The 2025 USA Cycling XCO MTB National Championships took place Saturday, July 19, in Explore Park in Roanoke, Virginia. The 3.3-mile track features immaculately groomed single-track and around 455 feet of climbing. What it does not offer is many passing opportunities, which meant that there would be a chance you could be sprinting for the win, but it was guaranteed you would be sprinting at the start to be amongst the first to enter the single track.
The elite races took place in a fortuitous pocket of calm during a stormy weekend. It rained heavily the day before and resumed during the races following the early afternoon elite bouts. This meant the elite events were extremely fast and full gas tape to tape.
It also gave spectators a great opportunity to enjoy the top American racers. The final half kilometer of the circuit takes place in a natural, wooded amphitheater that allows fans to see riders tackle a fast and tricky descent, as well as a challenging climb that leads to the paved finishing stretch. In addition to that location, if spectators took a five-minute walk on the greenway that paralleled the Roanoke River, they ended up at the drop feature, another great place to watch the race and see riders boost the ramps and then serpentine around a few berms before leaving the area.
The only issue I have with the spectator areas, especially the one near the drops, is that they were somewhat of a secret. My suggestion for next year is a bit more spectator signage and communication. Maybe even a food vendor back at the drops to bring in more people, similar to Bear Creek’s Heckle Pit.
Elite Women
The elite women’s race featured fourteen starters, including four World Cup racers: Kelsey Urban (KMC Ridley), Savilia Blunk (Decathlon Ford Racing Team), Gwendalyn Gibson (Trek Factory Racing-Pirelli) and Madigan Munro (Trek Factory Racing-Pirelli).
The start of the race included an uphill paved prologue that merged into the start/finish straight and continued for about another quarter mile on paved roads. This meant that it was an all-out sprint for the first two minutes to reach the single-track at the end of the paved road first. For the four riders with the best chance of winning or placing on the podium, being clear of the rest of the field was imperative.
On lap one, Urban led the charge with Blunk on her wheel, Munro a second behind and Gibson a handful of seconds off the pace. On lap two, Urban continued on the front with Blunk on her wheel and Gibson in tow, with Munro falling back. That trio stayed together until the penultimate lap when Gibson started to lose the leaders.
On the final circuit, it was down to Urban and Blunk, with Urban continuing to lead. The pair came into the final climb shoulder to shoulder, setting up a sprint finish. The finishing straight is slightly uphill, and Urban was able to put in a sustained effort to pull away from Blunk and take her second straight elite XCO national championship.
[Kelsey Urban] At the World Cups you give your best and there's going to be so many sections where someone's stronger. You just have different weaknesses and you can't focus on another rider. At Nationals, it feels like head-to-head racing in a way that we don't really do that often. So it's kind of a special race.
There's no other rider that I know as well as Savilia. We both know each other's strengths, we both know each other's weaknesses, and that makes it so much more of a mental race.
With two to go, I did a hard acceleration on the pavement just because it's like... the one place? Yeah, it's the one place. One place to go for it, you know. I skipped my full hydration and cooling plan [by accelearating through the start straight which also housed the feed zone].
I gambled [on skipping the feed] and it worked out. Savilia is so strong and she's a racer who never gives up and she always, always closes the gap and, it was hard, hard and good.
After winning a second straight national championship, Urban reflected on what the victory meant.
Last year I was coming back. It was my first real season back after some health stuff and I feel like I just fell short, or I didn't just fall short, I fell short of the Olympic qualification. I was really out of the mix after Savilia and Haley [Batten] set the bar so high. When I came back after injury for my first World Cups, I wasn't far off from the actual criteria, but they were at the very top of it. They were both on the podium at the first World Cups and that was our qualification criteria. And so I think Nationals for me last year was kind of the consolation prize to be honest.
And also for me last year, winning Nationals was about doing it for everyone who had supported me through all the hard times. Who had been there and kept believing and kept showing up for me. And I really wanted to do it for them.
And this year, now I kind of have some consistency. And this year I'm kind of stepping into myself as a racer. And this was the first race that I felt like I really want to do this for them, but also for me. This is the first race I want to do it for me. And it feels good to prove it to myself.
At this point, you know that being at the front when the field hit the single-track was not the conventional wisdom but the only wisdom. Fall too far behind at the start, and you have a lot of work ahead of you if you’re goal is to win.
I know that, you now know that, everyone in the venue knew that, Riley Amos (Trek Factory Racing-Pirelli) knew that. So Amos did what he needed to do. He took off like a rocket and gave it everything to reach the woods first. And he succeeded.
The problem is that behind Amos was Bjorn Riley (Scott-SRAM MTB Racing), Devon Feehan (Dirt Cap Racing), Cole Paton (Giant), and the rest of the 23-rider men’s field. Riley and Feehan, in particular, were going pedal for pedal with Amos, which meant they entered the single-track hot. And in Amos’ case, a little too hot.
[Riley Amos] To be honest, I'm getting pretty pissed off because I feel like last year I was so good at finding the limit and this year I've just gone right through the limit. Most races, whether it be physically or making mistakes, crashes … I think we're just all pushing so hard all the time, but when you go to the elites it gets a bit more ferocious, I think I'm still figuring out how to find the limit mentally and physically for a whole race.
I risked it a little bit in the short track [Thursday night] with some skimpy tires. They're really fast and you gotta be careful on them though. And I was just trying to corner too hard and blew it in the short track.
