“I just love Richmond, the course is amazing and really suits me,” said Stoltz, who had the fastest bike split by far in 1:21:00 despite doing an extra little out-and-back section that no one else did.

 

“On the first lap I caught Craig (Evans) and then five minutes later I caught him again.  Turns out a section had changed since when I went pre-riding and I wasn’t looking at the arrows,” Stoltz explained.

 

“He did the old course out-and-back,” said Evans, who followed the correct route.  “It was funny because a few minutes later I hear this loud chain slap behind me and thought, oh man Josiah or somebody is riding great and then Conrad comes by and says “where’d you go” and I said “I went straight, where’d you go?”

 

Evans tried to stay with him the second time around but conceded “he’s in a whole different league right now.”

 

On the second of the two 10-mile twisty, turny, tree and fanatic-fan filled roller coaster ride of a mountain bike course Stoltz followed the right arrow and got into his groove.

 

“First lap my head wasn’t in it, I wasn’t focused. So, on the second lap I was paying attention and saw where I went wrong.  The second lap I was just flying, it was so smooth and so much fun. There was a lot of spectators on the cliff all in costume, yelling, spraying beer and dancing around.  It was like riding through a circus.  It’s such a fun race, really the epitome of XTERRA.”

 

Stoltz took to the run with a big lead, had time to stretch out a twinge in his calf at the 6K mark, and sailed into the finish chute with his third straight win in the XTERRA U.S. Pro Series.