Melisa Rollins and Alexey Vermeulen took wins at the 2025 Chequamegon MTB Festival, the fourth stop of the Life Time Grand Prix. Both riders managed to take solo wins in the shortest of the Life Time Grand Prix races, with Vermeulen nabbing the win with a late race flyer and Rollins dominating the field with a long breakaway.
Rollins was head and shoulders above the rest of the field as the Leadville runner-up attacked with around a third of the race to go, leaving a select group of three women to fight for the podium more than four minutes behind. Out of those three, Sofia Gomez Villafañe and Alexis Skarda finished second and third, respectively. Cecily Decker stayed alive in the Life Time Grand Prix overall with a fourth-place finish.
Vermeulen made his move much later, hitting out with just over two miles left to race, and powering over the final grass rollers to take his second Chequamegon title. To the surprise of the Life Time Grand Prix field, Kyan Olshove also managed to steal away in the final two miles and take the second spot on the podium, while Brendan Johnston won the field sprint behind the two solo riders.
Melisa Rollins destroys the women’s field with a long solo breakaway
The Chequamegon 40 is a historic point-to-point mountain bike race through the trails of Wisconsin’s Northwoods, deep in the northern portion of the state.
The race is the shortest of all the Life Time Grand Prix races, with the women’s winners’ times typically around two hours and fifteen minutes. Heading into the race, Rollins certainly seemed to be the in-form favorite coming off a solid performance at the recent Maryland Cycling Classic. What’s more, with questions around defending champion Sofia Gomez Villafañe’s form after a recent crash at last month’s Lauf Gravel Worlds, it seemed like Rollins’ race to lose.
Unlike Unbound Gravel and the Leadville 100, the exact ins and outs of the action are hard to pinpoint, since there was no live stream for either race. Nevertheless, what we do know is that it didn’t take long for the favorites to pull themselves away from the rest of the field and reduce the race to a group of eleven by the 15-mile mark.
Eleven out front quickly became four, with Rollins, Gomez Villafañe, Decker, and Skarda continuing to lead the charge. That group of four wouldn’t last too long, however, as Rollins was able to force a gap to the rest through the deeply wooded rollers of the Northwood. That gap started as a 15-second gap at mile 27, but quickly opened to 40 seconds by mile 31. From there, it was curtains for the chasers as the gap of seconds turned into minutes as Rollins was simply stronger than the rest.
“Winning today feels great,” Rollins said after the race. “We were a pretty big group coming through the first feed zone, and I tried to stay patient. The race blew up at mile 25 on the Firetower climb, and I was feeling really good. I got a little gap over the top of it, but wasn’t able to hold it. I got caught by three riders and then went again shortly after. I knew that I was holding my momentum really well, and managed to hold them off until the finish.
“Chequamegon has been my big focus since Leadville, so I haven’t really thought about Little and Big Sugar yet. I like to take things race by race, but I know I want to show up at those two races the best I can, and I’m excited to be part of the fight for the overall win. It’s going to be a really close and tough battle for the top spot.”
In the overall Life Time Grand Prix standings, Gomez Villafañe is back in the lead, sitting two points ahead of Decker. Rollins is still in third, but she has closed the gap to the two leaders. With one race’s score set to be dropped, there is still much to be decided, but all eyes will be on those three main contenders.
2025 Chequamegon 40 Pro Women’s Top 10
- Melisa Rollins, 2:14:05
- Sofia Gomez Villafañe, 2:18:39
- Alexis Skarda, 2:18:40
- Cecily Decker, 2:18:40
- Erin Osborne, 2:20:28
- Samara Sheppard, 2:20:29
- Courtney Sherwell, 2:20:30
- Cecile Lejeune, 2:20:31
- Lauren De Crescenzo, 2:22:09
- Ruth Holcomb, 2:22:31
Alexey Vermeulen steals the show
If the women’s race was punctuated by a show of dominant strength, the men’s race was decided by tactical brilliance by Alexey Vermeulen to win his second Chequamegon title after his sprint win in 2023.
The men’s race started fast and furious on the grass tracks and trails of the Northwoods, with a strong field of contenders lined up to try and grab as many Life Time Grand Prix points as possible, or to grab a breakthrough result in a race that suits a very different type of rider from races like Unbound and Leadville.
The big name heading into the race is defending champion Keegan Swenson, who will be racing in a brand-new World Champions rainbow jersey after winning the marathon mountain bike title last weekend. Nonetheless, it is no secret that Chequamegon is the Life Time Grand Prix race that is least suited to the strengths of Swenson, even though he has won it in the past.
Similar to the women’s race, it is hard to know all of the attacks and manoeuvres that happened away from the few glimpses of the race captured on timing mats and Instagram updates from Wisconsin. What we do know is that, like the women’s race, a select group of 19 riders made the first split through mile 15. Instead of that group breaking apart, the group mostly remained intact with 17 riders still in the lead through the 31-mile mark.
It was from that select group that Vermeulen hit the gas and clawed out a fifteen-second gap through the two-mile to go check. Fortunately for us, at that 2-mile-to-go checkpoint, the Instagram update caught the big breakout rider of the day, Kyan Olshove, attacking from the chase group as the rest hesitated. From then on, all that was left to play for was the sprint, with Johnston grabbing the last spot on the podium.
“I started trying to make my moves with around seven miles to go,” Vermeulen said after the race. “I could see the group was splintering, and guys were chasing to regain contact, and I knew the rubber band would eventually snap and gaps would start to open up. So I just bided my time. I could tell that anybody who got on my wheel wasn’t willing to work, and it was still quite a long way to the finish. I didn’t think anybody could go solo initially, but in the end, I just trusted myself, saw the gap happen, and just committed.
“Once you commit, you just have to believe in yourself because if it comes back, they’re going to beat you in the sprint. I’m thrilled I was able to stay away.”
For Vermeulen, the win is a big step in the right direction in the Grand Prix after a lacklustre Unbound Gravel. To make things all the more exciting, Swenson finished outside the top ten while his season-long rivals Andre Røed and Pallaud gained ground after stop number four of the six-race series.
Olshove, who, like Vermeulen, grew up in the upper Midwest in Michigan, is a cross-country mountain bike racer who has shown himself at races like Ice Man Commeth. Yet, making the jump to the podium of a Life Time Grand Prix is a huge step-up for Olshoev, who will be looking to build on that result in Arkansas to close the season.
2025 Chequamegon 40 Pro Men’s Top 10
- Alexey Vermeulen, 1:56:39
- Kyan Olshove, 1:56:43
- Brendan Johnston, 1:56:43
- Torbjørn Andre Røed, 1:56:44
- Cobe Freeburn, 1:56:44
- Bradyn Lange, 1:56:44
- Simon Pellaud, 1:56:44
- Cameron Jones, 1:56:44
- Payson McElveen, 1:56:45
- Andrew L’Esperance, 1:56:45
Check out the full results here.
Source URL: https://velo.outsideonline.com/news/rollins-vermeulen-take-chequamegon/