![\"Melisa](\"https:\/\/velo.outsideonline.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Copy-of-SBTGRVL25_PRORACE-30-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\nRollins took a unique path to the Maryland Cycling Classic. Unlike the rest of the peloton, she’s been in a battle for the Life Time Grand Prix.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Melisa Rollins won SBT GRVL (Photo: Courtesy SBT GRVL)<\/p>\n
Published September 6, 2025 08:27AM<\/p>\n
Melisa Rollins<\/a> took a unique path to the start line at the Maryland Cycling Classic<\/a>. Compared to the rest of the women\u2019s peloton in the inaugural UCI one-day race, Rollins has been stuck in a tough battle for the Life Time Grand Prix.<\/p>\n In fact, with her second place at the Leadville 100 last month, she sits in third.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, if you consider the broader picture of Rollins career, her cameo at the road race makes more sense. It is just part of a puzzle that Rollins has been trying to assemble, seeking a career with meaning and motivation after she realized her first dream of winning Leadville.<\/p>\n \u201cLast year, every race result that I had was a surprise and that came with its own challenges,\u201d Rollins told Velo of her path to this year\u2019s Maryland Cycling Classic. \u201cAfter Leadville I really struggled to find purpose again.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I began riding I had this dream. So when I achieved it, I kind of felt lost.<\/p>\n \u201cI couldn\u2019t eat, I couldn\u2019t sleep, I felt like I didn\u2019t want to ride anymore. It was like my whole world flipped upside down after that event.<\/p>\n \u201cI had to find out how I could move forward from that and to still perform because I didn\u2019t give a shit about anything anymore. At Chequamegon, a few weeks after Leadville, when I saw the move go, I was like, \u2018hmm, okay,\u2019 there was just this apathy.\u201d<\/p>\n Life after Leadville That Leadville win, and the following dramatic come-down, was in part due to the gargantuan status that Leadville had on Rollins\u2019 personal connection with cycling. Not only was the race her first true athletic undertaking, it also was also a family tradition with her mother having raced the event 20 times, and the race that earned her that original pro contract that set all of this in motion.<\/p>\n \u201cLeadville was my only frame of reference for racing. I never really learned how to race, I never did XCO, I never did road \u2014 I just didn\u2019t have a lot of exposure to any kind of racing.\u201d<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Rollins learned a lot before Leadville in 2024. After signing with Virginia\u2019s Blue Ridge Twenty28 after Leadville in 2021, she took on the LifeTime Grand Prix in 2022. She never really made an impression that first year, but stuck with the program and continued to dabble in domestic road events.<\/p>\n The \u2018crash course\u2019 of European racing Rollins then took the leap across the pond with the team in the summer of 2023, doing UCI racing in Belgium and Luxembourg.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a crash course, literally,\u201d Rollins said of her short European stint in 2023. \u201cI crashed like six times or something in five days. But I learned so much.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a crash course of learning road racing tactics, who I was a cyclist and what my strengths could be, because I didn\u2019t know.<\/p>\n \u201cI came back to the US and I was like, \u2018oh, maybe you want to try gravel again,\u2019 and I was way better. I came back for BWR Utah, which wasn\u2019t super highly attended, but riders like Tiffany Cromwell were there and I won.\u201d<\/p>\n That reset things for Rollins who kept building momentum up until Leadville in 2024 where the next reset had to come.<\/p>\n Ultimately, Rollins was able to go to therapy, get out of her post-Leadville lull, and launch fully into a gravel campaign in 2025 that has seen her win SBT GRVL and finish second at Leadville in course record time. There has been no apathy this go around, just the bubbly confidence that Rollins has and a quest to keep things interesting.<\/p>\n Which brings us all the way back to the Maryland Cycling Classic and her role on the composite Aegis Foundation Team.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I came into this year, I was kind of scared. I was like, \u2018am I going to suck?<\/p>\n \u201cBecause I\u2019ve always been good only when I\u2019m mixing up disciplines,\u201d Rollins said of her desire to make a return to the road. \u201cSo when Lauren came to me at the Leadville Stage Race asking if I would want to do Maryland, I said yes.<\/p>\n \u201cI think I would have found my way here anyway, because I was still contacted by the national team and they asked me to race, too. So I think I would have done it anyways. It\u2019s the perfect race to prep for Chequamegon next week.\u201d<\/p>\n Making important progress For 2025 and likely 2026, Rollins is committed to being at her best at the six stops of the LifeTime Grand Prix. The rest of the calendar is plug and play around those key events. With Leadville behind her, Maryland is one of those plug and play options.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Rollins is a far different rider from the woman who crashed six times in five days in Luxembourg in 2023. With a strong composite team including her gravel frenemy Lauren Stephens and her former Virginia\u2019s Blue Ridge teammate Emma Langley. With just two women\u2019s WorldTour squads at the race, there is room for the composite team to make a run at it.<\/p>\n \u201cThis team in particular wants to get their name out,\u201d Rollins said of their objectives. \u201cThey want to build their team, they want to secure sponsors for next year and to do that they need strong riders that are willing to go off the front and attack. I think that fits perfectly into the kind of rider that I\u2019ve developed myself into.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rollins took a unique path to the Maryland Cycling Classic. Unlike the rest of the peloton, she’s been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":124501,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,62140,82,68742,68113,68743,54267],"class_list":["post-124500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-parent_category-news","tag-sports","tag-tag-life-time-grand-prix","tag-tag-maryland-cycling-classic","tag-tag-melisa-rollins","tag-type-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=124500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/124500\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/124501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=124500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=124500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=124500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n![\"melisa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Best-36-scaled-e1723490877751.jpg\")
Melisa Rollins at the end of the 2024 Leadville Trail 100 (Photo: Marc Arjol Rodriguez | VeloPhoto)<\/p>\n
\n![\"Melisa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Melisa-Rollins-Leadville-100-2024-scaled.jpg\")
Melisa Rollins on the way to victory in the Leadville 100 2024 women\u2019s race<\/p>\n
\n![\"melisa](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Race-all-640-scaled-e1723473813877.jpg\")
Melisa Rollins pictured winning the 2024 Leadville Trail 100 MTB (Photo: Marc Arjol Rodriguez | VeloPhoto)<\/p>\n