Hamilton, Ont.’s Carson Mattern is beginning 2025 with a bang, becoming only the fourth Canadian to win the Valley of the Sun stage race in Arizona. The long-standing season opener in Phoenix, Ariz., has been around since 1992. Since then, Gord Fraser, Ryan Roth and Geneviève Jeanson have won the event.
“It feels good to start on a positive foot, it shows that what I’ve been doing is working,” Mattern, a former junior world champion, said. “Obviously, this is still a building phase and there is lots more work to do, but it is really nice to get some racing miles in the legs to break up training and go for results when opportunities arise.”
Three days of racing in Arizona
Stage 1 was a 16.1-km TT, with Stage 2 a 153.9-km road race, and the final stage a crit in Phoenix.
“The TT was relatively short, a sub-20-minute effort,” he said. “Wind was a big factor. I felt I rode it the best I could, but the conditions kept changing as the day went on. If you had a window with favourable wind, you could easily have gone 20 to 30 seconds faster—or vice versa.”
A fast road race
The road race was a fast course with a climb that could hurt you if you were out of position, but it was not hard enough to blow the group apart, Mattern said, who would win the stage.
“The break got a lot of time, and no one was taking control or trying anything. I knew my chance would be to attack over the penultimate climb. Two riders came across to me, and we rolled back the break. It came down to the final few kilometres on the climb with the pack coming in hot, but we stayed in front, and I won the sprint,” he said.
The crit was tougher than he expected. For the past two years, he’s ridden for the Continental little sibling of Israel – Premier Tech, which means he hasn’t raced in an event of that nature for some time.
This year, he’s on TaG Cycling, a B.C.-based team that will race in North America.
“I haven’t raced one since junior nationals in 2022. They are a different kind of chaos compared to a European race (which is equally as mental but for different reasons). However, after a few laps, I could really find a groove with the pack in a crit and manage my effort and risk. I wanted to be up in the front for the sprint, but I just barely avoided crashing with two to go and couldn’t make up the positions in time. We had two guys right up there, however, so TaG is certainly asserting…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at Canadian Cycling Magazine…