The Long Climb

Every morning before Boulder wakes up, fifteen-year-old Octavio "Tavio" Reinholt clips into his secondhand Specialized Allez and rides Flagstaff Mountain alone. Three climbs, sometimes four. No coach. No team. No data. Just the grade, his legs, and a conversation between them that has been the clearest thing in his life since he was eleven years old. He has never thought of this as training. He doesn't know what else to call it.

The Long Climbs is a coming-of-age novel set against the cyclin...