As the race caravan turned onto Silver City Blvd., the head UCI official’s voice crackled on race radio: “Welcome to the Gila Monster, the hardest stage in the hardest race in America.” That is no exaggeration. With over one hundred miles and nearly 10,000 feet of climbing on the men’s course, the “Monster” is the closest thing we have to a European mountain stage in the US. It is a stage that can shape the career trajectory of its victors just as it shapes the overall classification of the race. The end result at a finish line at 8,500 feet of elevation in Pinos Altos can earn a rider the race winner’s red jersey and international attention in the world of professional cycling. Cruelly, it can just as easily shatter dreams formed in the previous four stages of racing-costing a rider minutes if they can’t rise to the challenge.
Women’s Race Review
For the 2024 Tour of the Gila, I had the privilege of directing the Ecoflo-Chronos U23 men’s team, which meant I had a front row seat to the action throughout the week. Our high general classification position leading in to the stage meant I was driving towards the front of the race caravan and could see the men’s race develop in real time. However, this meant I had a limited perspective on the women’s race this time around. Still, I was able to keep track of the race and review some excellent footage from the race’s new live broadcasts each day.
Overall, the race was a complete display of force by Cynisca leader American Lauren Stephens. Over the course of the five stages, Stephen’s placement record was first, third, first, third and second leading to an inevitable overall victory by close to three minutes over the nearest challenger Nadia Gontova of the DNA Pro Cycling squad. Gontova again showed the sizzling climbing form that led to her resounding victory in Redlands earlier this month and even added a stronger fourth place showing in the time trial. Stephens just had another gear in those disciplines though and somehow added stage-podium time bonuses in the sprints on stages two and four as well. In case that wasn’t enough, Cynisca took the victory in the stage four criterium with nineteen year-old sprinter Chloe Patrick, who had the privilege of wearing the Stars and Stripes jersey from her U23 national title win in Knoxville last year.
I mentioned Stephens as a contender in our race preview but categorized her as a dark horse, not knowing how her form would be after a successful but busy early season European campaign. She left no doubt in her performance of course, adding another big result to what is likely a campaign aimed at selection for the 2024 American Olympic team.
Our other pre-race favorites captured varying degrees of glory throughout the week. While American super-team, the Utah-based DNA acquitted themselves well with Gontova’s GC podium, their rivals at Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty24 had a more tepid overall challenge. The team will surely take consolation from their win on stage two with sprinter Marlies Mejias Garcia. Last year’s best returning rider Marcela Prieto had to make do with fourth overall this time around. The Fount team continued their ascension in the North American peloton with third and fifth overall from their riders Eleanor Wiseman and Ali Shafi, while also setting up Elizabeth Dixon to take a stunning solo win on the final stage. Finally, a few riders who escaped mention in our race preview put their stamp on the race including Yania Kushkova from the Uzbekistan-based Tashkent City team and Ngaire Barraclough of Boneshaker Roxo who took sixth and seventh overall respectively.
The Men’s Race
The Lead Up
Our preview subtitle “Project Echelon vs. Everyone” proved fitting from the first stage mountain top finish in this year’s edition. Echelon star Tyler Stites was left to battle the Medellin team’s Columbian armada towards the summit, somehow finishing second on the same time as Wilmar Parades, trailed by an astounding four other Medellin riders in the top seven.
With such immense team strength against him, Stites would need to take time in the individual test on stage three’s time trial to afford himself a chance at the overall. As usual, Stites delivered and put Parades to the sword-taking well over 3 minutes over 26 kilometers and also demoralizing Medellin star Oscar Sevilla by catching him on the finishing straight. This left Medellin with only Walter Vargas in second at 30 seconds back heading into the Monster.
Buoyed by sprint victories on stages two and four by Scott McGill and Cade Bickmore, Echelon would have entered the final stage with a sense of cautious optimism. But with so many vertical feet of climbing and so many Columbian specialists lurking in the top ten overall, the race leader’s red jersey was far from confirmed as the race sprinted out of Silver City for the final time on Sunday.
Breakaway Formation
In my pre-race meeting with the Ecoflo-Chronos boys, I encouraged them to fight for the early breakaway on stage five and advised that in my many participations in the race since 2014, the break had always gone in the opening 23 kilometers before the top of the first KOM point. From there the field usually allows the escapees a relatively large advantage of five-plus minutes, knowing that the lead will crumble in the climbs to come.
