while you waited in line at the gates, and then jockey for position somewhere reasonably unsafe on the race course to watch the cars and bikes fly past.

With poor cellphone reception, spotty video coverage, and no strong media deals, the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb has floundered when it comes to engaging race fans in the digital age. Add into it more restrictive fan zones, and the viewing experience has certainly diminished, thus taking away from this once iconic race.

However for the 95th running of the “Race to the Clouds”, America’s only true road race has a new media partner, Matchsports, who will live-stream the event with 22 cameras, for racing fans. This has the potential to be a huge win for the struggling series…assuming it works this time.

Dirt-focused machines will no longer be welcomed at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb (PPIHC), says the race organizers.

With the change in the road surface and race course, the 2017 running of the “Race to the Clouds” will be the last one where competitors can use machinery that was originally intended to operate off-road.

How PPHIC will determine what is a prohibited machine is not really clear, with the press release stating only that “vehicles that were originally designed with the intention of competing on Pikes Peak’s traditional dirt surface” would no longer be allowed to race, after this year’s event.