Howard Grotts refused to race conservatively to secure an overall stage race championship. It paid off.
The 24-year-old Olympian from Durango clinched the Epic Rides mountain bike series overall championship Sunday in Carson City, Nevada. He held a big lead after the first two Epic Rides events in Prescott, Arizona, and Grand Junction. With a larger payout for winning one race than the overall series, Grotts went all-out in Nevada to earn the Carson City Off-Road win.
He won $5,000 for his winning time of 3 hours, 52 minutes, 25 seconds, and an extra $2,500 for the series victory. Added to $5,000 for his win and Grand Junction and $3,000 for his second-place result at the Whiskey Off-Road on April 29 in Arizona, and Grotts earned a grand total of $15,500 in prize money in the three Epic Rides events this year. Grotts edged Kyle Trudeau by 26 minutes, 1 second in the overall.
Grotts was excited to win the overall by winning the series finale, but fellow Fort Lewis College alum Keegan Swenson made him work for it Sunday. Swenson finished second in 3:54:41, hanging with Grotts through the climbs. The course featured 7,000-plus feet of climbing over the 50 miles. Carson City’s race features epic views of the Sierra Nevada, Lake Tahoe, Washoe Valley and Carson Valley.
Durangoan Benjamin Sonntag had a strong chance at second place in the overall standings, but an injury forced him to withdraw from the third and final event. His loss was the gain of Durangoan Payson McElveen, who rode to fourth place Sunday in 3:59:02. That result helped him get onto the overall podium by jumping past Geoff Kabush and Chris Baddick. Kabush had tough luck in Carson City with flat tires and finished 29th, and McElveen made up 18 minutes on Baddick after entering 1-minute behind him to get on the podium and earn an extra $1,000 in the overall to go with a $1,500 pay day for fourth place in Carson City.
“It’s a bummer a couple of guys went down with injuries, and it was definitely a surprise to end up on the overall podium,” McElveen said. “I wasn’t thinking about it going into the weekend, but dominoes fell in my favor. I’ve been on the wrong end of that luck before with mechanicals late in stage races that stole the wind from me in the 11th hour, so it’s nice to be on the other end of the conversation.”
Racers dealt with extreme heat and deteriorating course conditions in Nevada last weekend. The backcountry race Sunday was moved up an hour early to try to get cyclists off the course before the extreme heat set in later in the day. It was dry and dusty, and more ruts and rocky conditions made the descents tricky to navigate.
Still, Grotts and Swenson handled it in style to finish well ahead of third-place Stephen Ettinger.
Ettinger and McElveen finished close together, as the two Ridebiker teammates held off a strong group of riders behind them.
McElveen said it was nine riders together after one lap, and he raced a conservative second to manage the heat and not exert too much energy before the final lap.
“I had a good experience at Carson City last year and learned a lot from that,” McElveen said. “This year, I was stronger, more fit and more relaxed mentally.”
Heavy snowfall in the winter closed the upper portions of the traditional loop. Snow was visible in the high country, but it was blazing down below.
Durango’s Todd Wells, who won the Epic Rides overall but dealt with tough luck with mechanical issues in the first two races of the 2017 series, finished eighth in Carson City in 4:04:55. He finished 29th in the overall this year.
“My teammate, (Ettinger), had a great day, and it was him, Howard, Keegan and I in a group in the first climb,” McElveen said. “Geoff and Todd kept us on a short leash and bridged back on the descent. Going into the third lap, I was fourth with a group of Todd and a few others. The third lap, I pulled back on the throttle and gave everything I had left. I closed back to almost third place. The whole day it was a balance of risk and reward with the potential to flat out there. It had to be paced more conservatively, especially on descents.”
Kabush used lighter tires in hopes of a chance at a win. It didn’t pay off with a couple of flats.
“It was a gamble and a calculated decision some racers make, it just didn’t work out for him,” McElveen said. Ryan Standish, an FLC alum of Durango, finished 10th in 4:11:46. Another FLC rider, Stephan Davoust, was 17th in 4:19:24, and Durango’s Jorge Munoz was 19th in 4:23:40.
On the women’s side, Rose Grant of Montana took first in Carson City in 4:26:41. Amy Beisel of Colorado Springs was second in 4:41:21, and Katerina Nash was third in 4:46:29. FLC alumna Sofia Gomez-Villafañe was seventh in 5:01:22.
Nash was the women’s overall winner. The California-based rider edged Beisel by 9 minutes, 18 seconds. Evelyn Dong of Boulder was third in the overall, and Gomez-Villafañe finished sixth.
In Friday’s downtown fat-tire criterium race, Kabush was first, Wells was second and Swenson placed third. Grotts took fourth, and McElveen rounded out the podium in fifth. Those events are for pride and prestige only without a cash payout.
Nash won the women’s criterium, followed by Grant, Beisel and Gomez-Villafañe.
Grotts left immediately for Germany for this weekend’s marathon world championships. He finished second to McElveen at marathon nationals this year and was ninth at the world championships in 2016. McElveen also earned a seat at marathon worlds but declined the appointment because of finances. USA Cycling does not pay for support crews at marathon worlds, and McElveen said that is because it is not an Olympic discipline and the governing body uses its funds to support Olympic disciplines.
“I don’t blame them for not offering support, but it was up to me to get my own support there,” McElveen said. “It probably would’ve cost me $6,000 to $8,000, and it would’ve meant skipping a race or two later in the year. I would’ve liked to be there, but I’m not as gutted about it as some may expect. I hope to have other opportunities in the near future to do that sort of thing.”
McElveen will race the Angel Fire pro cross-country race this weekend. It is a UCI Category 1 race. Then he’s off to the Firecracker 50 in Breckenridge on the Fourth of July. Then all focus shifts to this year’s national championships in West Virginia, scheduled for July 18-23 in Snowshoe.
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
