Third overall in the last year's Life Time Grand Prix, Payson McElveen (Allied Cycle Works-Red Bull) radically changed his winter travel and training for a fast start to another round of the US off-road series. With his primary focus of the entire 2025 season set on a higher placing in the series, it all came unraveled when disaster struck on the first lap of the first Grand Prix race a week ago.
Riding in the lead group at Sea Otter Classic Gravel, McEleveen took a hard fall in the second feed zone while trying to grab a bottle on the fly. He was able to get back on the bike, but forward momentum up the first pitch of Lookout Ridge was almost impossible due to what later would be diagnosed as damaged muscles and 'minimally displaced fracture' of his hip.
"I bobbled my bottle hand up, tried to catch it against my chest, and somehow went down in the process. 100% my fault. This DNF affects the whole season, not just the one day," McElveen explained on his Instagram account after the race.
Now he awaits one final medical check from an orthopaedic surgeon, and has already written off Unbound Gravel, where he was eighth overall last year.
"If I were to have four really good rounds [in the Grand Prix] to finish the year, mathematically speaking, I certainly could still be in the money. It would take quite a half of the season," he emphasised to Cyclingnews.
He compared the Life Time Grand Prix to a stage race, with the overall being the general classification battle and then individual races up for grabs. Even with all six events offering $30,000 prize purses that are separate from the overall payday, McElveen was motivated in the overall battle. He now goes into 'silver lining' mode as he awaits a final physical assessment.
"There's two parts to the injury. There's the broken bone component, which seems stable and probably won't need a surgical fix. But I also store some stuff, want to get some more insight on the rehab around torn muscles and that sort of thing," he admitted, now eight days removed from the crash.
"There's only one motion that really, like, pisses off the brake and I pretty quickly figured out what that that leg rotation motion was. So as long as I avoid that, I'm really not in much pain at all. It's more annoying to be on crutches and not be able to move around very well."
McElveen won five collegiate mountain bike championships, back-to-back US Marathon Mountain Bike national titles and The Mid South gravel race three times. He ended 2024 getting married and went on a whirlwind 'off-season' traveling to New Zealand, Tasmania, Scotland and three months in Girona, Spain. He pinned on a number in Morocco at Sahara Gravel and took a win on stage 3 and took third on GC.
He has had to show resilience with comebacks from injury before, it's just not an effort any athlete wants to add to the calendar. Recently, he said he has followed the return of road star Remco Evenepoel, who fracture ribs, shoulder blade and hand in a collision with the open door of a vehicle in December. Evenepoel returned to action in just over three months and won De Branbantse Pijl.
"As athletes, you know, we're pretty innately optimistic. You see athletes come back from injury all the time, really strong. We're seeing it at the highest level right now, for example, with Remco," he said.
"in 2022 I came back from broken collar bone and broken hand, and had a really strong second half a year. But, those were upper extremity injuries, and so I was able to be on the trainer and doing hard efforts.
"I have to remind myself there's a lot of hard work ahead. It's just hard work. It's relentless as training when you are healthy. I want to be realistic," he said.
The good news, according to McElveen, is that his season was always "backloaded", with four of the six Grand Prix races taking place August to October. Then he'll do the weeklong Gravel Burn to finish the year in South Africa, October 26-November 1.
"For me, I race for the result, I race for the podium, I race for the win. And so the idea of going for a really great result for the series as a whole. I was much more excited about finishing third overall last year, rather than getting a nice paycheck at the end. The paycheck is very cool, don't get me wrong, that's awesome But really it's about the accomplishment and what the results mean to me and to sponsors. That is really motivating.
"I'm basically doing a whole pre-season build in less time than this winter. There are lots of unknowns still."
