Michael Garrison and Lauren De Crescenzo Dominate Again with Back-to-Back Homegrown Gravel Victories

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Homegrown Gravel Race dash end after 100 miles in elite males’s department(Symbol credit score: Andrew Hetherington)Georgia’s Michael Garrison wins the dash end at 2025 Homegrown in entrance of Canadian Andrew l’Esperance(Symbol credit score: Andrew Hetherington)Two-time elite girls’s winner Lauren De Crescenzo at the direction at 2025 Homegrown Gravel Race(Symbol credit score: Andrew Hetherington)Elite girls heading in the right direction alongside Chattahoochee River at 2025 Homegrown Gravel Race(Symbol credit score: Andrew Hetherington)Homegrown Gravel Race 2025 girls’s podium(Symbol credit score: Andrew Hetherington)Elite males’s podium at 2025 Homegrown Gravel(Symbol credit score: Long term l Jackie Tyson)HomeGrown 2025 Wahoo riders Andrew l’Esperance and Ian Boswell(Symbol credit score: Jackie Tyson)Elite girls had their very own get started in 2025(Symbol credit score: Andrew Hetherington)Homegrown Gravel Race males’s two-time champion Michael Garrison enjoys celebratory beverage in customized winner’s mug(Symbol credit score: Andrew Hetherington)Hearth pits on the end line had been common on a cold iciness day in Franklin, Georgia (Symbol credit score: Jackie Tyson)

Michael Garrison (MGR p/b NICH SpeedClub) narrowly edged Andrew l’Esperance (Ahead Racing) at the uphill dash to win a moment time on the 100-mile Homegrown Gravel Journey in Franklin, Georgia. Lauren De Crescenzo (Issue-The Feed-Castelli-Maxxis-Wahoo-PERC Espresso) rode solo for 85 miles to copy because the elite girls’s champion on Saturday.

The lads’s box additionally integrated former Unbound Gravel 200 winner Ian Boswell, closing 12 months’s Homegrown podium finisher Andy Scarano, US cyclocross specialist Andrew Dillman and previous US Professional criterium champion Ty Magner, all desperate to trip outdoor beneath sunny skies on a difficult direction and opt for a proportion in a $10,000 prize handbag.

The morning started with temperatures smartly beneath the freezing mark and organisers put the race’s motto to the check, “US Grade-A gravel that’s always fresh and never frozen”. The week ahead of, seven inches of rain soaked the filth roads and washed out a bit of the direction alongside the Chattahoochee River, however riders discovered restricted muddy sections on a path with 80% gravel that added as much as 8,700 ft of mountaineering.

“I have days on the gravel where the legs just feel good, I did not feel that today. I knew I wanted to come to a sprint. In all the crits I raced last year, I always had a really bad sprint. So I’ve been doing sprints all winter. And I was like now’s the time to test it out – ‘here we go, don’t fuck this up’.”

Boswell was once one of the vital first riders to check out to get a divorce the lead pack however pulled off the gasoline by means of mile 15. Some other 15 miles on L’Esperance attacked, adopted by means of Nathan Surowiec (Lees-McRae Faculty) and Garrison. Through mile 70 it was once simply Garrison and L’Esperance in on the entrance, Surowiec chasing and a six-rider staff seeking to shut the distance. Surowiec completed 3rd in the back of the sprinting duo, gained by means of Garrison, whilst Scarano and Boswell went fourth and 5th, respectively, as soon as breaking clear of the chase staff within the ultimate 8 miles.

The ladies’s race was once a compact staff of 25 riders who had a devoted get started quarter-hour after the elite males. De Crescenzo stated she had corporate for the primary 15 miles, however as soon as at the rougher Alabama roads, she picked up her tempo and nobody may just observe.

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“It was a great day, and hero dirt, fast and tacky gravel, that was pretty much perfect. Once I was out there it was like a training ride,” De Crescenzo stated on the end, the use of this race as her tune-up for The MidSouth, the place she’ll opt for a fourth win in a row.

Liza Ray (Answers Biking) sped up with De Crescenzo and stored the chief in her attractions till she dropped a sequence a couple of miles later. Ray would end moment, 19 mins again, whilst Olivia Pantano claimed her moment podium in two editions, any other 3 mins in the back of Ray.

House benefit at Homegrown

Whilst L’Esperance travelled two days ahead of the race from Quebec, Canada to start his race season, tagging along side fellow Wahoo-sponsored rider Boswell, Garrison handiest needed to force an hour from Atlanta for the development. On the other hand, Garrison was once in a rush to get to Franklin the evening ahead of and he forgot his diet merchandise at house and were given up at 5:30 a.m. Saturday to make the two-hour round-trip force again to his house ahead of beginning the race.

“I am a person who wakes up early, and so I realized at about 5:30 I had left my pack and all my [nutrition] mix in Atlanta, I drove to Atlanta and back this morning, before the race.”

L’Esperance left 8 ft of accrued snow in the back of him for the day out to Georgia. He stated the race was once handiest his moment trip outdoor on a motorbike this 12 months, having executed a brief spin on Friday after weeks of indoor coaching.

“This is kind of the racy gravel [from 3T]. We’ll have a more aggressive one for the heavy races, like Unbound, and then also the road bike for some of the road events. Sean Fincham and I have a small private team. He’s racing the Grasshopper in California right now, so we’re on both sides of the country. Our first race together will be Sea Otter.”

Match sponsor Wahoo Health inspired a number of in their subsidized riders to go back and forth to Georgia for the second-year race, previously referred to as Border Wars, which has part the direction in Georgia and the opposite part in Alabama. Boswell, the athlete liaison for Wahoo, did not have to barter with l’Esperance for the day out south.

“It might be the best event that I will do all year.”

ResultsSwipe to scroll horizontallyElite girls’s best 10 in 100-mile HomegrownPosNameTime1Lauren De Crescenzo05:28:542Liza Ray00:19:393Olivia Pantano00:22:074Rebecca Lang00:40:235Katie Prowell00:40:286Ali Lecraw00:44:197Kae Takeshita01:01:438Grace Wilson01:48:399Caitlin Friesen01:48:3910Maria Doring01:48:40Swipe to scroll horizontallyElite males’s best 10 in 100-mile HomegrownPosNameTime1Michael Garrison04:53:582Andrew l’Esperance00:00:003Nathan Surowiec00:00:034Andy Scarano00:11:555Ian Boswell00:11:566Michael Lambert00:12:307Ben Kolbie00:13:418Ty Magner00:15:189Andrew Dillman00:17:0210PJ Terry00:21:58