This year’s 2021 Yukon Energy Road Cycling Championships was a great success.

The five-stage race started with a hill climb, with a route that was introduced last year.

The race started in Porter Creek and went from Pine Street mailboxes, on a bike path to Takhini to return up the big hill by the snow dump.

Times were improved all the way around from last year.

The top male time was Adam Tetzlaff with 11:16, a new course record to beat Denny Bohmer’s previous record time of 11:40 from 2020.

The top teen times for both male and female was Ava Irving-Staley and James McCann, both with a time of 11:58. Ava improved her time from last year by almost two minutes.

Stage 2 was a criterium down at Titanium Way. A criterium is where the riders go around a set short course for fast laps and the race is won in the last few laps.

The youngest rider in this race was Elijah Jenner, and he rode for about 25 minutes and came first in his u11 category.

Other riders did 45 minutes plus five laps, which is about 55 minutes.

In the A group, the rider first over the line was Adam Tetzlaff, followed second by David Jackson, third Ava Staley and fourth James McCann, and fifth Alex Lebarge.

In B group, 1st was Doon McDowell, and second was Tori Vollmer.

In the C group, first was Mackenzie Jenner, second Taiga Buurman, third Johna Irving-Staley, fourth Trena Irving.

Stage 3 moved back to Porter Creek to Whistle Bend. A circuit race was done around the pond, with everybody doing 33 laps except for Irving, who did 31.

Everybody rode in one group, with assistant coach Alex Amiri keeping everybody together in the pelotan.

Amiri is up here from Victoria, but will return to the U.S. to race afterward, and he will be here until mid-July.

His dad, Houshang Amiri, is founder of the Pacific Cycling Center and the former national coach and coach at the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Alex A has lots of knowledge and guidance to prep riders for the 2022 Canada Summer Games.

Results of the circuit race: Adults: first, David Jackson was the only one in his category, and only adult in the race, and not competing with the teen group

Teens: first Ava Staley u19, second Tori Vollmer u17, 3rd James McCann u17.

Youth: first Alex Lebarge u15, second Johna Irving-Staley u15, 3rd Taiga Buurman u15, 4th Doon McDowell u17.

Master: only participant was Trena Irving, coming first in category by default.

Stage 4 was the race against self, the time trial, back down at Titanium Way.

What makes for a fast time trial? Aerobars, aero-helmets, aero-bikes, skinsuits, and booty covers can shave eight-10 minutes off of one’s time.

The adults and teens are in separate categories and do not compete against each other.

The adult rider who took the fastest time was Alex Amiri – he smashed the course on his gravel bike without any aero equipment to take the fastest time of 29.06.

Alex is a category one rider so he is definitely in a category of his own, as we have no category one riders up here.

The next fastest time after Alex was David Jackson in expert men’s category with a time of 31.25.

Adam Tetzlaff, also without any aero aids, had a respectable time of 32.05. Trena Irving, in masters, had a time of 36.56.

In the teen grouping, the fastest teen male time went to James McCann in u17 with a time of 32. 21; second in u17 was Mack Jenner with 36 and Doon McDowell with 38.

The fastest teen female time in u17 was Ava Irving-Staley with 34.30.

In U17 females, Tori Vollmer finished first with 36.5. In U15 males, Johna Irving-Staley took the fastest time with 35.34. Alex Lebarge was second with 36.36 and Taiga Buurman, with no aero aids, came third at 38.33.

The fifth and final stage was the road race, from Army Beach to Jakes Corner return.

This race was exciting, especially in the teen pelotan, as riders attacked and bridged the gap to overtake each other.

The teen pelotan started out riding together and split about 20 km into the race.

Johna Irving-Staley and Mack Jenner launched an attack and went off of the front.

They rode together for long time and then Johna attacked and was in the lead for about 30 km. Mack worked hard to catch him and pass him.

Meanwhile, Doon and Alex L. worked together to chase down Johna. Taiga and Trena worked to chase down Alex and Doon, and Ava and Tori worked with assistant coach Alex Amiri to work together for the 73 km.

Eventually, Doon and Alex L. caught Johna and then Alex L. and Johna worked together to the end, where they sprinted and Johna won the sprint in u15 boys by four seconds, with Alex L. coming second and Taiga coming third.

Mack had the fastest overall teen time in B group and basically time trialed about 40 kilometers of the course to have the fastest time in the B group for u17 boys with 2 h, 9 m, and 35 s, with Doon coming second.

Ava and Tori sprinted at the end, with Ava coming in just ahead of Tori in the sprint.

In the A group, two adults rode with one teenager.

Adam Tetzlaff took the sprint in the road race coming ahead of David Jackson by six seconds.

James McCann, at 14 years old, rode with the adult males and was only 11 seconds behind Tetzlaff. James took 1st in U17 males.

Overall, a great four days of racing.

Next up is the Southern Lakes Yukon Granfondo on June 19.

There was an x-c mountain bike race at Mt Mac on Thursday, and there will be another x-c mountain bike race at the Forestry Trails on June 21.

A huge thank you to Yukon Energy for their sponsorship of this event!