February Winners - Some Big Numbers

The second month of the Studio Velo KOM Challenge closed with the two contending clubs, mtbr.com and Mission Cycling locked in a tight battle for the club lead. The last day saw a surge of climbing by both teams but in the end the 64 riders for mtbr.com prevailed, pulling away with a 161,876 feet (49,339 m) to spare. The mem's competition ended as expected, with January's second place finisher, Brian Toone turning up his daily average in the shortest month to rack up even more feet, finishing with a leg numbing 175,783 feet (53,579 m). If nothing else, Brian, a math professor at Samford University, is a model of consistency, laying down (up?) an almost identical number in January. We'll have an interview with Brian later in the month.

Our women's leader was Patti Whyte riding for the Mornington Cycling Group MMM in Victoria, Australia who put up 18,880 meters (61,941 ft.). We do like her club's logo at left, it seems rather apropos for those of us participating in this crazy obsession. Bike shop honors once again go to the KOM Challenge's lead sponsor's team, Studio Velo, whose 38 team members cranked over 800K. Some more numbers for this month and the year: IronDataThirstyBear.com riders placed third in the club competition, with 748,766 feet which works out to 41,598 per club rider as compared to mtbr.com (22,594), Mission Cycling (19,167) and Studio Velo (21,189) - however we're excluding Brian's club of 1, the Alabama riders. Also of note was Patti's club, with 8 members that averaged 11,047 meters (36,242 ft) apiece. Congrats to all participants, prizes will be announced mid-March.

Below we have captured what's become perhaps a rather typical ride profile for KOM Challenge contestants, full of spikes. This shows mtbr.com's Patrick Herlihy's last day of the month ride that he hilariously entitled In Search of Footies. Patrick was the #3 contributor for mtbr.com @ 59,310 feet.

We should also acknowledge the many upgrades and enhancements that the Strava engineers have made to the Challenge in the past month - without them this would not be as interesting or as international as it is. So kudos to the entire Strava team and we look forward to another great month of climbing. Go for it!