I was definitely pretty disappointed after that, but today, I just kind of went out with a vengeance and maybe a little bit too much of vengeance because first lap we were just driving it and once again I made a mistake and totally wrecked it first lap.
On the back of the course there's a couple little off-camber sections and one you kind of have to pre-hop up before it and I just absolutely lost the front on the first one and lawn-darted straight into the ground. By the time I got up those guys had a good little gap.
Riley and Feehan quickly took advantage of Amos’ mishap and built up a first lap lead of around 15 seconds by the time the pair hit the drop section, three-quarters through the lap. On lap two, Riley gapped Feehan and built his lead to around 30 seconds over Amos.
After his crash, Amos had the presence to know he couldn’t get it all back at once.
If you got excited early, it's so easy to over-rev the motor. So I really just counted on trying to be patient and let Bjorn and Devon almost get, try and get too excited while I focused on drinking, eating and trying to find my groove, find the flow again.
That controlled approach allowed Amos to slowly reel in Riley throughout the seven-lap race. As Amos started to ramp up his speed and Riley began to suffer from back pain that started in the later laps, the gap dwindled in the final circuits.
I caught Cole and we were riding together for a bit. He was taking a pull through the pavement and I beat him to the single track and was trying to drive it through there. So once I started building a little bit, I was getting time gaps of like 30 seconds, 28 seconds, 20 seconds, 15 seconds. I knew it was coming down, but it's hard because when you're off the front like that, you can really use that gap to your advantage.
You can maybe hold back a little bit on the climb and then focus on riding really well in the techie sections and I could see Bjorn was riding better than me in the single track for sure. Like I'd pull a little bit of time on the climbs and then he would definitely bring it back on the the downhills.
But eventually I just got him really close, finally clawed back to that wheel and then I tried to just not be there too long before going on offense because I knew if I just hurt him a little bit as soon as I got there, I might rattle him. So yeah, I kind of attacked in the last lap right when I got to him.
Describing the moment as “kind of attacked” is doing the decisive move an injustice. Amos came out of the woods on Riley’s wheel, and as soon as the two hit the tarmac, in front of a full gallery of cheering spectators, Amos exploded up the road, and Riley had no answer.
Riley didn’t even chase at first, but continued to follow his feeding plan and grabbed a bottle, which Amos did not.
To be honest, I went so deep and pulled a couple of seconds there, but he was on me in the single track and I dug in like two or three more times on the single track, but I was on the limit because I would make a couple of bike lengths and he'd ride right back onto me.
Bjorn was definitely better technically today. I was rattled after the crash and so I couldn't shake him. But once you have that first wheel, you just got to commit to it at the end. And so I held him off.
Amos takes the Championship win in his first year in the elites. After missing Nationals last year because of the Olympics, he relished the opportunity to return to the championships and battle for a win. Taking nothing away from the victory, Amos did recognize who wasn’t at the race.
If Chris [Blevins] came, he probably would have waxed us. It's amazing. He's on such a high level right now. It's unbelievable to see his consistency. he's doing something that has never been done for a U.S. mountain bike racer, before, especially on the guy's side. So it's incredible to see. Thanks, Chris, for not coming, so me and Bjorn could duke it out.
It's still pretty special. Me and Bjorn have been battling each other trying to do this and trying to break through the ranks since we were like 13 years old together. And to be able to each take home a national championship title this weekend is beyond special.
I also want to say thanks a bunch to the team. I think overall, maybe Trek has had a hard year. We haven't been at the level we want to be, so to put a nice result on the board for everybody and to come together this week and support each other and have a great crew and keep ticking on it puts some really good momentum in our sails.
Overall solid weekend of racing and venues by USAC with one exception. And worth mentioning the heat / humidity was a big factor. The paved climb sucked some energy so super impressive how strong the Elites are on that. Also an XCO podium for Cole Paton was impressive considering he is a full time gravel racer now (no points and started XCC dead last). And a few CX racers there too (Kerry, Strohmeyer, Jack Spranger). I totally agree about spectator access though. I was at the XCO course and had no idea how to reach the back singletrack sections and wasn’t the only one as several people asked where to find a course map (online sure but zero cell signal on site). Probably would have been better to be on foot but I took my CX bike so I could ride out to Fallon Park for some GoCross recon. Cause you know #crossiscoming
The heat was definitely worth mentioning. I had in my notes somewhere to talk about how it’s too hot in the valley in September for GO Cross so why would it be any different, if not worse, in July. Sticky days out there.
Overall solid weekend of racing and venues by USAC with one exception. And worth mentioning the heat / humidity was a big factor. The paved climb sucked some energy so super impressive how strong the Elites are on that. Also an XCO podium for Cole Paton was impressive considering he is a full time gravel racer now (no points and started XCC dead last). And a few CX racers there too (Kerry, Strohmeyer, Jack Spranger). I totally agree about spectator access though. I was at the XCO course and had no idea how to reach the back singletrack sections and wasn’t the only one as several people asked where to find a course map (online sure but zero cell signal on site). Probably would have been better to be on foot but I took my CX bike so I could ride out to Fallon Park for some GoCross recon. Cause you know #crossiscoming
The heat was definitely worth mentioning. I had in my notes somewhere to talk about how it’s too hot in the valley in September for GO Cross so why would it be any different, if not worse, in July. Sticky days out there.