Tyler Stites made history on Sunday when he won the overall title at the 2024 Redlands Bicycle Classic for the third consecutive year. Stites led the general classification from start to finish, after claiming victory on stage 1 and then consolidating his position on the stage 3 time trial.
Stites’ Project Echelon team not only successfully defended the leader’s jersey but also took the victory on the final stage when Brendan Rhim attacked in the finishing circuits to win the Redlands Sunset Road Race. Rhim claimed the fourth stage win for the squad after his teammate Scott McGill sprinted to victory in yesterday’s criterium.
Crossing the line four seconds behind Rhim, Brody McDonald (Aevolo Cycling) claimed the field sprint for second place ahead of Tyler Williams (Denver Disruptors).
Rhim had made his move along with a few other riders as the field was flying down onto the circuits after his team successfully defended against all attacks on the 12 laps of the hilly Sunset Loop.
“It was a little hectic. We were catching the pace car and one of the motorcycles and we'd all been trading off attacks down onto the circuit and I had just hit it at the right time and had a little bit of a gap,” Rhim explained. “We were trading turns and I started sitting on just because I was allowed to do that when we have Tyler.”
Rhim was waiting to see if the other two riders would burn themselves out when his teammate Sam Boardman bridged across and immediately went off the front. Rhim was able to sit on as the other two riders pulled them across to Boardman and then attacked again, and he was able to get and hold a gap to the finish line.
Rain fell for the start of the men’s final stage, adding extra spice to the already challenging terrain on the 93.1-mile (150km) stage. Attacks flew, as the field made its way around the two starting circuits before heading to the Sunset Loop where Eder Frayre (Williams Racing Devo), Miles Hubbard (Voler Factory) and Allan Schroeder (CS Velo) were able to escape. Seeing the gap start to hover close to the minute mark, McDonald and Kellen Caldwell (TeamCAbike ) jumped from the field and bridged up, making it five up the road.
Project Echelon kept the gap to under one minute and reeled in the break mid-way through the race. More attacks followed which were shut down and the main peloton was still together the final time up Sunset. And that’s when Rhim started thinking of the stage win.
“We were thinking we would need all the help possible to keep Tyler in the jersey. So we weren't thinking about the stage at all. It was only when we got to the top of the climb on the last lap that we started thinking about the stage,” concluded Rhim who just completed his sixth Redlands Bicycle Classic.
Owen Wright (CS Velo) grabbed three bonus seconds in an intermediate sprint and moved up one spot in the general classification, 37 seconds down from Stites. Joseph Laverick (Ribble Rebellion) was third, two seconds further back.
Results
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