See 2007 Mount Diablo Challenge story
There's a short, little 10.8-mile bicycle ride in California where the organizers give away a free T-shirt to anyone who can finish in 1 hour. Sounds easy?
The ride is the Mt. Diablo Challenge in the East Bay suburbs of San Francisco. The bike ride sports a 3,249-foot elevation gain, 6.9% over the last 4 miles. Out of 957 finishers, the Save Mount Diablo organization handed out only 134 free T-s on Sunday.
This year's winner was Robert Anderson, a 51-year-old cyclist from Mill Valley, California, who finished in 47 minutes, 28 seconds. I suspect Anderson is no weekend-only recreational cyclist. He's licensed at USA Cycling and had posted three wins in the first 7 months of the year. Scrolling through his victories since 2000, I see the word “mountain” listed in quite a few events.
The oldest finisher (in 929th) was Morris Fraser, 80, of Walnut Creek, who climbed in 2 hours, 11 minutes. He finished second out of three in the male 70-year-old and above division.
The oldest female was Shirley Osmer, 70, who won her division. The overall female winner was Jenny Slawta, 42, of Medford, Oregon.
More division winners
Quite a few 1-year-olds won their division; I suspect they were in trailers. Beau Hoover, 14, posted the fastest time for a unicycle, 1 hour, 22 minutes; and Harold and Merry Reimer of Santa Clara, California, posted the fastest time for a tandem, 1 hour, 2 minutes.
All finishers are listed at Buzzword Productions by categories and overall. The ride is a fund-raiser for “Save Mount Diablo.”
About that photo: It's detail from a picture of last year's finish posted at flicker.com by KAP Cris. As I recall, he mounted a camera on a balloon to capture the long shadows from above.
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