Annual Tour de Whitehorse cycling race set to begin on Friday

Cycling enthusiasts are in for a treat as the first stage of sixth annual Tour de Whitehorse will officially get underway Friday.

Cycling enthusiasts are in for a treat as the first stage of sixth annual Tour de Whitehorse will officially get underway Friday.
Friday’s race will begin at 7 p.m. in Whitehorse at the road into the go cart track on Robert Service Way.
The distance is two-km up the Robert Service Way and each rider will begin the stage in 30 second intervals.
Registration will take place at 5:30 p.m. at the start area for cyclists who have not already pre-registered.
The registration date for the local Tour de Whitehorse participants is Thursday night. It is being held at Sport Yukon starting at 7:30 p.m. and will go until 9 p.m. All local riders are encouraged to come and get their registration packages Thursday night.
The Tour de Whitehorse is being put on by the VeloNorth Cycling Club.

Despite the drop off that occurs after the Haines to Haines bike relay, the cycling club is hoping to have as many as 40 to 50 people take part in the Tour of Whitehorse.
Race organizers are expecting some riders from Juneau and have received interest from some friends and cyclists in Fairbanks that may come over as well, said VeloNorth Cycling Club president Mike McCann.
Anybody is eligible to participate in the Tour de Whitehorse. Members of the club will pay a reduced fee of $20, while non-members must pay $30.
There is a total of three stages in the race, with the overall champion being the person with the lowest accumulated time in the three events they compete in. The different categories include novice, sport and expert for both men and women.
On Saturday, the individual time trial will be held. The start location is at Carcross Cutoff/Golden Horn at the junction of the Alaska Highway and the South Klondike Highway. Registration will be open at 8:30 a.m. at the rest area. The time trial will be a 20-km race against the clock.
Sunday’s final stage will be the road race, which will start in Carcross on the South Klondike Highway across from Montana Manor. Competitors will race into Whitehorse at Robert Service Way at the visitors access area.
Some groups will end there, like the sport women, while the sport men, expert women and expert men will continue down the south access and eventually work their way onto the Alaska Highway.

After they have reached the visitors rest area again the expert men will do one more lap before concluding the race.
Registration will be held at 9 a.m. for those who are not already registered.
There are three categories of competition for the Tour de Whitehorse, which include expert, sport and novice.

The expert category is for riders who have a number of years of experience competing at a fairly high level in the sport of cycling.
The sport class consists of riders who are either new to cycling or don’t feel they have the ability to race in the expert category.
The novice category is for cyclists who are new to the sport. All riders who are in their first year of racing can enter the novice class.
For the two-km hill climb all expert men, expert women, sport men, sport women, novice men and novice women will do the same distance.
For the time trial, all of the categories will also do the same 17.52-km distance.
The road relay expert men will race 88-km, expert women and sport men will race 80-km; sport women will do 70-km and novices will race 50-km.