Completing the Top 100 Cycling Climbs in the USA

I'd like to share my story of inspiration, hard work and the love a son has for his father. I'm a resident of Las Vegas and an avid road cyclist. In 2009, I took on the challenge of being the first person to ascend the Top 100 road bike cycling climbs in the USA. This challenge would require me to go as far east as New Hampshire and as far west as Hawaii, which is home to the hardest climb in the entire world (Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaii- 42 miles and 13,900 ft of climbing). I finished this challenge in 2017 and when I was done, I climbed over 478,000 feet.

What makes this story special is that in 2005, my father passed away at 64 from cancer. He was an avid cyclist and always wanted to do the hardest climbs in the USA along with the famous ones he saw on TV watching the Tour de France. When he passed away, I was 80 pounds overweight and hated riding a bicycle. After he died, I wanted to find a way to honor him so I decided to pursue his dream of cycling the hardest climbs. I lost over 80 pounds and started riding a bike. It took me over 2+ years of training where I was riding almost 10,000 miles a year to get myself in shape to achieve this goal. After doing my first Top 100 climb in 2009, I was hooked and spent the next 9 years traveling around the USA to complete every climb. Upon my completion, I was presented with a Top 100 Cycling Jersey from the designer and fellow climber at PJAMM Cycling that has every climb I completed.

For anybody who wants to pursue this goal, let me first tell you that it's very doable and very addictive. When I started doing this, the feeling I got from checking off a climb only made me more inspired to keep going. Once I retired in 2011 at 43, I was able to ride more and travel which made me even more obsessed with getting this done. Achieving the goal was all that mattered in the beginning but the real joy was the feeling that I had sharing this with my late father as I always gave a point to the heavens to honor him. Of course, what I didn't realize was that this pursuit took me to some of the most beautiful places in the country and being able to see new places and amazing scenery was the real award of pursing the Top 100. So if you do this, remember to enjoy the ride.

Finding the Top 100 cycling climbs came from two sources (a book entitled The Complete Guide to Climbing by Bike and a website called PJAMM Cycling). Both of these sources were very similar with a few different climbs, so I decided to complete both of them to make sure I truly completed the Top 100. In addition to the USA, I've also cycled in Europe and have climbed the top climbs from all three cycling grand tours (Tour de France, Giro d'Italia and Vuelta de Espana).