USA Crits 2026 – 8 – Winston-Salem [FULL RACE]

May 23, 2026

USA Crits 2026 🇺🇸 #8 – Gears and Guitars Criterium – All categories – Winston-Salem, North Carolina, USA

USA Crits is a national criterium series that transforms urban streets, suburban circuits, and repurposed industrial zones into high-speed battlegrounds, where the roads loop tightly through city centers, their surfaces a mix of smooth asphalt, rough pavement, and occasional manhole covers that demand constant vigilance. The terrain is flat but far from simple—short, technical courses with sharp turns, tight chicanes, and sudden accelerations out of every corner, forcing riders to surge, brake, and surge again in a relentless rhythm. The laps are typically under a mile, their short straights and abrupt bends creating a dynamic where positioning is everything, the peloton strung out in a long, nervous line as riders jostle for space at the front. The race unfolds at a blistering pace from the start, the peloton stretched thin as attacks fly off the front, only to be swallowed by the pack moments later, the ebb and flow of the race dictated by the course’s technical demands. Wind is rarely a factor, but the draft is everything, the slipstream of the group pulling riders along before the next corner forces another acceleration, the elastic of the race stretching and snapping with every lap. The finish often arrives after a final, all-out sprint, the lead-out trains forming in the last two laps as riders fight for the best position, the crowd roaring as the front of the pack explodes toward the line in a blur of speed. Alternatively, a late breakaway might slip away on a technical section, holding off the charging peloton by a bike length or less, the outcome hanging in the balance until the final meters.

Marlies Mejias Garcia (Virginia’s Blue Ridge TWENTY28) and Luke Fetzer (Team Cadence Cyclery pb Waldo Racing) scored the elite victories at the WSCC Gears & Guitars Criterium on Saturday.

The North Carolina criterium, held on a figure-8-shaped 1.4km course that loops up and around Bailey Park, marked the eighth and final competition across seven weeks of USA Crits.

Liza Ray (Kingdom Elite Racing) and Leonel Rodriguez (MC Cycling Team) won the individual titles in the series of one-day races.

Mejias soloed to back-to-back victories in Winston-Salem, following her win on Friday night’s criterium held on a different course. The Cuban-born powerhouse attacked on the second lap and held off the peloton for two hours before raising both arms in celebration as she crossed the finish line.

In the battle for podium places, speeding towards the line 15 seconds later, Rylee McMullen (Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty28) took second by a bike throw ahead of Chloe Patrick (Caldera Medical x Aurea Racing).

Ray took over the leaderboard following her dominating victory at LaGrange Cycling Classic, the third event of the series in Georgia. The battle for the final spots on the podium came down to the final race as Elizabeth Castaño (One Hart Racing-Nashville Local Cycling) moved up one spot to second overall, 263 points down. Elizabeth Harden (Kingdom Elite Racing), dropped to third place, a further 54 points in arrears.

In the men’s contest, which was hit by rain in the last laps, Fetzer launched a blistering attack on the final lap, just as he and his breakaway companion Bryan Gomez were about to be caught by the peloton. Fetzer, the U23 criterium champion, held on to claim his first USA Crits victory of the season.

In the chaotic finale, Foundation Cycling New York’s Marcos Mendez took second ahead of his teammate Gomez.

Though he did not win any individual event, a consistent Leonel Rodriguez (MC Cycling Team) claimed the overall, with a slim 25 points on Gomez, and Mendez a further 3 points back.

The USA CRITS points system rewarded aggression throughout the race. Riders receive 50 start points, finish points based on final placing, sprint points at three designated moments, and one point per lap led.

Results :