Riding home, Friday night - I came up to my nemesis hill. The run up to it is a sharp right, with runoff gravel and sand in the roadbed, then immediately a sharp left, also sandy, which bleeds off almost all of your momentum, before you start to climb the short (~200 meters) with a sharp incline.

Before the first turn I noted a car was pacing me from behind, I hoped they'd go straight, but I signaled, turned, and they turned after me, then followed me thru the left turn, too. This hill is bad enough without an audience, but I dropped gears, got into the little ring and started climbing. I made it a bit farther than I usually do, before standing up - there's no spinning up this one for me, in the foreseeable future - and I heard the car behind me close enough to hear the engine fan spinning. I concentrated on pedaling the whole circle of the pedals, not just mashing, and got up to the left turn at the top with a bit more speed than usual, too.

The trailing car turned right, and over the rushing blood in my ears, I hear, "Allllll RIGHT! See you tomorrow!"

I looked down and saw that I'd made the climb in my third cog, instead of the first or second that is my wont.

w00t - I win!