Whipple Dam stage shuffles men's GC

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Stage six of the Trans-Sylvania Epic was labeled in the race bible as the "Queen Stage", but little did riders know that the Queen would take some heads with her. The men's open race ended with the top six men scorching the most technical course of the race in under two hours. Alex Grant (Cannondale Factory Racing) took top honors for the day almost 30 seconds over Drew Edsall (Yeti).

"We all started sweating pretty quickly," said Grant.

It was another humid day of racing in the Pennsylvania woods, but the real sweat factor was caused by a battle for the second place position at the end of tomorrow. The early spark of Evan Plews (evanplews.com) faded, along with his solid second place for the first half of the Epic.

With Grant's finish on the day and two days of smart riding from local Brandon Draugelis (PAValleys.com), the battle for second overall amongst three people is only split by seven seconds going into the last day. Even more stunning is the fact that Draugelis and Grant are in a tie for the second place after six days of racing, and it is Christian Tanguy (Team CF) who is seven seconds behind.

Jeremiah Bishop (Cannondale Factory Racing) flatted during the stage and lost a fair amount of time that would have put anyone else in trouble, but his large time gap over second kept him safe. Blake Harlan (Jamis) had a steady day in the rocks and managed to take fifth which moved him up to seventh overall.

Mark Weir of Wilderness Trail Bikes (WTB) has been loving the last two days, even calling today's trails "the funnest stuff I've ridden in a long time. That Tussey Ridge is beautiful." His results are reflecting the fun he's having and his building fitness. With three days in a row of seventh place finishes, Weir has moved up to an eighth overall in the general classification.

Selene Yeager (Team CF) continued her impressive defense of the leader jersey with a stage victory and opened up further time gains on her competitors. Karen Potter (MTBRaceNews.com) caught Yeager on two occasions during the stage, showing her prowess in the rocks, but was unable to come around the woman who has a seemingly insurmountable lead in the GC competition.

Showing that it is not wise to count him out, Alec Petro (Team Psycho) narrowed the gap to Garth Prosser (Cannondale Factory Racing) significantly today and now sits only 1:30 behind Prosser on the leader board for the singlespeeders.

Meanwhile, the duo, singlespeed and tandem categories remained essentially unaltered.

With only seven seconds separating second through fourth in the men's GC, tomorrow's final stage promises to be a hard fought battle on the remaining trails in the Trans-Sylvania Epic. It is likely the masters will also find themselves in a fight with Petro and Prosser separated by such small margin at this point in the race. Meanwhile the riders in the other categories are planning a "Tour de France-style fun final stage" complete with local wines and horseplay reflecting their enjoyment of the inaugural Trans-Sylvania Epic.

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