Meyer, Demerath are Polka King and Queen of the Hills

Katie Meyer of Madison and Kyle Demerath of Green Bay won the Door County Brewing Co. Polka King of the Hills Challenge at the 2017 Peninsula Century Fall Challenge bicycle ride Sept. 16.

The challenge featured three of the county’s toughest hill climbs on Monument Point Road in Carlsville, the Ephraim Hill on Highway 42 from near Good Eggs to Eagle Terrace, and the long, deceiving climb on Lakeview Road in Ellison Bay.

Demerath and Meyer won the coveted Polka King of the Hills Jersey and a one night stay at the Birchwood Lodge, as well as gift cards for winning their age groups. The challenge featured age group awards in five divisions. Women’s winners took home a $50 gift card to Spot in Sister Bay, while men earned a $50 gift card to On Deck Sportswear.

A total of 621 riders took part in the event that starts and ends at Waterfront Park in Sister Bay. The ride is known for the great food from local restaurants at aid stations and the finish line. The 2018 Fall Challenge takes place Sept. 15, 2018.

A couple notes about the King of the Hills Results from organizer Myles Dannhausen:

This year we switched to a new GPS platform for the King of the Hills Challenge. We did this for a few reasons. Strava doesn’t offer the ability to sort results by age category, gender, and then total results for all three climbs for participants specific to our event. We made multiple requests for them to add this feature but they said it’s not in their development plan. Then we found RideWithGPS, which not only offers all of this, but also offers much better event organization figures and mapping. Their maps allow us to add images, aid stations, points of interest, and notes about food and beverages available at each stop. As organizers, it’s a huge improvement and time-saver. For participants, we believe it offers much more once people are used to using the app.

Getting the results out took longer than I would have liked. The lack of good wi-fi meant many people couldn’t upload their ride on-site, so we couldn’t tally results Saturday. In addition, when I first set up the challenge, I didn’t make it mandatory to enter age, name, and gender information, so I had to get all of that information from participants (this is also why some names don’t show up in the RideWithGPS leaderboard, but are in the official results, hence the times with no names).

Overall Men

Kyle Demerath, 29, Green Bay, 11:34
Cody Pawlak, 26, Escanaba, MI, 11:38
Michael Jones, 56, Madison, 11:50

Overall Women

Katie Meyer, 28, Madison, 13:54
Bridget Statz, 51, Madison, 16:12
Becca Bernhardt, 29, Madison 18:55

29 and under

Men: Kyle Demerath, 29, Green Bay, 11:34
Women: Katie Meyer, 28, Madison, 13:54

30 – 39

Men: Benjamin Stuart, 39, Grand Rapids, MI, 17:38
Women: Kari Stuart, 39, Grand Rapids, MI, 20:08

40 – 49

Men: Sean Mullen, 47, Madison, 12:44
Women: Cheryl Sinitz, 49, Pewaukee, 19:44

50 – 59

Men: Michael Jones, 56, Madison, 11:50
Women: Bridget Statz, 51, Madison, 16:12