Cannondale's Alex Grant recently completed the seven stage mountain bike race. While helping his teammate Jeremiah Bishop take the overall win, Alex also took home great results such as a third place on the queen stage, and a sixth overall. He also managed to capture tons of great helmet camera footage.

The final stage of the Trans-Sylvania Epic concreted the GC with a festive last rideunder tepid skies on picture perfect singletrack.

The Queen stage of the Trans-Sylvania Epic came down to a battle between the top three GC contenders. As predicted Jason Sager (Team Jamis) attacked on the biggest fireroad climb of the day, which came early in a bid to distance himself from Kona’s Kris Sneddon.

Stage 5 of the Trans-Sylvania Epic offers a unique formula to the stage racing format. Originally conceived as a Super-D contest, it morphed into what's referred to as a "Mini-XC Day." Riders roll socially on a 28-mile loop that has four special sections. Classes line up and race sectors of trail that average about 13 to 14 minutes. Each one begins with a short climb and runs into ultra technical flat and downhill singletrack and times are tallied and totaled with the lowest combined time for all four winning the day.

Raystown Lake and it’s perfectly groomed, undulating, rollercoaster main loop was the site of stage four of the Trans-Sylvania Epic. The day's stage consisted of two 20-mile laps around the lake. Although Jeremiah would later divulge that he was hoping for a "sprinter's stage" which would allow him to sit in the main group relatively stress-free the stage would prove otherwise.

Another hot, humid day greeted riders at the Trans-Sylvania Epic during stage 3. Both the men’s and women’s class got off to an exciting start but the biggest change happened in the singlespeed category where Team Dicky’s Rich Dillen had a heroic day, upsetting leader Rich Straub (Freeze Thaw/NoTubes/BikeFlights) by five minutes to take both the day’s contest and the overall leaders jersey by a mere 35 seconds. 

With humid temperatures hitting the 96-degree mark the Coopers Gap Stage of the Trans-Sylvania Epic melted apart in a long train of cooked riders. A stage that, according to last year's overall winner Jeremiah Bishop was "Juicy and rooty. It was awesome in this old retro way," he said post finish. "Like in the old days when you went way back in the jungle for some swampy ride to do some stuff no one else does. Today was a backcountry ride."

The second annual Trans-Sylvania Epic mountain bike stage race kicked off Sunday with a 12.5-mile prologue in hot and humid conditions, a stark reminder that when a heat wave hits eastern Pennsylvania it's serious business. Racers agreed that this year's day one course was even better than last year, maximizing the use of serpentine singletrack found in the area.

Cannondale Factory Racing's Marco Aurelio Fontana, Manuel Fumic and Martin Gujan played their cards impressively well at this weekend's second World Cup race of the season in Dalby Forest, UK. After finishing 3rd in the XC Eliminator race in the town center of Pickering, Fontana grabbed another 3rd place in Sundays XC World Cup. Manuel Fumic finished 5th and Martin Gujan completed the successful event weekend with a 15th place. 

CFR finished off their preparation time for the next two rounds of World Cup racing with strong results in Italy and Germany.