Eaton, who set the 2013 record at the South Mountain Time Trial, has quickly moved into the cycling spotlight, with top finishes on the national stage this year. He and his young Bissell Development Team are in the running for the Best Young Rider jersey at the USA Pro Challenge.

Eaton’s Stage 5 Race Report

“The race started out fast the second we past the kilometer zero sign.

It was a slight tailwind rolling out of town and making it difficult for a breakaway to go. After about 30 minutes of constant attacks, a group went away with one of my teammates.

I stayed at the front because there were multiple teams that missed it and were pulling it back.

We caught them at about 40 kilometers, and a bunch more attacks went until finally I rolled with 10 others, and that was the break for the day.

We quickly got an advantage of four minutes as no one in the group was a [general classification] threat.

When we reached the bottom of the first [king of the mountain points] at 137 kilometers or so, the two Garmin riders in the break went to the front and hammered it, splitting the group. I was dropped and now the ninth guy on the road.

At the top I caught a Rapha Condor rider and we bombed the decent catching three others. Now there was only four in front of our group and the very diminished peloton chasing about two minutes back.

Just before the bottom of the last climb a Netapp Endura rider attacked from our group, and I went with him. He dropped me on the final KOM, three kilometers from the finish, but I was able to hold on for sixth, ahead of the chasing GC contenders.

Awesome day of racing in the rain, wind and mountains of Colorado.”