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Jon First to Lookout


Jon added another win to his resume this weekend at the Lookout Mountain Hillclimb, beating top climber pros such Jason Donald and Blake Caldwell (Slipstream Pro Cycling Team) as well as Stephano Barberi and Justin England (Toyota United Pro Cycling Team) .

England, who was second at the Oak Glen stage of the Redlands Cycling Classic this year, was a formidable opponent to beat. What might be even more impressive, though, is that Jon bested Jason Donald. Jason was second only to Levi Leipheimer at a similar uphill time trial at the Tour of California.

When asked if that meant he's faster than Leipheimer, Jon said (after he stopped laughing), "Not by a long shot." He added, "A lot of it had to do with experience; difficult conditions, wind, I know how to dose my effort well."

The Lookout Mountain Hillclimb was hosted this year by the Colorado School of Mines (seen in the foreground of the photo above). The road they raced on can be seen crisscrossing the mountainside.

In regard to his familiarity with the hill he said, "I climbed it 3 times during warm up." Then he added, "I've won it before... when it was a mass start. I'd never raced it as a time trial."

Overall, his win wasn't a huge shock, "I'm a skinny climber and I expected to do well."

Comments

South Yuba Bill said…
Skinny climbers do well! Way to go Jon. Good finish at the Koppenberg race this last weekend, too, I see you were in the front group's mass sprint!