Peter Stetina made the most of his inaugural appearance for the Belgian Waffle Ride North Carolina with a solo victory in Hendersonville on Saturday. Across the 129.5-mile route, he battled most of the day with Nathan Haas and Paul Voss, but broke clear late in the contest for the win in 6:55:23.
Haas finished second, two minutes back, while Voss secured third place well ahead of the chasers, a group of three who were a little more than 15 minutes back. Stephen Vogel claimed fourth, Brent Bookwalter fifth and Eddie Anderson sixth.
Stetina finished sixth at the first round of the Belgian Waffle Ride series in San Marcos, California in early May despite having a broken wrist. After an eighth-place finish at Unbound Gravel, he returned to the podium on his first time racing a gravel event on the East Coast of the US, which presented more than 13,000 feet of climbing on a mix of pavement and dirt roads, with 52.3 miles of the route being gravel.
"We lived in the present, raced hard on perhaps the course with the most vert in all gravel (13,800ft), raced on pristine pavement, rugged fire roads, sinuous singletrack, through a barn with a drum line, and over bridges. In the end it came down to a slug fest between Nathan Haas, Paul Voss and myself. I was able to take the [win] but had to go into some very dark places to do so," Stetina wrote on his Instagram feed.
"My favorite part of Belgian Waffle Ride this weekend was no cell service at the expo. This meant everyone was hanging out in the moment, phones out only for pics."
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Results - elite men
Pos.
Rider Name (Country) Team
Result
1
Peter Stetina
6:55:23
2
Nathan Haas
0:02:12
3
Paul Voss
0:04:16
4
Stephen Vogel
0:19:42
5
Brent Bookwalter
0:20:26
6
Eddie Anderson
0:20:28
7
Innokenty Zavyalov
0:25:37
8
William Hardin
0:29:23
9
Griffin Easter
0:30:29
10
Ian Lopez de San Roman
0:30:31
11
Elliot Baring
0:32:07
12
Dylan Johnson
0:32:08
13
Eli Kranefuss
0:32:09
14
Sean Gardner
0:32:12
15
Taylor Warren
0:33:08
16
Kerry Werner Jr.
0:35:45
17
Kyle Trudeau
0:35:51
18
Clayton Travis
0:37:10
19
Josh Burnett
0:39:15
20
Brennan Wertz
0:39:53
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Jackie has been involved in professional sports for more than 30 years in news reporting, sports marketing and public relations. She founded Peloton Sports in 1998, a sports marketing and public relations agency, which managed projects for Tour de Georgia, Larry H. Miller Tour of Utah and USA Cycling. She also founded Bike Alpharetta Inc, a Georgia non-profit to promote safe cycling. She is proud to have worked in professional baseball for six years - from selling advertising to pulling the tarp for several minor league teams. On the bike, she has climbed l'Alpe d'Huez three times (not fast), and spends time on gravel around horse farms in north Georgia.
