Maybe it was the icy blue waters of the Middle Fork, maybe it was the recovery stage or all-in rest day, but sometime over that star-filled Oakridge night, the entire vibe shifted—in a good way.

At this point, there wasn't a stranger among us. From camaraderie on course to shared dinners under a tent so large it could house the whole peloton, the moments between the racing began revealing their impact. The coffee line on day four, while still long, wasn't quiet with nervousness. It was alive and alert with connection even before caffeine. But once that caffeine kicked in, it was one hell of a ride.

The Queen Stage: Where Legends Are Made

The queen stage has a special place in cycling stories. It's the hardest stage, the place where the race is meant to be won or heartbreakingly lost in a full-blown battle of the lungs, legs, and wits. Stage four of the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder, with its nearly nine thousand feet of climbing across four major climbs, covering the 86.5 miles to McKenzie River, was not guaranteed for anyone. As a test piece for every single rider—amateur to professional—it served.

The men's race was defined by a high-flying effort from Orbea athlete and Castelli SOG member Griffin Easter, whose climbing legs seemed unstoppable as he battled against Cam Jones, current race leader, and his no-holds-barred descending, where he's capable of making up not just seconds but whole minutes against his competition. But that's just the headline. Let's head inside the race to hear how the day went for each of our athletes.

Cassius: The Young Gun's Strategic Masterclass

Cassius rolled up to the line knowing today was going to be hard—like really hard—with long climbs and vicious descents on deck. The first climbs blew the elite field apart with massive attacks being launched by Griffin and Matt, which had Cassius riding over the top in the third group alongside the overall race leader.

Using this to his advantage, Cassius rode smartly and worked with the more experienced racers to slowly work his way up through the field rather than trying to go hero mode with any crazy solo moves. By the final climbs, however, the brutality of the course was starting to wear on the young Californian. Popped out the back of the front group only to find company alongside Corey Wallace, Cassius kept things together for another solid top-ten finish on the day.

Matt: The Working Man's KOM

Matt knew that today would be make or break for his hopes to shake up the GC ranks. Starting the day in 8th, there were four major opportunities for him to climb his way up that ladder—literally. Griffin surged on the first climb, triggering Matt to go with him and try to force a selection. This tactical move was successful, and thanks to his massive power and the ultra-responsive platform of his GR3, Matt set a KOM on this first segment.

Unfortunately, the remaining climbs proved to be too much as he burned such a big match forcing a move early. Without the top end late in the game, Matt was out of the lead group but still rode to an admirable top-ten finish. As one of the only pro racers with a day job, it was a massive day out on the pedals for Matt—huge chapeau to him for the KOM mid-race. Ten out of ten.

Ben: The Tactical Dilemma

Ben, still in the leader's jersey at the start of the day, was riding strong with the group of leaders through three climbs when the rider in second, Wesley, absolutely charged for it and launched a massive attack to the top of that third climb, linking right into a heroic descent off the backside. With another huge climb standing between them and the finish line, it seemed like a pretty early move for the win, so Ben didn't end up going off the front.

As the meters ticked by once Wesley was out of sight, though, it soon became apparent that they wouldn't see Wesley again until the stage was complete. Whether it was the fracturing of the leaders with this move, the heat of the day, or just plain aggressive tactics, when Ben later prompted the group to stop for a bottle altogether at the final aid, he got left behind by the racers around him. Solo miles to the finish, contemplating competition and sportsmanship, was a bittersweet end to an otherwise epic day of racing. With the tactics and antics playing out as they did, Ben fell slightly to second place in the general classification heading into the final stage.

Ryan: The Oregon Trail Claims Another Pioneer

Alright, folks, those of you playing along at home noticed our foreshadowing on Thursday. And it's come time to reveal that we did in fact lose our dear friend Ryan to dysentery while on the Oregon Trail...

...which is what they call it in the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder when someone decides to abandon their race—he's okay, everybody! But after our bonus miles excursion on his rest day, we remembered that only a few days before OTGG kicked off, Ryan and Joe rode the 200km Pas Normal Midsummer Challenge. So, adding the miles from the solstice plus the “rest day” adventure meant Ryan had an extra 160 miles on his legs that weren't supposed to be there going into the Queen Stage.

