Trebon triumphs on day one of UCI3 'cross weekend

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Ryan Trebon (Kona-FSA) won his first UCI cyclo-cross race of the season at the Cyclo-Stampede p/b Darkhorse Racing, round one of the Cyclocross Festival in Ohio. The national talent out-rode his teammate Barry Wicks who placed second and Jeremy Powers (Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com) in third.

"It’s nice to win, it’s better than getting beaten so it’s nice to win a race," said Trebon who suffered from sciatic nerve inflammation several weeks ago. "Sometimes it takes a little longer to get a win that you would like it to. My leg injury is definitely manageable now and I’ve been getting physical therapy and so it is not doing too bad. It only flares up when I’m doing a lot of traveling."

The opening event was held in Devou Park in Covington, Kentucky. It marked the first of a three round series called the Cincinnati UCI 3 Cyclocross Festival that also includes the Java Johnny’s C2 category event on Saturday and the Harbin Park C1 category event on Sunday.

"I think the heat helped me today, it was hot, about 80 degrees," Trebon said. "It was also a really challenging course, on top of a hill and it was probably one of the hilliest courses we will be doing all year. But some days you're better and some days you're not. I felt like I had pretty good fitness. I didn't flat, no crashes and no problems."

The race heats up during round one

Ryan Trebon (KONA-FSA) forced an early gap on the first lap with Jeremy Powers (Cannondale p/b Cyclocrossworld.com) in tow. Powers launched his own attack that lengthened the margin to a small chase group.

Among the chasers was Trebon’s teammate Barry Wicks, Canadian National Champion Geoff Kabush (Maxxis-Rocky Mountain), Brian Matter (Geargrinder), Ryan Knapp (Bikereg.com), Chris Jones (Rapha-Focus) and Troy Wells (Clif Bar).

The pair of leaders displayed compatible strengths and slugged each other with one attack after another and each gained a short-lived lead. However, it was Trebon who found the legs to open a sizable 30 second gap with three laps to go. Powers fell off Trebon’s pace and was later caught and passed on the course by Wicks.

"It was a really hard course and super hot and I was really losing a lot of fluid out there," Powers said. "The way the course was set up it didn't really suit me, there was a long travel day yesterday. But Ryan was riding really good today and he showed that he had that first couple of laps from Gloucester form with him. Cheers to Ryan, he’s not a bad guy to win."

"There were parts of the course that he was better on and some parts that I was better on but we were evenly matched," he added. "I ran out of fluid and was literally burning up. I had that think chunky salt all over me. It was hot for 'cross especially after racing in the cooler temperature on the east coast."

Race officials allowed a feeding section due to the warmer than usual temperatures. Powers was further slowed down when he attempted to take a water bottle feed inside two laps to go and was forced to stop in the pits for several seconds by race officials.

"It was a slight downhill feed zone and it was really short," Powers said. "It was closed for the first two laps and the last two laps. I dropped my bottle with three laps to go and then I got confused with the amount of laps that were going and I had to stop in the pit and put my foot down for two seconds because it wasn't a feed lap anymore."

Trebon soloed into his first UCI win of the season nearly one minute ahead of his teammate Wicks. Meanwhile, Powers rode in for a respectable third place ahead of Kabush.

"It was great to see Barry riding back at the front again," Trebon said. "When you do a lot of racing with Tim [Johnson] and Jeremy, those two guys are always at the front. Today, Barry started out in fourth place and just continued to move up steadily the whole race. It was like Barry and I were double teaming Jeremy. He just had a really great race and riding super steady."

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