In 2010, I purchased a carbon fiber road bike and trained on a trainer throughout the winter. Spring was coming and I decided to enter a road race. Never having done one before, my first was the Over the Top bike race between Kamas and Evanston. It is about 87 miles and 5,000 feet of vertical gain over Bald Mountain Pass on the Mirror Lake Highway.

When signing up for competitive races, I had to join the bike union and declare what category of racer I was to race in: cat 1 are the professional Tour de France type racers; cat 2 were professionals who were not on the Tour but are really fast; cat 3, cat 4, and cat 5. There was also the weekend warrior group of riders who wanted to race called “citizen class”. Since I was new to the sport and not wanting to be self limiting, I bypassed the citizen class and declared myself a cat 5 racer.

The day of the race I drove to Kamas, picked up my t-shirt and water bottle. The racers released cat 2 first since there were no cat 1s and they were the fastest. Citizens were next, since they took the most time. Cat 3 and 4 started next. I was in the last group. We met on at the starting line and someone said to start.

The main group of riders is called the peloton. I was in the clump, trying not to crash my bike into anyone while at the same time trying to keep up. One mile into my 87 mile first time road race the peloton dropped me—or rather, I could not keep up with the breakneck pace of my fellow cat 5ers.

So, I continued cycling without the wind advantage that the peloton offered. For the first 7 miles the road was flat. I noticed about 5 to 7 riders returning to Kamas. If I completed the race, I would do better than them. I continued to churn the cranks.

As the road pitched upward, my speed dropped. I must have been exceptionally slow, because a car came up beside me, rolled down the window and asked if I “needed any help”. It was the “SAG” wagon—short for support and gear. I said that I was fine, and buried my head into the current task of gaining elevation.

It must’ve taken about two hours to reach the first rest area (there is no stop or rest in a race). My oldest two kids (ages 10 and 8) were there to hand me a water bottle and some strawberries. I continued onward and upward.

My wife put the kids into the car and used the time to the first rest stop to gage when to be ready for the second rest area. Meanwhile, I was making my way up the pass in record time for the slowest KOM (King of the Mountain) in race history. With four kids in tow and a couple hours to burn, she stopped the car and had the kids skip rocks at Pass Lake.

What she did not anticipate was gravity. After cresting, I converted almost instantaneously my potential energy that I had earned into kinetic energy. I raced down the pass at 40+ miles per hour. I flew past the parked family car and made it to the second rest stop.

Race organizers were packing the second rest stop away, and with no family to resupply, I kept cycling. As the road comes off the Uintas the gradient flattened. The SAG wagon returned this time as a consistent tailgater to my rear wheel.

I kept looking back to look to find the green Honda Pilot family vehicle: no such luck. Mile after mile the bicycle and the SAG wagon inched towards Evanston.

The finish line for these races is at the Wyoming State Mental Hospital. I think the reason to have the finish line there could be symbolic of the mental games I played as I raced into town. At least the family would be there to cheer me as I crossed the finish line.

As I rolled through, no one that I loved was there. I quickly ditched my bike on the grass and headed to the food tarp. Everyone was packing up around me. Yep, I was the last.

After a few minutes, I decided to walk home. My cycling cleats were off, my toosh was too sore, so I set off for home in my socks. As I was walking up the road, my the family Pilot came into view. My wife rolled down the window and said, “Did someone give you a ride?”

In the sports world there is an award for being last: Mr. Irrelevant. The last person picked gets all kinds of notoriety and prizes. I am the cat-5 Mr. Irrelevant in the Kamas to Evanston Over the Top with a t-shirt and a water bottle.