Project Echelon had also seemed intent on letting breakaways escape with minimal pushback on the previous stages, allowing select riders “to steal a march,” as Uncle Phil would say, within moments of the start on stages one, two and four. It seemed a good bet that the pattern would repeat itself on stage five and I predicted as much. I was very wrong.
The breakaway took an agonizing 56 kilometers to form and was only allowed a scant minute of advantage at most. It appeared that Medellin and Project Echelon both wanted to send satellite riders up the road to play a role in the finale but crucially each wanted that advantage exclusive of the other. Along with many other teams eager to get something out of the day, riders continually cancelled out each other’s attacks for over an hour until a truce was reached and three non-threatening riders went away with a meager margin.
The Build Up
The racers enjoyed perhaps fifteen minutes of calm after the breakaway finally escaped and hurriedly restocked bottles from team cars and took their “nature-breaks” at the side of the road. Before long, the pace picked back up as teams drag raced for prime position heading into the stage’s first major category 2 climb of 12 kilometers to Cooperas Vista. The breakaway’s advantage was only 25 seconds at the bottom and the field allowed the gap to simmer for the first half of the ascent before ratcheting up the pace on the steeper slopes towards the summit. Over the top, maybe 30 riders remained with dozens making daredevil descents through the caravan to rejoin at the bottom.
The major players looked unfazed by the race’s first big obstacle with Echelon and Medellin only losing one domestique each at that point. Echelon carefully controlled the front, riding fast enough to keep any attackers in check while keeping their stronger climbers out of the wind and in reserve for the grueling final 50 kilometers of the race
The Big Move
The final, decisive phase of the Gila Monster stage invariably starts at the bottom of the category one Cliff Dwellings climb, which goes up the descent the riders came down from the previous cat two. While the elevation gain is nearly identical as the manageable slopes to Cooperas Vista, the gradients coming back are much more severe and always serve to disintegrate the front of the race. Racers are immediately met with double digit gradients and in the team car I watched the speedometer dip below 15 kilometers an hour as our own rider Jonas Walton clung to the lead group and his white best young rider’s jersey.
Echelon lost a few of its powerful pacemakers as they finished their duties, leaving Sam Boardman and Ricky Arnopol at the front to protect Stites’ red jersey interests. As expected, the radio revealed an attack from Medellin midway up the climb and it was a serious one. Instead of probing the strength of the Echelon train with its secondary GC weapons, the Columbians went straight for the kill with Parades storming off the front. He needed over three minutes to recapture the race lead and he now had over an hour of racing and thousands of vertical feet to do so.
In the car, I expected to see more riders cast off the back as the pace was raised in response, but the group of fifteen or so remained intact. Instead of personally marking the acceleration and risking a high altitude blow-up, Stites leaned on his teammates to mediate the gap. Parades was bravely joined only by Canels rider Efron Santos and the two pulled out a gap slowly up to 45 seconds approaching the summit. With a long, shallow “pedalling” descent to follow, Echelon went to work chasing and kept the attackers in touching distance before the last major climb towards the finish in Pinos Altos.
The Finale
I have to admit, I was beating on the steering wheel and cheering Project Echelon on in those closing stages for a couple of reasons. I am partial because I rode for the team in 2022 and consider many of the riders good friends, but they were also doing a perfect job pacing my own team rider towards keeping his white jersey and a high overall position. As Arnopol and Boardman took pulls on the front and kept the attackers within ninety seconds, Jonas was getting the smooth ride he needed as well. Twenty kilometers, fifteen, ten, five…and the gap remained stable with another U23 rider Lopez of Aevolo now dangling with Canel’s Santos between Echelon and Parades.
Three kilometers from the finish, the road kicked up one more time and so did my heart rate. It was the last spot where Echelon and Jonas could crack and lose time. But Parades’ assault wavered, perhaps realizing the overall win was out of reach, and the gap actually shrank as the race headed under the “flamme rouge” with one kilometer remaining. Moments later the radio relayed the solo victory of the Columbian ahead just as Stites hit the wind for the first time all day and sprinted towards the line with the rest of the lead group.
Arnopol and Boardman high fived as they slow rolled in amongst the caravan cars behind and I did the same with our mechanic John in the car. Job done, jerseys locked up, race over-and the controversial Columbian riders vanquished. It was a Tour de Force by Stites and Echelon that left no doubt and filled one of the last remaining holes in their North American palmares. Maybe, just maybe, with yet another commanding victory under his belt, Tyler Stites can finally take his rightful place among the best riders on the planet in the World Tour.
All photos by Kai Caddy.
Fabulous writing, Jordan!
-your 2022 Redlands hosts