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FoCo Fondo 2025 Quadruple Dog Dare You Race Report

Words by Logan VonBokel - Photography provided by FoCo Fondo Credit Alex Roszko | @Roszko


Lauren Stephens in the stars and stripes kit has raced, and won, several editions of the FoCo Fondo.

FORT COLLINS, CO – This year’s FoCo Fondo presented by Fat Tire, the tenth edition of Northern Colorado’s premier cycling event, the Quadruple Dog Dare You premier race, is set against the backdrop of Northern Colorado’s rugged and scenic terrain. As the crown jewel of the weekend, the event features a $15,000 cash purse split equally across the men’s, women’s, and gender-expansive elite fields, reinforcing FoCo Fondo’s commitment to equitable, competitive racing.

 

The key element of the 118-mile course is the 2,300ft. Prairie Divide climb, with its long exposed sections and steep sections that make it difficult to settle into a pace,  it was the crux of the course for many, as was the descent off the top, and then followed by the long, false-flat downhill back to Fort Collins and the finish line at New Belgium Brewing.




GENDER EXPANSIVE / Non-Binary

While both the men’s and women’s fields were slower to make the initial selections, the Gender Expansive category was quickly split up by defending champ Rach McBride (BMC) and Robin Cummings (Team S&M). Even before the second technical climb at mile 20, “One Tree Hill” doubletrack Cummings had created a separation of a couple of minutes and continued to stretch their lead until the finish. 


“I initiated the split early on,” Cummings said at the finish. “Unsure of how others wanted to race, I pressed it early. There was that sandy road section 12 miles in. I come from a cyclocross background, so I tried to ride it at cyclocross speed, got a gap [on McBride] and that was it.”


Gender Expansive/Non-Binary Podium

This was the first year FoCo Fondo had live streaming for all of its elite races, which were broadcast on YouTube. Cummings added, “it was so, so cool. To feel like my race mattered enough to have coverage and a moto throughout the whole race was really fantastic.”



WOMEN

The women’s race started 5 minutes behind the men. They raced together until the first climb at mile 10, where they hit a sandy section of road that created an initial selection. After the technical climb at mile 20, the “One Tree Hill” doubletrack, there were several small groups, with a group of three containing the race’s key animators at the front. The group of three, containing last year’s 118 elite champion Lauren Stephens, along with Emma Grant and Courtney Sherwell.


Womens Race FoCo Fondo

Sherwell and Stephens would go on to ride away from Grant, and ride together across the Red Mountain Open Space sector and toward the main climb of the day. At the ranch underpass at mile 49, Stephens saw an opportunity to press the pace and was able to get a gap.


“I really wasn’t planning to go that early,” said Stephens at the finish. “But I had a gap coming out of the [ranch’s] field, and I decided to go from there, and yeah, it was a long day by myself. I had to stop at the last aid station, where most folks were grabbing beer, and I really wanted to do that, but I was grabbing some water to cool off a bit on the last few miles.”


The 2025 edition is the first year FoCo Fondo had separate starts for each of the three elite fields. “The separate starts really gave women the opportunity to race, and not just hold onto the men,” Stephens said at the finish. 


Sherwell would go on to ride solo from the slopes of the Prairie Divide climb to reach the summit 8 minutes behind Stephens. Grant would be another twelve minutes in arrears. And with the descents and mostly false-flat drag to the finish, the podium would be set from there, with Stephens taking the win, followed by Sherwell and Grant in third. 


Male race leaders at FoCo Fondo

MEN

The elite men’s race was headlined by Torbjorn Roed and Alexey Vermeulen (Vermeulen having won two of the past editions of FoCo Fondo). The men’s race, unlike the others, would largely stay together, with a steady trickle of riders being ejected from the front group over the opening 50 miles. 


Going through the mile-49 underpass, through the ranch section, there was a group of six still at the front, containing Roed, Vermeulen, Joe Goettl, Ethan Overson, Michael Kanter, Mason Schofield, John Keller, and George Kasch. 


Roed would go on to attack on the early slopes of the 2,300-foot climb before the climb began in earnest, putting some pressure on the group and allowing Roed to ride the first half of the climb at his pace. About halfway through the climb, Roed would be caught by Overson, Keller, and Vermeulen, with Goetll losing contact with the group as they caught and attacked over the top of Roed. 


At the top of the climb, it would be Roed, Vermeulen, and Keller with Goettl 4 minutes back. But Keller would suffer a mechanical that saw him slip back to 10th.


“We were rolling pretty good the whole day. We hit that first loose section, rolled it well. Alexey and John paced the climb, and I hung on just enough. I lost both my bottles on the descent, but Aelxey was a gentleman and stopped with me when I filled up at the next aid station.”


Riders pushing through the sand at FoCo Fondo

“Didn’t feel great,” offers Vermeulen at the finish. “I was at a wedding yesterday, so I had some ‘dancing legs’ at the start. We all made the decision at the Prairie Divide summit to stop and fill bottles, but then Toby dropped his, and John wasn’t attached anymore when we got to the bottom, so it was just a race in.” 


Vermeulen and Roed would roll to the finish for the last 24 miles, and Roed would ultimately take the sprint. 


“I knew it was going to be hard to beat Toby in a sprint. It was a fun day, and fast.”


Roed would take his first FoCo Fondo win, with Vermeulen in second, and Goettl chased through Overson and Keller to finish third with Overson and Kanter in fourth and fifth, respectively.





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