By Jordan Cheyne

The winners of the 38th Tour of the Gila were crowned in the thin air of Pinos Altos on Sunday after a five-day battle through the plains and mountains surrounding Silver City. Here are some of the players. Lauren Stephens of the Aegis Cycling Foundation Mixed Team and Kieran Haug of Project Echelon brought home the race’s final red jerseys and the coveted victor’s Mimbres bowl trophies. For an overview of what went down over the five stages in and around Silver City, watch the stage recaps on YouTube and read the report below.

The UCI Women’s Race
I had the privilege of seeing the UCI women’s race from inside the race caravan this year, directing for the Vancouver, Canada-based TaG Racing team. Even before the first rider rolled off the start ramp for the stage one Tyrone Time Trial, all eyes were on the battle between the defending champion, veteran Lauren Stephens, and the next wave of emerging young talent in the North American women’s peloton.

TaG’s seventeen-year-old star, Sidney Swierenga, confirmed the top form that earned her second overall in the Redlands Bicycle Classic ten days earlier in the 26-kilometer race against the clock. She joined Stephens as the only other woman to break the 40-minute barrier in this year’s time trial, gaining almost a minute on every other contender. Stephens, though, made a peerless first impression on the race, creating a similar one-minute gap over Swierenga in a time trial ride that mirrored her dominant performance in 2024.

There may have been doubts about the effectiveness and motivation of Stephens’ Aegis “mixed team,” which was composed of guest riders racing together for the first time. However, stage two’s finale to the ghost town of Mogollon proved the squad’s commitment to overall victory. Aegis rode confidently together to overcome challenges from teams like TaG on the cross-wind-swept Whitewater Mesa approaching the day’s decisive final climb. From there, Stephens and her climbing ace teammate Emma Langley used their numbers advantage perfectly to dislodge Swierenga and score a one-two finish at the summit. Stephens, for her part, appeared to have an extra gear over any other climber in the group.

Stage three’s Inner Loop Road Race p/b Southwest Bone & Joint Institute/Brian and Lynn Robinson provided scintillating, unpredictable action as riders desperately tried to find a way to wrestle time or at least a stage win away from the dominant race leader. The Redlands winning front team, Fount Cycling Guild, created the most opportunities. Still, in the final kilometers of the stage, Stephens deftly capitalized on a moment of disorganization and sprinted in for a third consecutive stage win.

Galen Bolard of the Competitive Edge Racing team was the only racer who managed to overcome the iron grip of the Aegis team with a display of raw sprinting horsepower on the next day’s Silver City criterium stage. Stephens finished close behind, while Fount’s Minori Minagawa took her second podium result in as many days.

Sunday’s Gila Monster Road Race presented by Gila Regional Medical Center serves as Tour of the Gila’s perennial final test of a race leader’s strength, savvy, and team organization. It was far from a coronation parade for Aegis, as Fount and Patobikes sent riders up the road in a day-long breakaway, trying to create another upset stage victory like Fount’s Elizabeth Dixon managed in last year’s edition. Aegis, though, looked invulnerable, bringing the attackers back at the foot of the final climb and giving their climbers a clear runway for the finale.

TaG’s Sweirenga mustered a gritty, powerful effort in what was her tenth day of North American stage racing since Redlands. She managed to distance third-place rider Langley on the early slopes to Pinos Altos and isolate the red jersey. It would be the last test for Stephens and one she overcame with apparent ease, dropping the second-place GC TaG rider, who is 21 years her junior, toward the top. From there, Aegis made the most of their team strength on the twisting, rolling slopes to the race finish in Pinos Altos. Stephens’ teammate Frankie Hall took victory alongside the red jersey as a reward for her tireless teamwork, and Langley made it a podium sweep for Aegis. Stephens became only the fourth rider in history to win a second overall title at Gila, forcing the next generation of contenders to wait at least one more year for their turn to wear the red jersey.

The UCI Men’s Race
The UCI men’s race was won with consistency and team strength rather than a knockout blow, as Haug claimed fourth in the time trial, second on the Mogollon climb, and third on the final stage, Gila Monster Road Race, on his way to victory. Competitive Edge’s Eric Brunner bested Haug with stage wins in both the opening Tyrone Individual Time Trial presented by Freeport McMoRan and the Downtown Criterium presented by the Town of Silver City but lost too much time on Mogollon to retain the red jersey. Brunner managed second overall, just 22 seconds behind.

As predicted, the Mexican Olinka Specialized team made an impact on the race as well, leaving the race with third overall, two stage wins, and the green points classification jersey with Fausto Esparza. Jose Ramon Muñiz delivered a commanding performance on the Mogollon climb, but the minute-plus he conceded to the other general classification contenders in the time trial proved too much to overcome. The Colombian GW Erco Shimano team managed to pry away the King of the Mountains jersey on the back of Fabian Robinson Lopez’s stage five win, and Echelon’s Jonas Walton repeated as Best Young Rider in the white jersey with sixth overall.

Riders like Muñiz and Brunner may have been left wondering on Sunday after the famously grueling Gila Monster Road Race stage was shortened by over 50 kilometers due to extreme wind forecasts. The course alteration removed two major climbs from the course, including the “Monster” climb itself, a change that may have deprived teams of a chance at challenging Project Echelon’s grip on the race lead. A pure climber like Muñiz was likely dreaming of a long-distance raid across the steep slopes of the Gila National Forest, but fate denied that chance. Project Echelon quelled a similar offensive from the high-flying Team Medellin team last year, though, and Haug proved his ability to climb with the best throughout the tour. The elements always play a part in deciding Tour of the Gila’s champions, and Haug proved himself as the deserving winner in this year’s edition.