VeloNorth Cycling Club to hold one more race for 2009

A 40-km road race will put a stamp on the 2009 season for the VeloNorth Cycling Club on Saturday.

A 40-km road race will put a stamp on the 2009 season for the VeloNorth Cycling Club on Saturday.

Regardless of the weather, the Last Gasp time trial is sure to be a gruelling experience, testing the endurance of each rider.

“Time trialling is an interesting beast,” said VeloNorth president Mike McCann. “It’s all about measuring your effort, so really you have nothing left when you finish. But the danger is going way too hard at the start and, as I say, you dig a hole that you can’t get out of.

“I guess at the end of the day if there’s anything then it’s probably better to go out too easy than too hard.”

Just this past weekend, McCann achieved a personal best time in the Skagway Hill Climb, finishing third overall at 57:24. His time was nearly two minutes faster than his previous best mark.

“Every now and then you just hit a day where everything seems to come together,” McCann said, comparing it to golf, when a player can hit a great shot after being off with everyone before it. “That day everything just seemed to fall into place.

“The mind and the body sort of aligned and everything worked.”

McCann, who has been a serious cycler for about 15 years now, said it’s nice to still be able to get best times after that long.

“There’s little things that you can continually do to improve. Obviously the improvements come few and far between and this may well be the last time we see one on that hill,” he said with a laugh. “So I think, quite frankly, the only time we will see another improvement on that hill is one day when you have a 20 mile per hour wind blowing up the hill.”

Alaska’s Daniel Folmar finished with the top time at the Skagway Hill Climb, beating Whitehorse cycler and former record holder Ian Parker by 10 seconds. Folmar’s time was 53:30, a personal best.

Yukoner Troy Henry is the current record holder, completing the 19-km distance, which starts at the junction of the road to Dyea in Skagway, with a time of 51 minutes and 39 seconds.

McCann said he thought Folmar might have a shot at setting a new mark, however the weather conditions weren’t favourable.

He said riders had to deal with rainy conditions and fog that covered the last seven-km of the hill to the summit.

McCann didn’t see Folmar, who left several minutes before he started the race.

However, he did catch a glimpse of Parker not long into the ascent.

“He went by me quite quickly at one point,” McCann said about Parker. “It was just like ‘Holy crap, he’s moving.’ He’s really strong.”

The Skagway Hill Climb attracted nine dedicated riders, however McCann thinks it has some potential to become even bigger.

“I think it has potential to attract people,” he said. “It’s a challenge, people like a challenge. It doesn’t take all day long to do and you can go have fish and chips afterwards.”

He said the club might eventually choose a different time of year to hold the hill climb.

Complete results in the
Skagway Hill Climb:

1. 53:30: Daniel Folmar (PB)

2. 53:40: Ian Parker

3. 57:24: Mike McCann (PB)

4. 59:22: Robert Sowers

5. 61:34: Joel Macht

6. 62:42: Jerome McIntyre

7. 65:15: Kellen Kjera (PB)

8. 64:32: Janice Sheufelt

9. 77:24: Tim Arnholtz (PB)

The Last Gasp will most likely use one minute intervals for each start time. The race will begin at the junction of the Hot Springs Road and the North Klondike Highway.

Using an out and back format, the course goes 20-km north on the North Klondike Highway before turning around.

McCann said the first 10-km are fairly flat, but there is a series of hills nearing the half-way point. 

Registration starts at 11 a.m. and the first rider will begin the race at noon.