There’s about a half mile slightly downhill section in my hometown. It starts at a stop light and has a stop sign in the middle of it. The road is 25mph speed limit and when I had the KOM my time was 30mph.

You have to time the stop light just right so you get it green at the start and then hope there’s no cars so you can blow through the stop sign all the while you might have to pass a car since you’re going faster than the posted speed limit. There’s no way I would go for it now but when I was young and a little more brazen I used to go for it every now and then.

Totally an adrenaline rush because it’s extremely reckless and the reason people don’t like Strava. Last I saw I still was tied with one other person for the KOM. Since my town has grown in tourist popularity it’s pretty much impossible to get now. I just checked and I think they removed it because I couldn’t find it. I always wanted to get a group of friends with spotters and try to do it in the middle of the night and just set a crazy fast time on it relatively safely but never did.

About a mile from my house on the freeway access road. I used to have the KOM and my buddy recently clipped it from me. My wife has the tenth spot. I plan to retake it soon.

There's two:

The first is in Portland, ME, on a segment where I had to average 30+ MPH to nail it, and it took a few attempts at;

Second was a run on the battlefield by the old Rev3 HQ; pretty sure unless there's a new run group, you won't have the daily Lunch World Championships on offer. One of only three times I've run a mile under 6:00 pace.

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Editor-in-Chief, Slowtwitch.com | Twitter

I have an on/ off relationship with Strava. Sometimes I pay attention. During the spring of ‘20 I was recently widowed (cancer, thankfully just before the COVID restrictions) and had nothing on the horizon to train for. I noticed some of my regular routes had KOMs. One roughly 2 mile stretch was freshly paved and decided to go for it. Thanks to a slight tailwind I grabbed that, and that little dopamine hit was enough to get me chasing them all summer.

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Aaron Bales
Lansing Triathlon Team

Ha! Try getting a KOM in Northern California out here!

Up until earlier this year, I lived on the Tour of California Baldy Stage route. Not much chance of getting KOMs in that neighborhood. But I am tied at 60th with Levi Leipheimer on the Village Drop :)

My first ever KOM several years ago was on a 1.5 mile segment through Las Vegas. I was surprised when I uploaded the ride and saw the KOM. Over the last 9 years I've since been kicked down to 30th. I've had a few other KOMs over the years on various descents, but just recently lost my last one. I was planning to hit it again this past summer when I was up in NorCal, but never managed to get out to it. Maybe next year...

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"I'm thinking of a number between 1 and 10, and I don't know why!"