When Katie Hall bought her first bike the summer after her junior year of college, it was to serve as her ride from her Seattle home to her summer job in Redmond. She’d either hitch her bike on the bus ride over the 520 bridge and then take the 12-mile hilly route, or take the 25-mile trip along the Burke-Gilman and Sammamish River trails.

“Back in the day, that was a big challenge for me,” Hall reminisced. “I look back now and the situation’s kind of funny to me. I remember how tired I’d be and how hard it was.”

These days, biking 25 miles has become nothing more than routine.

Now competing professionally with UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team, Hall recently earned her first professional stage win, taking the 38.9-mile fifth stage of the 2015 Tour Femenino de San Luis in Argentina this past January. The mountainous stage featured a 5-kilometer ascent leading to a mountaintop finish, conditions that were befitting of a cyclist climber such as Hall.

It was an impressive accomplishment for someone who had only turned pro last year.

“It’s funny because I’m a little bit older to be as inexperienced as I am,” she said. “Learning how to race effectively from 19- and 20-year-olds has been a fun experience. It’s interesting that I can learn so much from people who are [almost] half my age. They are really experienced and knowledgable racers. It’s been a positive experience to learn from them.”

Hall, 28, grew up on Mercer Island’s South-end, attending Mercer Island High School her freshman year before moving to Lakeside, though she still played girls water polo with the Islanders throughout her high school career.

While she learned to ride her bike on the track at Islander Middle School, where her dad first removed her training wheels, Hall said she didn’t buy her first bike until she was in college.

She graduated from Lakeside in 2005 and attended Pomona College, studying chemistry. She moved on to the University of California, Berkeley, studying molecular toxicology and intending to get her Ph.D. She also began racing collegiately and joined an amateur racing team, Metromint cycling. At first, Hall said she wasn’t the most serious cyclist. But then she was selected to a college all-star composite team that competed against a mix of pros and amateurs, and Hall found herself earning the ‘Best Amateur’ jersey off and on.

“It was a pretty fun and exciting race to be a part of, and that was a big step for me,” she said.

In the summer of 2013, Hall applied to race full-time, saying she sent out resumes and cover letters to “pretty much every single domestic team in America,” eventually getting picked up by UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling Team.

Hall said her team consists of an eclectic mix of women of all sorts of backgrounds and age groups, from Olympians to cyclists in their late teens to people like her who were previously on different career paths.

“Having success as a team is the most satisfying part of it to me,” Hall said. “I’m on this team with all these amazing women who have these diverse talents, and when we use our talents together to accomplish more than we can on our own, I find that very satisfying.”

Hall had competed in about 10 races before the Tour Femenino de San Luis. Up to that point, she had served as a domestic on the team, a role calling for her to focus on helping her teammates win. But for the mountain classification of the race’s fifth stage, she was one of three climbers called upon to attack if the opportunity arose.

The race began flat before the mountaintop finish. The team plan called for one of the three climbers to go early in the race and get a good gap before hitting the base of the mountain.

“It could’ve been any of my teammates on that day, but I think I was lucky to be in right place at right time when that break went,” she said. “[I was] never put in position before where it was my job to win if the situation arose, so it was really cool when it did arise and I did win.”

Now residing in Oakland, Hall loves to ride in the hills of Western Sonoma County. She says she spends between 15-20 hours a week training on her bike, with upcoming races in the Redlands and the Tour de Gila this spring. She hopes to help grow the fanbase in the U.S.

And of course, among her goals is to make the world championships, an international event she says that draws double the viewership of the Super Bowl.

“I’m pretty excited with where I am now,” Hall said. “I want to see how far I can make it. I would love to represent my country at the world championships someday.”

All photos courtesy of UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling.