Primary Focus:
Road, gravel
Type of racer
Men’s Domestic Elite Team
Mission Statement
The Rio Grande Elite Cycling Team is a US Domestic Elite Team based out of Fort Collins Colorado. Our goal at Team Rio Grande is to cultivate the best emerging talent in Colorado through racing, community and philanthropy. Our program has developed and continues to develop elite and professional athletes who compete at all levels of competition nationally and regionally. We give our riders the platform to perform at the biggest stage races in the country by attending UCI stage races and racing in the US Pro Road Tour events. We also race the full Colorado Road Calendar.
Press Release
2021 Season Recap:
In 2021, we were back to racing again! While many events were cancelled in 2020, most local racing and about half of the national races decided to give it a go, and we were ready. We started off by winning the CSU Cobb Lake Road Race (our home race) for the second year in a row with Tayne Andrade taking top honors this year.
We also around that time found out we qualified for US Professional Road National Championships in Knoxville, TN. The Rio team toed the line against riders who would then head to the Tour de France, and they didn’t disappoint! In the road race, Tayne Andrade was the third rider over the top of the first climb of the day, and spent a lot of time in front of the cameras in a breakway with world tour riders. In the criterium, the team was aggressive with multiple riders attacking off of the front and making the group chase. James Hilyer managed to take 15th in a chaotic sprint finish!
The latter portion of the season saw us podiuming at the Tour of America’s Dairylands, and competing at UCI 2.2 Joe Martin Stage Race! We documented the whole JMSR experience on our Youtube channel, so if you’d like to see how a Domestic Elite team operates in those big stage races, check it out in the link at the end of the article! Another late season highlight was Matti Rowe winning the Red Bull Granite 144 in Wisconsin.
Looking ahead to 2022:
This year we have expanded our racing calendar! We will take on our staple races including UCI Tour of the Gila & UCI Joe Martin Stage Race, but also plan on adding Tucson Bicycle Classic, Redlands Bicycle Classic, Tulsa Tough, and BC Superweek in Vancouver Canada. Following Matti’s exploration into the gravel scene last year, we are also putting together a gravel calendar with Unbound Gravel, Foco Fondo, and SB GRVL as the highlights. For our full 2022 schedule, go to our website or click here.
All of the guys are excited to get back to a full racing calendar. We truly cannot wait! We have amazing support from sponsors like Flow Formulas who help keep us energized, Pactimo, BLIZ, and LazerSport to help keep us cool and protected, and phenomenal support via Bike Sports, Hagman Homes, The Phoenix Cyclery, Mawsome Lumber & Hardware, and Dohn Construction. Our title sponsor is the Rio Grande Mexican Restaurants, who have been staples in the Fort Collins cycling community for years! Pat and his entire team provide fantastic support to help our riders reach their goals and provide the best post-ride food and margaritas you could ask for. Please stop by and say hi if you are near one of their 5 locations along the front range!
A new partner for the team this year is Fezzari Bicycles! We cannot wait to “be in the moment” riding and racing our Fezzari’s around the country. Feel free to ask us how to get a new bike shipped straight to your door and save big.
The Roster:
The Rio Grande Elite Cycling Team’s roster consists of 11 riders for the 2022 season! Three of our riders, Maxl Freeman, Jameson Ribbens, and Kip Taylor decided to stop racing full time for this year which means we have some new blood in the team. I would like to thank each of those riders for being exemplary riders both on and off the bike. Each of them had been on the team for years helping mentor and guide the team. We will miss them greatly!
Filling in for those three will be Tyrel Fuchs, Liam Flannery, and Ethan Moyer. Tyrel may be familiar name to you, as he was on the team in 2019! He comes back to us from Elevate-Webiplex after taking 3rd in the US U23 National Time Trial Championships and we will be looking toward him to lead us coming into our stage racing program later this year. Liam Flannery is the Bermuda Time Trial National Champion and has recently moved to Boulder as he is looking to split time racing and studying at CU Boulder. He also competed in UCI Junior Road World Championships in Belgium in 2021. We’ll be looking to help him get his feet wet in UCI stage racing and see what he can do! Ethan Moyer is from Leadville, and landed on our radar by winning the Colorado State Hill Climb up Mount Evans ahead of Jameson. We’re looking to him anytime the road points upward, and hope to develop his road racing skills as he mainly comes from a mountain biking background.
Joining them are our returning riders, Alex Marr, Brett Rindt, Chaz Hogenauer, Henry York, James Hilyer, Mattie Rowe, Peter Behm, and Tayne Andrade. We’re very excited to have such a strong roster for the season! If you’d like to follow along in our adventures throughout the year, we’ll be posting articles on our website, videos on our Youtube channel, and posting on our Facebook/Instagram pages.
Train. Eat. Margaritas,
Rees York
Rio Grande Elite Cycling Team, Director
Roster
Brett Rindt
Liam Flannery
Ethan Moyer
Henry York
Matti Rowe
Tyrel Fuchs
Chaz Hogenauer
Alex Marr
James Hilyer
Peter Behm
Tayne Andrade
Sponsors
Rio Grande Mexican Restaurant
Bike Sports
Hagman Homes
The Phoenix Cyclery
Fezzari Bicycles
Pactimo
BLIZ
Mawsome Lumber & Hardware Co
Dohn Construction Inc.
Lazer
Flow Formulas
Connect:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeamRioGrande
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/teamriogrande/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZCVta2qnXK5C2AMCYGoQQQ
Website: https://www.riograndeelite.com/
