2025 welcomed a whole new challenge series, one that has a terrible acronym: So You Think You Can Climb!
It ran four weeks, from April 28th thru May 25th, and similar to the Segment Challenge, featured two segment each week – but each was a major climb! From the Observatory all the way out to Mt Matheson.
I wasn’t actually expecting too many to sign up, but as the first week began it started to fill up, and ended up with a great turnout – thank you all who joined in!!!
Some quick stats:
- Number signed up: 74
- Number who rode at least one climb: 60
- Male:female split: 51:23
Special Recognition – The Hardcore!
Who made it out to every single climb? These folks! An incredible 19 people rode every climb, way to go!!
I’ve got a special shout out to Billy Turcotte, Dan Blackwell, Dave Bitschy, Graham Fletcher, Gabrielle Leung, Megan Thomas, Greg Goforth, John Fletcher, Kevin Jackson, Mike Cummings, Camila Gonzalez, Kathryn TGreat, Laura Hahn, Bill Ransford, Chad Dalrymple, David Robertson 🇨🇦 🇺🇦, Kit St. John, Rafael Castillo Henao and Tyler Galts, for this achievement! (I also made it out each week, but not sure if I should count! 😉)
More Neat Stats
Here’s a couple charts from our sign-up polls as well (note we had 74 people sign up, but a few never joined in – hope to see you next season!!) Here’s some of those details:
I asked a much ‘wider’ question this time, and interesting to see the breakdown of riders. Most have already been part of the Segment Challenge (road or gravel), but we also welcomed 25 new riders!
The next two are a bit more predictable:
I’m a bit surprised Munn is the most popular, I would have thought Observatory would take that one! For Dean and Matheson, one sicko selected each of those. 😂
Finally:
No surprise PKOLS takes this one, although I’m wondering if Dean might have shifted that…. As tough as Mt Doug is, it’s over relatively quickly. Dean just seemed to go on and on (despite the fast and friendly start!) If it changed for you, feel free to leave a comment below! 😁
The Series Final – Our Overall Series Winners 🏆
And now it’s time to celebrate our champions – those who’ve proved They Can Climb!!
Everyone who took part gets a big thank you and congrats and I appreciate you for joining in this silly grassroots cycling series, but now we have to focus on the top of the leaderboards, and here’s our series breakdown!
The A’s
We had some pretty fierce competition with our speedy women, Tina and Brooklyn trading blows in the first week, and Jen joining in on the last two. They all posted fantastic times too, beating most of the guys, but in the end Tina’s consistency earns her the title of Climbing Champion of Victoria for 2025!!
Our final podium is:
- Tina Trumpy (294pts)
- Jennifer Ward (150pts)
- Brooklynn Taylor-Clark (97pts)
Philip had the A’s all wrapped up, but fell to 6th missing the final week, allowing Billy to move up from 2nd, Graham moved up from 3rd to 2nd, and Dave B jumped from 5th to 3rd to round our other A podium – congrats Billy! Dan B and myself were separated by just a few points, and it was great having Justin, Stephane, Dan S, Travis O, Ethan S and Andrew all taking part!
Once again, our final A podium:
- Billy Turcotte (368pts)
- Graham Fletcher (348pts)
- Dave Bitschy (327pts)
The B’s
Our B & C fields both had 7 female riders, and so great to see more competition!! Newcomer Gabrielle however was strongest, claiming the top time in all but one of the climbs. Megan was there challenging her each climb, and earning 2nd overall, and Julia missed the first week, but was posting great times as well. Great to have Renata, Jen C, Laura B and Kenzie all out as well!
Our final Female B podium is:
- Gabrielle Leung (395pts)
- Megan Thomas (365pts)
- Julia Barron (266pts)
Over with the guys, Mike C had it locked up and held it with clean sweeps of the podiums in the last two weeks – as a bonus prize, he’s gotten himself an invite to the A field! Mark D and Kevin ended up swapping positions in the final week, with Kevin finishing 2nd, and 3rd for Mark D. John F was not far behind a podium spot, along with Greg in his first competition as a B! There were 12 more B’s, for our largest field, thanks all for taking part!!
Once again, our B podium:
- Mike Cummings (385pts)
- Kevin Jackson (358pts)
- Mark Devitt (353pts)
The C’s
Huge change in positions in the women’s group, Terra had the series pretty much locked up, but due to a trip, she missed this week, which dropped her down to 5th. Karthryn, in 3rd, jumped up to 1st to win the series – congrats to our Climb Series C Champ! Camila also jumped from 4th to 2nd, and Laura dropped from 2nd last week to 3rd this week after missing Matheson. Kd, Heidi and Mary all put in great efforts as well.
- Kathryn TGreat (372pts)
- Camila Gonzalez (336pts)
- Laura Hahn (327pts)
In our final field, we saw some more movement with the men, but not with Rafael who held his spot in 1st to take the series! There was a tie for 3rd between Jamie and Kit after the 3rd week, but Jamie jumped up to 2nd, and Tyler moved down to 3rd, which bumped Kit down to 4th. Not far behind him was Chad and Bill. There were 14 riders in this highly competitive group, nice riding all!!
Here’s our final group of Top 3:
- Rafael Castillo Henao (373pts)
- Jamie Caskenette (345pts)
- Tyler Galts (336pts)
It was a pleasure watching and scoring you all, and there were so many great rides, congrats to all for making the effort!
Note in the scoring sheet the tabs at the bottom to flip between overall and individual weeks. If a PDF is preferred, simply click here! Here is the full link to the GoogleDoc.
A big ‘ole thank you to the businesses below for contributing to our weekly draw! Thanks to them, we’ll have a few goodies to award participants each week.
Finishing Up!
Well that was a bit different!! Again, very surprised with how many showed up, glad to see a new successful event, I’ll be bringing it back for 2026! And of course a big thank you to our series supporters who contributed our awesome draw prizes, maybe taking the edge off riding so much elevation. 😉
Given this is a blog post, please do feel free to add a comment below – it’s great hearing what you enjoy about the series, share some stories, and who knows, might inspire someone else to join in as well!
Next up is the Summer Segment Challenge which starts up June 2nd – it’ll be another edition of the Rider’s Choice! Hit the button at the top of the page to submit your segment requests.
Safe and speedy riding!!
– Dave