But after the first two days of racing, he still held on to the leader's jersey over our friend from Girona, and very talented photographer, Sergi Romeo. Not one to simply give up on a good competition, Ryan blasted it up the climbs today, hitting power records and coming within seconds of the elite field's times on some climbing segments. Suffice it to say, by the time he rolled into camp at McKenzie River, his time pioneering along the Oregon Trail was done.

The Women's Battle: Cassia's Return to Racing

The women's race was by no means any less intense. With a GC battle close enough to be lost on a bad day, it was all cylinders, all out from the base of climb one to the line for the elite women. This was Cassia's first day back to proper racing, and what an incredibly challenging stage to reenter from injury on.

But with climbs like those, there was no denying the hunger for competition and passion for the bike in Cassia's eyes—she was racing, no question. Still battered from her GC contention-ending crash on Stage One, the climbs flew by, but the descents not so much. Considering how quickly she went from limited braking ability to descending at pace whatsoever, there's nothing but pride from the whole team, and we're glad to get it done without further injury.

The Drive That Defines Champions

It was massively inspiring to see Cassia's drive up close. Being an Australian athlete based in Girona, working with an American bike manufacturer has its logistical challenges. So, it's rare that our whole team is able to see what our athletes do firsthand and how much isn't seen in the flashy Instagram posts and marketing jargon.

The health and safety of our team is number one, always. There was no pressure from us to rejoin the race whatsoever. It was clear, for Cassia, there was nothing to do but try. In many ways, Cassia's dedication reminds us that what our athletes do is akin to an F1 driver—putting their life on the line to prove our engineering marvel can deliver on its promise to be the very best.

It's a level beyond duty, beyond dedicated, beyond committed. It's a deep sense of "This is it" that calls from somewhere so deep inside you didn't know it existed before this very moment. It's this indescribable drive seen so viscerally in our athletes that compels us to push the edge of bicycle design and manufacturing forward every day in Bend. When you ride an Argonaut, you become an extension of that same fiery passion. You become part of Argonaut Factory Racing. Whether you go slow or fast, we are all moving the line forward together. Whether you ride fast or slow, we engineer our bikes to give every rider that same transcendent experience, uniquely made for you. That's what it means to ride and race the Argonaut Way.

Stage Five: The Return to Bend

And then racers had to survive Stage Five, the Return to Bend.

Here's the thing about Queen Stages. Sometimes, they're a little stretch of the truth from the race organizers. Stage four on paper was certainly set to be the hardest day, but with only 200 less feet of climbing in 10 fewer miles, the climbing on the finale was actually steeper on average and the final descent to Bend even longer and rougher. Combine the past four days of riding fatigue built up in the racers' legs with the stout profile, and we were in for an absolute treat as the spectators and fans of the race. After a short shuttle to get from the McKenzie River Community Track to the start of stage five, racers clipped in one last time for the 2025 Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder.

Cassius: Fighting Through the Fatigue

Cassius rode strong off the start, heading into the long road climb with the same group of leaders he'd spent the whole week with. Unfortunately, the toll of the past four days reared its ugly head, and Cassius got dropped. Luckily, he found a group to work with not long after the leaders went up the road, which brought his spirits and pace back up. Working with the group, he and the others were able to drop another rider while blasting the climbs with everything they had left.

Coming over the final descent, Cassius was prepared to pilot a fiendish descent and put it all out there, rocking his rear rim so hard he lost air several times from burping the tires at pace. All systems stayed upright and running, though, which enabled him to roll in a 7th place, confirming his overall GC standings in the same position after all five days.

Cassia: A Flash of Brilliance

Cassia had a flash of brilliance out there on stage five. Her injury was the best it had been since Wednesday, but her GC hopes had long dried up. Not wanting to disrupt the top end of the women's field, Cassia took a bit more of a backseat out there. That said, in her own words, today was the first day that she felt more like her normal racing self. Even with the nagging injury and the self-selection out of contention, you wouldn't have known she was having a rough go of it. Riding by herself for half the day, Cassia came in the finish corral fourth behind the top finishers of the GC.

It's central to our ethos to always be looking forward, but moments like this certainly cause us to pause and reflect on what might have been if things had played out differently. However, it's central to our ethos to look forward because while we learn from our past, it is ultimately the future where we're going. With a bit of boosted confidence by returning to form on stage five, Cassia is off to Belgium for a month-long block of racing kermesses to tune up for her return to the states this August for Gravel Worlds, where she'll get our Factory Racing support and showdown against the same powerful women she faced here in Oregon.

