For most of us, a Sunday morning ride into the mountains involves four wheels powered by an internal combustion engine and, this week, air conditioning.

For 119 stalwart souls, a Sunday morning ride to the top of Poor Mountain meant a grueling, heart-pounding, all-uphill mountain bike excursion under the power of their own two legs.

It was the eighth Poor Mountain HillClimb, also known this year as the Virginia Hill Climb Championship.

“It was fun. I’m glad I came,” said a sweat-soaked but smiling Flavia Lepene of Blacksburg. She was the first woman to reach the top of the mountain and the shadows of the television towers that make it stand out on the Roanoke Valley skyline.

Despite her concerns at the bottom that “I’m not sure I’m going to make it” on a bike she said really wasn’t right for the course, Lepene flew up the 6¾-mile climb in 53 minutes and 14 seconds.

That was about 16 minutes behind the overall winner, professional cyclist Jeremiah Bishop of Harrisonburg, but well ahead of the next woman.

Unseasonably hot weather added to the challenges of one of the steepest bike races in Virginia, with grades of up to 17 percent. That’s a harsher incline than anything on the Tour de France, for example.

As the cyclists prepared their mounts at the bottom of the mountain, Buchanan resident Tim Miller could smile even though he was saying, “It’s not a lot of fun when you’re doing it. … It’s 55 minutes of agony.”

But, like many others, he noted that the reward comes in the personal satisfaction of reaching the top of the mountain and knowing one has done it.

And, of course, there are the prizes.

The race was the fifth and last in the Virginia DeRailer Mountain Bike Race Series that began with an Aug. 12 event in Rocky Mount. Sunday’s race offered a purse of $2,700, with up to $450 for any single winner.

“It’s really exciting,” said Dick Howard , the race’s originator and its coordinator.

“We have the most racers ever at 119. We’ve never had more than 80 before. And Jeremiah [Bishop] set a new course record” of 37:27.

That earned him a bonus of $250 for breaking his own previous record of 38:18, set last year.

“I can’t believe I did that,” Bishop said after the race. It was a confidence booster, he said, because he didn’t feel that he was in very good shape.

But the pro, a 10-time member of the USA Cycling national team who has represented the country in numerous international competitions, was still minutes ahead of his nearest competitor. He has won four of the past five Poor Mountain HillClimbs.

“It’s pretty much him against everybody else,” Howard said after the race.

Although the event includes a mix of professional, expert and recreational cyclists, “It’s a race for the mountain-bike fanatic,” Howard said. “They’re hard core.”

The Salem native has been promoting bike races for about 30 years, he said. After living in Richmond, he moved back to the Roanoke Valley in 1984 and resumed a love affair with the bike ride up Poor Mountain Road , which begins just west of Salem. Three years later, Howard organized his first race to its 3,000-foot crest.

“I ran that one with a legal pad, a big four-color ballpoint pen and a wristwatch,” he said. It was a far cry from the synchronized electronic timers used this year, with the assistance of the Roanoke Valley Amateur Radio Club to communicate from one end of the course to the other.

But after that initial race, amid concerns about liability and support, the idea was dropped until seven years ago when Howard found a partner in the Roanoke County Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism .

The event now is also co-sponsored by Cardinal Bicycle, Saturn of Roanoke Valley and Icon Development.

But, because “this is such a weird race that doesn’t fit into any pigeonhole” of USA Cycling, it isn’t a sanctioned event of that national body. The only real disadvantage of that for Howard is that the event loses exposure through USA Cycling, which trains and selects cyclists to represent the country in international competitions, including the Olympics.

He put the word out through cycling enthusiasts’ Web sites, an Internet mail list and the old-fashioned way with fliers in 50 to 75 bike shops.

Sunday, his biggest concern was something those of us who motor to the mountaintops would consider good news.

“I’m not real happy with how good the road is,” he told the cyclists as they assembled for the climb.

The roadbed has been smoothed and graded in the past year, taking out ravine-like ruts and oil-pan busting midget boulders.

“I question whether it will be sustainable for a mountain-bike race, ” Howard said.

Nevertheless, he was already polling participants about how to score next year’s event, and racers were already looking forward to it.

“It was a really tough grind,” Lepene said, but, “I’d do it again.”