It’s not like the old days, when it was rare that anyone would pass me on a climb. Those old days were… well, they go back over 50 years now! Yikes. But even today, at 67, I’m still passing more cyclists than are passing me. I’m still seeing people way ahead on a climb and calculating in my head if it’s going to be possible to catch them.

For a while it was almost a science. I would match their pace (from a distance), figure out how many watts that took, and from that know if I could maintain enough wattage to not just catch up to them but keep on going. Because, after all, rule #1 is to never pass someone you can’t stay ahead of.

On Tunitas, I got lucky. Despite it being a pretty slow climb, I don’t recall anyone passing Kevin and I. For the first 2/3rds of the climb I was desperately trying to keep up with Kevin, but the last 1/3rd he was wearing down. The person in the photo? That was the last of the rabbits today.