Wilmar Paredes (Team Medellín) won stage 1 of the Tour of the Gila with a strong push on the final climb of the Mogollon Road Race p/b Grant County.
Redlands Bicycle Classic champion Tyler Stites (Project Echelon Racing) finished second, with Paredes’ teammate Walter Vargas in third. Team Medellín had three riders in the top five, Oscar Sevilla finishing just behind fourth-placed Heiner Para (Canel’s-Java).
Starting in Silver City, New Mexico, the pro men faced 92 miles (148km) to the mountaintop finish at Mogollon, a former mining community, long ago abandoned and left as a ‘ghost’ town.
Four riders got away by the mid-point of the race – David Gaona Vázquez (Team Skyline), Ignacio de Jesus Prado Juarez (Canel’s-Java), Alexis Bouchard (Team Ecoflo Chronos) and Alexander Marr (Rio Grande Elite) – and they built a gap of 12:50.
A trio remained out front, Marr no longer connected, as they set off toward the Mogollon climb, a 3.8-mile ascent with pitches up to 19% near the top. CS Velo Racing set a searing pace at the front of the peloton in the chase.
Once on the climb, the time gap plummeted, with riders from Team Medellín and Project Echelon Racing putting their leaders at the front.
Results
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