Just weeks after finishing second at RADL GRVL in Australia, Melisa Rollins (Liv Racing Collective) went from breaking both wrists at the Otway Odyssey mountain bike race to finishing sixth at the elite women's division at Sea Otter Classic Gravel in California.
She took the fast track of seven weeks to put the physical recovery and "mental battle" behind her, and the reigning Leadville Trail 100 MTB winner will not slow down, but head to The Growler at Levi's Gran Fondo this Saturday with renewed confidence.
It was a wild ride indeed to start the year, but not the journey expected once she left home in Utah to spend winter training and racing in Australia and target top condition for the first of six rounds of the Life Time Grand Prix, a series where she finished runner-up last year.
"I did my early season this year in Australia, so I had the best weather/preparation I have ever had, and on the heels of the best season I've had. I was really looking forward to starting my season off with a bang," she told Cyclingnews.
"When I first crashed during the Otway Odyssey in March I knew immediately that I had broken my left wrist, but two weeks later it had become apparent that something was also wrong with my right wrist. Luckily the right wrist was a non-displaced fracture so no surgery.
"As the reality of the situation sort of set in though, I realised it was a longer road to recovery. I had some pretty bad days, ones where I started workouts and couldn't complete them. I couldn't tie my hair up or cook my own food."
She got the green light from her doctor to race just six days before Sea Otter, so was a bit "timid" and still wore precautionary braces on her wrists.
"I was in survival mode on the descents but I surprised myself being able to hang with the leaders as long as I did on the climbs."
While she was sixth overall for women at Sea Otter, she made the top five among Life Time Grand Prix competitors, so earned the points she wanted, unlike last year where she was barely in the top 10 at her Sea Otter start and used that as a dropped race in the scoring.
"Mentally I've pivoted my focus to really having a good ride at Unbound this year, so I'm excited to be on the mend and to get a race under my belt as I work toward that," Rollins told Cyclingnews.
At her only appearance in Emporia, Kansas, Rollins finished in 2022 in the 200-mile women's race, just over 32 minutes behind winner Soifa Gomez Villafañe. Rollins raced two more years with Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY24 team, where she had a heavy road schedule. But the time on the road allowed her to work on weaknesses, including "top-end speed", and that led to her breakout win at Leadville last year.
Rollins got her start in bike racing on the road and feels "it has shaped me into the rider I am today". Those years spent with Virginia' Blue Ridge TWENTY24, where she finishing fourth in the mountains classification at UCI-level Tour of the Gila and taking sixth place at US Pro Road Nationals in the ITT, will be put to use at The Growler.
The Growler
Saturday's 137-mile course is filled with more than 13,000 feet of elevation gain, including technical descents and tight, twisty, unmaintained roads to create a 'Classic-style' race.
Rollins will also face a star-studded field with high ambitions for the second edition of the one-day race, with top 10 women and top 10 men sharing in a $156,000 prize purse.
Defending champion Lauren De Crescenzo will be there, and inaugural appearances include Sea Otter podium finishers Villafañe and Cecily Decker as well as Courtney Sherwell, Danni Shrosbree, Flavia Oliveira Parks, Gwendalyn Gibson, Kira Payer and Paige Onweller.
Men's defending champion Keegan Swenson will line up against WorldTour contender Luke Lamperti this time, as well as many of the same contenders he faced a week ago in his Sea Otter win, including Matt Beers, Alexey Vermeulen, Petr Vakoč, Mattia de Marchi, Lawrence Naesen, Alex Howes and Peter Stetina.
"This is bar-none the most difficult road race in America," event co-founder and former WorldTour pro Levi Leipheimer told Cyclingnews.
New for 2025 are separate start times for elite men and elite women at the start, then the amateurs in a mass start behind those two divisions.
Also new for this edition of The Growler is a live broadcast using multiple cameras and drones to follow action for both the elite women and the elite men in the final two to three hours of racing, which will be free to watch on the race website via the YouTube channel feed.
The final hours of the race should include the decisive 18-mile climb on the Geyses section of the course, with a pivotal descent to the finish in Windsor.
"Geysers is a 45-minute climb, very uneven and the last part is very steep. It is the crux of the entire course. I think what makes this exciting is there's a bit of a runway from the bottom of the descent to the finish. So things can come back together, it makes for an unknown result, which is exciting."
