Editor's note: This is a winning essay for the Grades 4-8 category of the 2008 Amgen Tour of California Youth Essay Contest. This year's theme is "choose your own adventure, by bike.")

If I could ride anywhere in the world it would be France, in the Tour de France. I would bring my mom to prepare my healthful vegan meals and my dad and Annie, our dog, to cheer me on. They would travel with the race entourage in our 4X4 Baja Tan Sportsmobile camper van.

In the Tour, I would glide by the sunflowers while in the middle of the peloton. Then I would make my move on the last climb of the day, Hautacam, a 14 kilometer climb in the Pyrenees with an average 6.8% gradient. At the ski station, where the slope increased, I would attack. As I climbed higher and higher into the sky, the shredded spoonful cereal with soy milk would really kick in. At the 3k banner where the gradient increased to 10%, I would extend my lead to over three minutes on the chase group of three rival riders. The crowd filling the switchbacks would part; the devil with pitchfork in hand and red cape billowing behind would be running next to me. With the sun beating down on me, I would hear my manager yelling encouragement in my ear bud. Then as I stand on the pedals I imagine Phil Liggett saying to the television viewers back in the United States, “he is dancing like Lance”!

As I sit back down with my heart pounding out my chest, I would remember that when I climbed mountains in San Luis Obispo like Prefumo Canyon, I imagined that it was Hautacam. The green grass and flowers of France would also remind me of riding through the vineyards in San Luis Obispo County, which I often do now. Then rocky shelves above the tree line in the Pyrenees would remind me of my early days of training, such as when I was 13 years old riding up the 25 mile, 4 then 6 then 12 percent gradient climb from Furnace Creek (below sea level) to Dante’s view (almost 6,000 feet) in Death Valley National Park. The many years of training will have prepared me for this victorious drive to the finish, where I put my hands in the air in salute to the crowd and become the new occupant of the maillot jaune, (yellow jersey)!

Ian Moore
Family Partnership Charter School
Grade 8, Age 13