In 1962, a group of bicycle racers decided to challenge 14,264-foot Mt. Evans by racing to its summit. Started by just a handful of riders, the race quickly became an annual event celebrated by the hardiest athletes, at a time when bicycle racing was considered an oddity at best. Despite a lack of sponsorship, media interest, and general support, the race endured, slowly becoming a fixture on the fledgling Colorado racing calender.

Over the years, some of America's best-known cyclists added their names to the list of challengers, names such as Olympic gold medalist Alexi Grewal, Jacques Boyer, Ron Kiefel, and Andy Hampsten. But no name shone more brightly that that of the man whom the race now memorializes--Bob Cook.

Tall and thin, with wire-framed glasses that made him look more like a chemist than a bike racer, Bob Cook dominated American hillclimbing like no one before or since. He could push his wiry legs to their limits up steep passes like a mountain goat, while other riders succumbed to thin air, fatigue, and pain.

At the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Bob was found to have the highest oxygen intake (Vo2 max) of any athlete ever tested to that time. In spite of his remarkable physical abilities, Bob was a quiet, gentle man, always ready to help newer riders, loved by all who knew him.

Bob Cook dominated the Mt. Evans Hillclimb from 1975 through 1980, winning the race every time it was held. He set course records year after year, culminating in a time of 1:54:27 in 1978. Bob was a major player in numerous other events as well, including the Coors International Bicycle Classic and the 1980 Olympic Trials.

Unfortunately, Bob's meteoric rise to fame was not to last. Late in 1980, he began to experience headaches and balance problems. CAT scans and exploratory surgery at the end of that year confirmed the presence of tumors in his brain spawned by multiple metastatic melanoma... cancer. Bob fought his illness heroically for three months, but the cancer was stronger than even America's strongest hillclimber, and he succumbed to his disease in March 1981 at the age of 23.

Eulogized by the New York Times, Cycling USA and the Colorado State Senate, Bob took with him not only one of the world's most promising cycling careers, but the hearts of his family and his many friends. In honor of his memory and of his repeated victories on its summit, the Mt. Evans Hillclimb was renamed the Bob Cook Memorial Mt. Evans Hillclimb in August 1981, and has continued thus ever since.

Bob's spirit lives on in all those who knew him, and in those who love the Hillclimb. A whole new generation of racers has come along since his passing, but none is likely to take his place. Perhaps Mary Alice Munger, Bob's aunt, said it best in the following lines, excerpted from her poem, A Man to Match Our Mountains:

A life well lived is never lost.
Such lasting love it gives,
That this man's life will not be gone
so long as one man lives.