On Sunday while Lance Armstrong was trying to avoid other cyclists who kept crashing in front of him in the Alps, another good American hill-climbing bike racer was back in America, pedaling swiftly up a hill even steeper than the hors categorie climbs that riders face in the Tour de France.

I refer to Tom Danielson, of Boulder, Colo., who on Sunday won Newton's Revenge, a bike race up the Mount Washington Auto Road, with a performance that will remind the professional ranks that he belongs in the Tour himself.

Newton's is the first of two bike races held each summer on the Auto Road. Danielson, 32, first won the other race - the older and better-known Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb - in 2002. Moreover, he impressed the cycling world by breaking the course record previously held by Tyler Hamilton, the Olympic gold medalist and one-time Tour de France stage winner.

Yes, and Hamilton subsequently was banned for blood doping.

But Hamilton never broke 50 minutes on the Auto Road, and Danielson did, and I'm quite sure he is clean. (I'd like to believe Hamilton is too.) Hamilton once clocked 50 minutes, 21 seconds on this severe all-uphill grade; Danielson turned in a time of 49:24, and he remains the only person ever to break 50 minutes on the course.

On Sunday he finished in 49:32, just eight seconds shy of his record.

Danielson rides with Garmin, one of the teams contesting in the Tour this year. Despite some outstanding performances, his career has been on again-off again, never quite putting him into the Tour, and this year he's still in his pattern of good rides undercut by bad luck. In May, Danielson crashed during a training ride, damaged his pelvis and a shoulder, and broke a vertebra.

Sunday's race confirmed that he has recovered enough to compete later this summer in the Tour of Poland and then the Vuelta a Espana, a race as long as the Tour.

Fine, but what about the rest of the mortals in Sunday's race? Especially, what about Mike McCusker, of the Northampton Cycling Club, who got to start Newton's Revenge in the first wave of competitors along with Danielson?

And what about Ray Gengenbach, an Amherst artist who rides this race nearly every year, and who furthermore rides not only in the race but to the race, pedaling from the Pioneer Valley to the Mount Washington Valley in order to ride up the Auto Road?

McCusker, 61, a former UMass track and cross country runner who has spent his later years staying as fit as all the health magazines make average readers dream they could be, has run or biked up the Auto Road too many times to count.

On Sunday he reached the 6,288-foot summit of Mount Washington in 1:17:44, placing 36th overall among 157 finishers.

He thought he should have gone faster.

"I made a few errors in judgment," McCusker said good-humoredly.

He explained that, since the race had been postponed from Saturday to Sunday because of rain, he was still thinking there would be plenty of moisture in the air, when in fact race day was sunny, warmer and drier. "I didn't take water with me, and I needed it."

He also struggled, as did many others, with the ridiculously steep final 70 yards where the Auto Road tilts upward at a 22 percent grade.

In the final pitch, his shoes came unclipped from his pedals, and he had to turn and coast downhill to try to get them re-attached. Finally he took off his shoes # cycling shoes have no traction # and ran while pushing his bike to the finish, like several others in the race.

Still, he said, he was happy with his time. "And I'm delighted that Mark McCarthy, my main adversary in these things, broke my age-group record."

McCarthy, also 61, of Honeoye Falls, N.Y., finished in 1:15:08.

"I'm going to do my best to get it back in August," McCusker added. That'll be in the Hillclimb on Aug. 21. Since the two races are on the same course, any record can be broken in either event.

Gengenbach broke no records, but he distinguished himself in several ways. First was his ride just to get to the race. He took six days to pedal from Amherst to the Auto Road, camping each night with gear he carried on his mountain bike - the same bike he rides in the race.

Bill Zuppa, of Montclair, N.J., also rode to Mount Washington from far away, and took only three days to make a much longer trip. Zuppa biked to the race from the New Jersey side of the George Washington Bridge.

On the other hand, Zuppa, 54, stayed in hotels at night, and his girlfriend carried his gear in a car, following him along the route.

However, Zuppa could not stay when the race was postponed from Saturday to Sunday because of the weather, since he had a family obligation in Vermont.

Gengenbach is 75, and thus the oldest rider in the race. Not quite the slowest, however; he finished 156th in 2:40:29 beating a rider 52 years his junior.

His wry humor is one reason Gengenbach is perennially popular with the race organizers. The one comment I got from him during the race, however, is unprintable.

***

A new local race with a global feeling is the Run For Salvador, a 5K event to be held July 24 at the Whiting Reservoir in Holyoke.

This race benefits Nuestro Ahora Inc., an Easthampton-based nonprofit organization that supports 1,000 youth in orphanages throughout El Salvador.

The trails around the reservoir offer some of the loveliest scenery for running in the Valley, with lots of trees and shade.

The organizers will award prizes in many categories, including high school, university runners, open and masters men's and women's divisions, teams, and walkers.

The entry fee is $20 # Nuestro Ahora reminds you that $20 is the cost of a month's bus fare for a Salvadoran student attending school or university # or $100 for teams of five to seven runners or walkers.

You and your lunch-time walk group can compete in this event as a team without even having to run, and your team entry fee can just about pay for all the books a Salvadoran student needs in a year.

Register online at www.runforsalvador.blogspot.com by Thursday if you want to receive a T-shirt.

John Stifler, who writes a regular column about running and other sports, can be reached at jstifler@econs.umass.edu.