Lost and Found may have been set in Portola, California but the top spots across the Pro Men's and Women's race were both claimed by debuting riders from New Zealand, Ruby Ryan and Matthew Wilson (Scott Sports USA), who had decided to take a road trip out to the event after Unbound.
Wilson took a solo victory in the men's Gravel Earth series race ahead of Payson McElveen (Allied Cycle Works-Red Bull) while last year's winner Peter Stetina claimed third, passing Skyler Taylor (Pinarello) on the run to the line, as he bounced back from a gash to his knee that ended his Unbound endeavours.
Ryan, on the other hand, clinched the women's race in a two-way sprint, deciding to hop in the car and make her debut after men's winner Wilson suggested she too, should check out the event, and then finding another compatriot out on course to share the day of racing with.
"I rode most of the day with my fellow kiwi Samara Sheppard, who finished second," said the mountain biker from New Zealand who is part of the Life Time Grand Prix series. "We got away at mile 66, and then we were just rotating. It was great to be with her at the end, and it came down to a sprint finish. I think that was my first sprint win, so I'm happy."
Jennifer Tavé (SpeedBlock-Terún Pro Cycling) then rolled over the line about three minutes back to take third, repeating her result of 2025.
In the men's race, through the double-track it thinned down to a group of three – Wilson, McElveen and Taylor – but then, at the second-to-last feed zone, Taylor was left behind, and the duo of Wilson and McElveen were out the front.
"Then we just rolled turns from there until the final gravel climb," said Wilson in a race Instagram post. "We could see Skyler starting to come up on the horizon. Over the top of that climb I attacked on the descent and got a reasonable gap down the hill and managed to hold that till the entry of the single track.
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"Once I was in the single track I was back in my home element and able to open up that gap a bit more and get out of sight and I just soloed home back down the hill."
It was Wilson's second win in as many weeks, with the rider who clinched a wildcard entry to the Life Time Grand Prix at Unbound having also snared a very different victory at Tulsa Tough. There, he washed the mud off his gravel bike, threw on some road wheels and claimed the McElroy River Parks criterium solo.
Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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