My wife and I decided to compete in the King of the Mountain race in Clearfield, PA. I had read about it online, but never really considered riding in the race. Someone put a flyer on my truck after the Smethport race about King of the Mountain, so I decided to suck it up and ride in it. According to the race sponsors website, there is race consists of a 5 mile course with 1200 ft of vertical elevation with no flats. This was my first time riding in a time trial and on top of that it was all up hill. I started 15th and the race official started to count down from three when each rider was to be released. Well when my turn came, he didn’t count down and the holder just held me there until the race official said “you were supposed to go”. I didn’t even have time to call him an idiot, so I took off. I soon realized that I was in a terrible low gear and shifted quickly to gain speed. The first mile had a slight incline and I was getting a decent rhythm going. After about 1.5 miles the incline kicked in and my paced drop. I tried to keep my cadence up around 90 throughout the race. At the half way point, I had pasted four riders and two had passed me. I noticed that one was on the side of the road up ahead and I think he dropped out bef
ore the 3 mile marker. I was really getting hot and my computer said it was about 85 degrees, I had sweat pouring over the sunglasses from my long hair and I was inhaling it as it came over my noise. Luckily I was able to keep my distance from the other riders and I knew in my mind that they were suffering as well. This race required a lot of mental strength, because when you looked up the road never ended and it seemed like you were dragging and anchor due to the pace. At the final half mile I really started to get my speed back up, and as the course level out at the top of the mountain and really smashed my gears to squeeze out every second on the clock.
I ended up getting a time of 26 minutes. This was enough to get 3rd in my age group, not bad for a person who isn’t great a hills. On an end note, the smoker from the last race was there was well and I beat him by 10 minutes. So that proves that a 14 pd bike with bad lungs will lose to a 19 pd bike with good lungs any day.
ore the 3 mile marker. I was really getting hot and my computer said it was about 85 degrees, I had sweat pouring over the sunglasses from my long hair and I was inhaling it as it came over my noise. Luckily I was able to keep my distance from the other riders and I knew in my mind that they were suffering as well. This race required a lot of mental strength, because when you looked up the road never ended and it seemed like you were dragging and anchor due to the pace. At the final half mile I really started to get my speed back up, and as the course level out at the top of the mountain and really smashed my gears to squeeze out every second on the clock. I ended up getting a time of 26 minutes. This was enough to get 3rd in my age group, not bad for a person who isn’t great a hills. On an end note, the smoker from the last race was there was well and I beat him by 10 minutes. So that proves that a 14 pd bike with bad lungs will lose to a 19 pd bike with good lungs any day. 
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