Tom Zirbel (Rally Cycling) won the Tour of the Gila time trial for the fourth time in his career, powering through the windy 26.4km test to top up-and-coming Canadian time trial specialist Alex Cataford (Silber) by six seconds. Neilson Powless (Axeon Hagens Berman), winner of the Joe Martin stage race, put in yet another strong performance this year, coming in third at 15 seconds.
Zirbel is in his last year of professional cycling before retirement, and was thrilled to win the stage on his final visit to the Tyrone course. "This is my first individual win of the year, and it's great to win, especially here, this race is dear to me. I feel like I kind of launched my career here, and I love it here. I love the desert, I love how this race is run, Jack [Brennan] puts his heart into it. So I'm happy to go out with a win here.
"This is my last Tour of the Gila, and that's been part of the motivation and the elation to get a win my last time here."
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The blustery conditions meant that Zirbel was at a disadvantage on the way out uphill and into the wind, but said the trip back fell into his favour. "It was so fast on the way back. We knew that, with the wind. I think most people were in the same boat. I could have used a bigger gear, but honestly if it's going to be that fast, gravity is going to help me go faster when I get into a tuck than most people just because of my weight. It probably helped me in the end."
Cataford's ride was good enough to push him into second place in the overall classification, at 1:06 from Lachlan Morton (Jelly Belly). The 23-year-old Canadian spent the past month recovering from a crash in the San Dimas stage race, and training in Tucson in preparation for this race. "I was supposed to do the whole San Dimas/Redlands/Joe Martin/Tour of the Gila block but I had a pretty nasty crash in San Dimas that put me off the bike for a week. We reassessed and decided to let me train for this race rather than rush me into Joe Martin. It looks like it paid off," Cataford said.
Race leader Morton held off Cataford's charge up the overall standings, and extended his lead over GC rival Rob Britton (Rally Cycling) by another 45 seconds. The Australian had the luxury of starting one minute behind Britton, and said he measured his efforts accordingly.
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