Trebon back to winning after spinal injuries

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Ryan Trebon (Cannondale-Cyclocrossworld.com) has recovered from injuries suffered in a September crash and will jump start his cyclo-cross season at the upcoming Cincy3 Weekend in Ohio. The rider from Oregon announced his return to racing on Sunday by winning a local Cross Crusade race outside of Portland.

“Honestly, I wasn't supposed to be racing for two more weeks, but the weather's been so crappy, and it's fun to race when it's like this,” Trebon told Cyclingnews after winning on a slow, muddy course under intermittent rain. “I enjoy it when it's like this. This is hard cross racing. I had to do half the race on one bike and half the race on the other bike, but it worked out.”

Trebon, the US national champion in 2006 and 2008, started this season in August with a second-place finish at a UCI C1 race in China. He was scheduled to compete against Sven Nys, Lars van der Haar and the best of the US at CrossVegas, but he crashed hard in a sand rut on the first lap of a local race during the first week of September, and his season came to a temporary halt.

Trebon initially believed he had broken some ribs and would need two or three weeks to recover. But medical examinations revealed more than just the broken ribs he'd suspected; Trebon had also suffered compression fractures to several vertebrae in the middle of his back. His recovery extended beyond six weeks.

“I was off my bike for a month,” Trebon said. “I started riding, honestly, on October 1. It was a long time off, and it wasn't a very restful time. I had four compression fractures in my spine and five broken ribs with multiple fractures. It was annoying, so it's nice to be back on the bike.”

On Sunday in Oregon, Trebon handily beat runner-up Carl Decker (Giant Factory Racing) in a slogfest through the thick mud and grass surrounding a county fair complex. Trebon rated his fitness as “pretty good,” adding that he's been training a lot since the beginning of the month.

“It's just that I haven't done a 'cross race since China,” he said. “I just wanted to get an hour of solid riding and see how I felt. That last lap was hard. The course had just gotten slower and heavy. When you have to pass a lot of people, you have to take sub-par lines through the real heavy thick stuff. It's fun though.”

Trebon will get to test his fitness against the US elite cyclo-cross field in Cincinnati. The three-race weekend includes two C2 races and a C1. All three races are on USA Cycling's Professional Cyclo-cross Calendar, which Jeremy Powers is currently leading. After Cincinnati, Trebon will travel to Louisville, Kentucky, for the two-day Derby City Cup. His eventual goal is to rescue the season with a good result at the USA Cycling Cyclo-cross National Championships in Austin, Texas, this January.