Emily Ehrlich Secures Fourth Straight GC Victory at Valley of the Solar Degree Race in Arizona

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Virginia’s Blue Ridge-TWENTY28 teammates Emily Ehrlich (left) and Marlies Mejías completed one-two on GC at 2025 Valley of the Solar(Symbol credit score: Virginia’s Blue Ridge TWENTY28)A breakaway staff all through the level 2 elite males’s highway race(Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar Degree Race)Enzo Edmonds wins the junior males’s 17-18 level 2 highway race forward of Enzo Hincapie(Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar Degree Race)The elite girls’s box passing desolate tract cacti at the 62-mile level 2 highway race in Casa Grande, Arizona(Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar Degree Race)Carson Mattern (TaG Biking) wins the 95-mile level 2 highway race at 2025 Valley of the Solar(Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar Degree Race)Marlies Mejías wins elite girls’s level 2 (Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar Degree Race)Kendall Ryan wins level 3 in a detailed dash in opposition to Marlies Mejías(Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar)Belize criterium champion Cory Williams earns the win on level 3 at Valley of the Solar(Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar Degree Race)Males’s junior 15-16 nationwide criterium champion wins level 3 on the Valley of the Solar (Symbol credit score: John Sellinger l 2025 Valley of the Solar Degree Race)

Emily Ehrlich (Virginia’s Blue Ridge-TWENTY28) no longer handiest defended her elite girls’s name at Valley of the Solar Degree Race on Sunday, however she changed into the primary rider in 33 years to earn the GC name throughout 4 consecutive years.

As soon as the time trial was once securely in hand, with a 37-second benefit to Fount Biking’s Marjorie Rinaldo, the 31-year-old held secure around the highway race and criterium levels to stay Rinaldo at bay, the Fount rider transferring to 3rd general at 10 seconds again. VBR teammate Marlies Mejías used a level 2 highway race victory to complete moment general, 7 seconds again within the GC.

“VoS is a great way to open the season especially because it focuses on three different disciplines of road racing in three days, it’s a sure-fire way to accelerate your early season fitness, and it’s been an important part of doing that job for me the last four years.”

North American groups descend to Arizona for the hotter local weather and the unofficial begin to a compressed western swing of occasions and crew camps, VoS bookended with the four-stage Tuscon Bicycle Vintage, February 21-23. Held within the larger Phoenix house, VoS gives racing for execs, amateurs and juniors, together with issues for america Juniors Cup. 

Canada’s Carson Mattern (TaG Biking) used a victory within the 95-mile (153km) highway race to safe the GC name for elite males. Cory Lockwood (Golden State Blazers) started the weekend as the primary VoS general males’s chief through successful the ITT. After the 20-year-old Mattern took over the GC on level 2, the Blazers’ rider then completed safely within the box within the criterium to safe moment general, 16 seconds setting apart the 2. Tim McBirney (Workforce Mike’s Motorcycles p/b Equator Coffees) was once 20 seconds off the total mark for 3rd on GC.

Whilst the overall criterium level by no means performed into the total podium, the one-mile loop in downtown Phoenix supplied thrilling racing, the Golden State Blazers dominating the lads’s laps previous the state capitol with Cory Williams and Tyler Williams going one-two. Within the girls’s contest, Kendall Ryan (L39ION of Los Angeles) received in a photograph end forward of VBR teammates Olivia Cummins and Mejías.

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Ehrlich got here in as the favorite, hanging her time trialling abilities on show at the 10-mile (16.1km) race in opposition to the clock in Buckeye. Final 12 months she put her TT engine to paintings at the monitor, successful gold medals on the Pan-American Championships in Carson, California within the Person Pursuit and Workforce Pursuit. That was once her first-ever monitor pageant.

No longer handiest did Erhlich unseat Geneviève Jeanson because the winningest rider at VoS (2001-2003), however her Virginia’s Blue Ridge TWENTY28 crew earned a GC name for a 9th time. The USA Continental programme positioned 4 riders within the most sensible 10.

“Our teamwork was flawless despite this being our first race together. Racing for such a strong team is very exciting” stated newly-signed Anna Hicks, who completed 7th general.

Hicks shall be a part of the core staff driving this weekend in Tucson, in conjunction with Ehrlich and  Mejías, whilst Rylee McMullen and Sofia Arreola will sign up for from monitor pageant of their house areas. McMullen received gold medals on the Oceania Championships within the Issues and Workforce Pursuit races whilst Arreola certified for the Mexican nationwide crew.

USA Juniors Cup

Valley of the Solar was once the second one prevent of 8 occasions in 2025 for america Juniors CUP Race collection. TWENTY28 Aevolo girls swept the 17-18 podium, Landrie McLain taking the total with teammates Emma Jimenez and Bridget Ciambotti at the GC podium.

The lads’s 17-18 general name went to Beckam Drake (HIll’s Recreation Store). Benjamin Juracich (DDP Elite Biking Workforce) was once moment and Rowan Kid (GEPLA Watersley R+D) 3rd. 

The whole GC winners shall be showed at Excursion of The united states’s Dairyland in June, with the Junior 17-18 males’s and girls’s classes 1/2/3 receiving computerized nominations for a 2025 Nationwide Workforce commute, partly funded through america Juniors Cup. 

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