By Steve O’Mara For years, the NCNCA Hill Climb Championships has taken place at the Everest Challenge Stage Race. And no one has had a shot at beating Nate English. He’s just that good. This year the district officials moved the championships to The King and Queen of Kingsbury Climb at Lake Tahoe. And Nate didn’t come. Boom. Wide open.

To get properly prepped to tear it up in a bike race, where do you stay? South Shore, obviously. After a not too intense night, I got up, activated, and hit the motel coffee hard. Then I headed to the race. The best thing about TT’s, especially with smaller fields split into waves? No bathroom lines. That combined with another perk, minimal time reg’ing meant I actually had time to get in a full warm up on my trainer. Uncharted territory. Things were going so smoothly, I almost started to worry.

The race course took us up 2550 feet in 7.9 miles, finishing at Daggett Summit. Basically all up. Riders went off in 30 second intervals. I hit it hard and took the win.