Matt: When the Trail Fights Back

Matt's day went about as good as we could have hoped, given his catastrophic mechanical suffered on the final descent. Climbing is certainly his strong suit, but by day five, the legs weren't quite up to the task with the top end of the field. All bike systems were running smoothly up to this point; however, it was only his legs giving him any issues.

But on the final descent, a sand pit—equally notorious and ubiquitous around Central Oregon—hid a giant boulder in its depths. Swallowing his front wheel up to the axle, Matt struck the subterranean obstacle at full speed, rearing him up onto the nose where he was able to ride the nollie out of the sand pit and avoid coming off the bike—a significant nod to the fact that the elite racers don't just have watts in excess, they also have crazy bike handling skills.

When he righted the rig and was able to better assess the damage, Matt's thoughts immediately became, "I taco'd this wheel, how is it holding any air?" And yet the Schwalbe RX Pro on his fully cracked Duke wheel managed to stay inflated. So with an abundance of caution and acceptance that his race was over, Matt rolled it into the finishing chute at Seventh Mountain Resort for a tenth place on the day, securing his 9th place finish in the General Classification.

Ben: The Homecoming Victory

The big winner of the day and of the event from our Factory Racing crew was the man behind it all, Ben Farver. Certain that stage five was harder than the Queen Stage, Ben had home-field advantage for this one. By the time the race got up and over McKenzie Pass, one of the most iconic road segments in Central Oregon, he was on familiar roads all the way home to the finish.

The rider from stage four, Wesley, who attacked off the front to usurp the leader's jersey from Ben, as it turns out, had suffered a pretty gnarly crash during the descent. Filled with adrenaline and competitive fire, he managed to hold on for the win on day four. But he pulled out of the race for stage five, putting Ben back in the lead at the start line.

After letting the master's race leaders go up the road to battle amongst themselves, Ben faced off with the remaining podium contenders for the open race right down to the wire. A few course-finding errors in the final few miles set Ben up to be in the perfect position for the sprint finish, where he was able to separate a bike length between himself and Kieran. So in perfect fashion, with a stage victory on the final day of competition, Ben claimed the overall victory in the men's open category!

The Complete Gravel Racing Experience

So much can happen in a single gravel race; stacking five of them back to back to back to back to back is guaranteed to cause chaos. And our team certainly felt their fair share. From failing derailleurs to course-abandoning injuries to all-out suffering for glory, there wasn't a single dull moment across the entire 350 miles of racing.

All along the way, though, the thing that keeps you able to show up with 100% of yourself and give events like this everything you have is supreme confidence in your equipment, especially in your bike itself. With their custom layups, geometries, and paint schemes, our Team Issue GR3s, plus Ben's custom GR3 and Ryan's Supernaut, absolutely shone bright on course. There was never any doubt that the fit, flex, and capability of their machines were up to the task.

Compared to running a stock bike commonly seen at these types of events, racing a custom gravel bike that is totally suited for you is a bit like playing with a stacked deck. Ben's victory is a testament to just how right things can go when you start with the very best advantage there is: the Argonaut GR3.

Your Oregon Trail Awaits

We're still reminiscing about the Trail and starting to make plans to return for next year. It's only a year away—what will you do to be Oregon Trail ready in 2026?

The Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder showed us something profound: when the racing gets hardest, when the climbs steepen and the descents turn treacherous, when fatigue clouds your judgment and every pedal stroke demands everything you have—that's when the difference between good enough and exceptional becomes undeniable. That's when a custom gravel bike built specifically for you, with geometries tailored to your body and power delivery optimized for your riding style, transforms from luxury to necessity.

You've read the stories. You've seen what happens when riders trust their dreams to machines that match their ambition. Now it's time to write your own chapter. Whether you're chasing podiums or personal records, whether you're drawn to the suffering or the scenery, the Oregon Trail—and countless other adventures—await.

Contact us today to start the conversation about pioneering your own way to glory aboard your custom GR3. Because when your moment comes, when the race is on the line and everything depends on the connection between you and your bike, shouldn't you be riding something built just for you?