Pinkham Notch, N.H. — A Connecticut man and Canadian woman won the 43rd annual Mount Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb on Saturday.

Hundreds of bicyclists competed in the grueling 7.6-mile race up the highest peak in the Northeast under atypical conditions — sunny skies, just a little wind and a touch of fog at the summit at the start of the race.

Eneas Freyre, 39, of Norwalk, Connecticut, finished the race in 53 minutes. Veronique Fortin, 35, of Gatineau, Quebec, took the top spot for the women at 1:05:58. Both won $1,500 for finishing first, plus Freyre took home an additional $750 for being the first male rider to reach the 1-mile mark.

Freyre was one minute ahead of second-place finisher Eric Follen of Sanford, Maine, who won the Newton's Revenge Race over the same course in July. James Piccoli of Montreal finished third.

For the women, Victoria Di Savino of Buffalo finished second in 1:09:45 and Cecelia Davis-Hayes of New York was third in 1:10:46. Di Savino was awarded $750 for becoming the first female rider to reach the 1-mile mark.

The oldest finisher in the race was 78-year-old Dick Devellian, of Jackson, New Hampshire, with a time of 2:30:53. Organizers say Devellian started competing in the Hillclimb in the early 1980s and had both knees replaced four years ago. He returned to the race in 2013 and missed last year's race because he was traveling.