The aptly named Horribly Hilly Hundreds Challenge Ride is a bike race created for people who like to set a goal, push their body to the limit and celebrate a triumph over numerous physical obstacles.

Steve Lehman is not one of these people.

In fact, Lehman says he hasn’t owned a bike since he quit his first job as a paperboy decades ago and he called the race participants “nuts.”

While this may not make him unique, allowing his property to be used as the final rest stop for what might be the toughest 200-kilometer cycling race in Wisconsin certainly does.

“Any other day, I am trying to run you off the road and giving you the finger,” Lehman joked Saturday about the 1,300 bikers who will stop at his lawn in Blue Mounds. “Today I’m going to be nice to you, and you can crash on my lawn.”

Lehman, 54, has gladly lent his property to the Horribly Hilly Hundreds ever since the inception of the event in 2003. To the benefit of thousands of cyclists, Lehman wasn’t given much of a choice.

“Actually my mother was the first one who said I would host a stop,” Lehman said. “She called me and said it was going to happen. I am the one living here — she lives in Mount Horeb — she calls me and says, ‘By the way, in June you are going to have some company’. I said, ‘Great,’ and she said, ‘Well it is going to be about 1,200 people.’ I said, ‘Mom, we don’t know that many people.’”

The final rest stop epitomizes the toughness of the race -- which encompasses 10,700 feet of climbs on the 200K route, and 5,700 feet of elevation gain on the 100K route -- and has fondly come to be called “the graveyard.” Lehman says he came up with the nickname after staring at all the unmoving bodies strewn about his lawn.

“In the first couple years, it was high 80s, high humidity and we literally had to go out in the road and carry people off their bikes because they had cramped up so much,” Lehman said. “They were just laying here for three or four hours at a time, and it just looked like a graveyard.”

When asked about the nickname, first-time racer Dave Krutchen didn’t disagree with the volunteers’ pet name for what is officially Rest Stop No. 4.

“Graveyard?” Krutchen said with a chuckle. “That is definitely fitting, it has been a rough day. … Thank God this is the last stage.”

Though the nickname may have an ominous ring, volunteer captain Brian Clark says nothing too serious has happened to any of the resting bikers.

“Half-hour to an hour is pretty average” for resting time, Clark said. “In that time we can treat most of the minor stuff like heat stroke, dehydration and other injuries.”

Though Lehman cannot relate to the physical challenge the participants put themselves through, he says he will host the stop as long as the race continues.

“People ask, ‘Why do you let us do this?’” Lehman said. “I tell them it is the only day of the year I can see 1,000 people more miserable than me.”