Brian Kendall: Mt. Evans Hillclimb

You know when you are driving around and you check your gas level and its at 1/4 tank so you keep on trucking, then all of the sudden the car stops just a short while later and you are stranded in the middle of no where. Well that was kind of what it was like today.

The Mt. Evans hill climb is 28 miles of climbing 7,oooft ending at 14,500 at the top of Mt. Evans (The highest paved road in America). Why do they do this race? In my opinion after today, its to see who can race the hardest climbing in a no oxygen environment.

It started out with the line up and five minutes to the start and the one and only Tom Danielson rolls to the front of the pack, yeah. Oh $%&#* ran through my mind too. The gun went off and the pack was drilled already shattering riders before we reached the 2 mile mark. I lost contact with Tarkington and a few others and set a good tempo and it split some more. All this while Tommy D. and Moninger are going off the front. I was moving pretty good till the tank all of the sudden went empty with 10k to go. Lets say I lost some time in the last 10k. I went from the big chain ring in a tail wind section to the small chain ring to the granny gear (23 cassette, not so granny). At about 12 - 13,000ft I began to feel light headed with a screaming headache. I finished it as strong as I could, 10-20th place, not sure exactly. After that, the descent was not short enough and I drove home and fell on the floor where I stayed for a while. I still have a huge headache, and feel a little disappointed. I mean, I am a climber but not today so much.

Near the top.