2018 COLORADO CLASSIC, stage 1

Rocky Mountain High hill reps after a sleepless travel night thanks to Budget rent a car failure to honor reservation due to series of baseball sized hail storms which decimated their fleet. Last in line scores me a loaded Jeep Grand Cherokee Limited with V8 balls of torque and for the 15 parties in front of me, they settled for 15 passenger utility vans! Thank you AVIS car rents! Departed Seattle 10pm arrive Vail 7am! This 8 lap crit with dirt hill in Vail would make any hot blooded fan rise to this occasion - as good as a crit gets by the magic of VAIL resort! The deciding move occurred just downhill of me when Under 23 Time Trial and Crit Champion Gage Hecht pulled a raging bull explosive acceleration up & over the crest thereby dropping his lead group remnants of three for a ten second gap! With 4 km remaining Gage built a 20 second gap and defended it in high anxiety entertaining fashion! What an authoritative strong ride by Hecht! 1st. Gage Hecht (USA) Aevolo. 2:32:56 2nd Travis McCabe (USA) UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling. 0:00:06 3rd. Joseph Lewis (Aus) Holowesko-Citadel