What a ride it’s been for Cameron Jones (Scott-Shimano) at the 2025 Life Time Grand Prix. After risking wildcard entry and going all-in at Unbound Gravel 200, where he took the win, he backed it up with another victory at Little Sugar MTB last weekend, jumping to second on the series leaderboard.
Going into Big Sugar Classic, the sixth and final race of the series, Jones knew exactly what he had to do to clinch the overall title – just finish ahead of his three key rivals. Jones was tied with Simon Pellaud (Tudor Pro Cycling), sitting just one point behind three-time series champion Keegan Swenson (Santa Cruz htSQD), and one point ahead of Torbjørn Andre Røed (Trek Driftless).
“I’d done all the numbers so I knew who I had to beat and couldn’t see any of them in front of me in the finish. So yeah, do what I had to do,” Jones told Cyclingnews after finishing fifth at Big Sugar in Bentonville, Arkansas on Saturday.
With that in mind, he didn’t let the news of the course being shortened by half, from 100 miles to 53.9 miles, due to severe weather, impact his strategy.
“I wasn’t too concerned to hear the shorter course. And I feel like I was as aggressive as anyone there. There were a few, quite a lot of people, trying to attack the whole time, but there’s only certain people I was concerned about. I was pretty aggressive as well, made a good few moves of my own, and that kind of ended up bringing back most of the groups, apart from the two Matts up the road, who, yeah, no one was catching them,” Jones said.
“The people that were up there in the front weren’t going to beat me in the series. And so, I just had to concern myself with the people who could, and try and make their life as hard as possible.
“Then I just made sure I was positioned at the front before any of the hills and up there towards the front, so going into the sprint. And then once I launched it, I was just trying to think about what was on the line and went as deep as I could to the end,” said Jones.
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