Breck- Epic Stage 3

Breck-Epic Stage 3: Mount Guyot

Breck-Epic race director Mark McCormack wanted Stage 3 to be the queen stage. He wanted to challenge the riders and create drama in the general classification. McCormack was successful on both counts. The Mount Guyot stage challenged even the strongest riders, at Georgia Pass just below the peak of Mount Guyot former World Champion Alison Dunlap said, “I want to go back into retirement.” That was just before 8 miles of downhilling on the Colorado Trail, which certainly changed her mind.

One rider who wasn’t thinking of retirement was Jeremiah Bishop (Monavie-Cannondale.com). The Monavie rider used today to blow apart his competition. Bishop excelled on the early climbs, of which there were many, opening gaps on the chasers including Travis Brown (Trek) who trailed Bishop by just 46 seconds in the GC. By the time the riders crested Georgia Pass at mile 22 Bishop had opened a 4 minute gap on Brown and showed no sign of slowing.

Despite the 43-mile racecourse and roughly 8,000 vertical feet of climbing Bishop was standing and pounding on the pedals like it was a cross country race. After Georgia Pass, Brown had 8 solid miles of descending to work his magic and limit his time gap on the leader. Bishop wasn’t having any of it today. After the downhill and final climb the Monavie strongman had put an additional 2 minutes into second place. Bishop crossed the line with an astonishing time of 3 hours 33 minutes.

Report courtesy of MTBracenews.com