Taylor Phinney has become the United States National Time Trial champion for the third time after putting in an incredible ride which saw him smash the 51 kilometer course.
 
Phinney came home in 1:02:45, 1:10 ahead of Tom Zirbel (Rally Cycling) and and 1:12 ahead of Alexey Vermeulen (Team LottoNL Jumbo). Brent Bookwalter finished in fourth place, 1:36 behind Phinney.
 
Phinney is looking forward to pulling on the starts and stripes time trial suit for the next year.
 
Taylor Phinney said:
 
"It was super difficult and I didn't really have a lot of fun. But that's how it is with a time trial and I signed myself up for this event, so I knew what I was getting my self into. Honestly I didn't really feel very good. It was a tough mental battle the whole way. I started out super confident and then lost almost all of my confidence, and then gained it back and then lost it again, and then by the time I was on the way to the finish I had my confidence back. It's easy to say that now but that's what happened. I thought I was going super slow and started to get a bit down. The course was also three kilometers longer than what it was supposed to me."
 
"I'm looking forward to putting the kit on for the first time, hopefully soon. I was just here to show myself ahead of the Olympics and try to have a good ride. It's always good to get an hour long time trial in, which is something you'd never do normally."
 
"I couldn't walk for almost two hours afterwards. I still can't ride my bike and get my left leg over the left crank because I was cramping really intensely after the time trial. It's a weird thing to do to yourself that's for sure, but I'm happy that I won, and happy that I'm not in so much pain anymore."
 
Brent Bookwalter said:
 
"It was painful! I wasn't feeling very good but I knew going in that it was far from the perfect time trial course for me. In the past couple of years of my career, I've really excelled at time trials that have some rhythm variation, climbs, position changes, and more technical parts. But I've been working really hard on making my sustained power and sustained TT position better. I think that paid off last week at the Amgen Tour of California with the 20 kilometer distance, but upping that sustained flat TT to a 50 kilometer course, I was really suffering out there. I think I was paying mentally a bit for my efforts in California last week. There were lots of head games out there today but I still left it all out there and did my best ride. But Taylor showed that he was in a class above the rest of us."
 
BMC sports director Jackson Stewart said:
 
"We did a recon of the course yesterday and got the feel for the time trial. It was the perfect course for Taylor as it really suited his strengths and also good for him to show where he's at before the Olympic Games and UCI World Championships. He just went out there without a radio and did his thing. And he smashed it!"