Nearly 300 teams participated in the 30th Kluane Chilkat International Bike Relay on Saturday. They biked the nearly 150 mile race as solo riders, or as part of two-, four- or five-to-eight member teams. 

One big change this year was the number of solo riders, which skyrocketed. A record 73 total registered, of which 48 men, 24 women and 1 solo open competitor finished.

Here’s more from racers and teams about their experience went this year:  

Tom Binder’s driveway acted as a lemonade stand for cyclists going by on Saturday. He along with Nicholas Bishop, mayor Tom Morphet and Debra Schnabel got their camping chairs out and sat along the highway with a plywood table filled with paper cups of lemonade. They offered those who stopped canned vodka lemonade. There was also a bottle of vodka sitting on the table next to the lemonade cups, in case riders wanted an added kick to their drink.

Whitehorse local Vincent Menard said that he, his sister, Orlina Menard, and the rest of their family have been doing the race since he was in 2nd grade. The first time they did it, the siblings rode tandem bikes with their parents. They have since moved on to being a part of an eight person team and tested out a four person team this year. “We’re getting older and wanted to try a little harder.” Menard said his parents came along to view the team, named “Dodging Potholes,” but decided to turn around before the border, while the siblings kept going to the finish line in Haines. “We’re just supporting the bike environment and the culture, not the country.”

Whitehorse cyclists Craig Flaherty and Jonathan Lowey were driving their team’s support car when they came across Juneau cyclist Darin Tingey stuck on the side of the Haines Highway. Tingey got a flat tire about a half a mile after the construction zone started. Road cycling tires are not built to handle the amount of gravel that cyclists faced towards the end of their race. The duo from Whitehorse had a spare tube that they helped put into Tingey’s tire. Tingey was competing in the two person men’s category with his father Brent Tingey.

Winners of the two person mixed relay, Alisha Falberg and husband Adam Moser averaged 20.1 miles per hour. The duo from Juneau has completed the race five times. “On a day like today, it [KCIBR] is the place to be. There is no other place in the world we’d rather be,” Moser said. He and Falberg are avid cyclists in Juneau and train rain or shine. Moser rode the first four legs from Haines Junction to Mansfield Creek, with Falberg riding the last four legs from there until Haines. Moser said he did not feel much of a headwind this year, which was an advantage speedwise. The duo received second and third place in this category in years prior but say this race felt a bit easier because of the “impeccable conditions.” Falberg said the conditions one year were so bad that she had two layers on her upper body, a headband, full tights, shoe covers and full finger gloves. Falberg and Moser hope to be back to race again sometime in the near future.

Dressed to the nines in tutus with tiaras on their helmets, the Canadian four person women’s relay team “Islanders” said they hope to make this race a yearly occurrence. Lauren Keryluke, from Whitehorse, organized the group’s costume, allowing each member to be decked out in a sparkly tutu while they rode. Alanna Stobbe, Erica Friesen and Tyra Bretten said they were leisurely racing. Bretten said she hopes to dress up in a tutu in future races. Keryluke rode the leg through the construction on the Haines Highway, an area where she said she “ate a lot of gravel, lot of dust,” but ended up passing a lot of people because she was on a gravel bike. The entire team rode gravel bikes over road bikes because of the road conditions in Canada, where all the members live. Earlier in the race, the team came across a rider with a flat tire and assisted him, “the rescuers with the tutus,” as Friesen explained.

Team captain Jennifer Gibson gave the team a mission before the race started: have fun. The group said they not only completed their mission but also exceeded expectations. The team, all from Whitehorse, was named “Ghost Riders” and received third place in the four person women’s relay. This was Harriet Stanford and Jennifer Gibson’s second time competing in the race. Hilary Lefort and Aly Miller joined the duo for their first ever KCIBR race. “A lot of training happened today,” said Lefort after completing her longest ride. Miller is new to road biking, having just completed her second month of road biking. Now that the race is over, the group talked about all riding the race solo, but riding together as a group.

Third place finisher in the men’s solo category was 21-year-old Matteo Kuizenga. This was the Fairbanks rider’s first time racing the KCIBR as well as his first time being in Canada. Kuizenga first got the race on his radar in April while looking at races to compete in this summer. He learned about the race from fellow Fairbanks biker, Tyson Flaharty, who has won the race multiple times. Fires in the Interior of Alaska impact cyclists ability to train. Kuizenga said that this race is great timing because he was able to train consistently before the fires and smoke start. Kuizenga works 30 hours a week at the Alaska Center for Energy and Power, and tries to bike around 10 to 14 hours a week. While he does not have a coach, he gets advice from fellow cyclists. To train for the race, Kuizenga focused on duration and getting a lot of time in the bike saddle. His longest ride before the KCIBR was a 115 mile ride from Fairbanks to Nenana and back. He said he is still figuring out the best training methods. Kuizenga has done other long races, like the White Mountains 100 and the Triple Dome Classic which consists of 15 hours straight of biking, but this was his longest race distance wise. This was the first road race that Kuizenga has ever done, with most of his experience being in fat bike races. Second place finisher Tyson Flaharty and Kuizenga bike together in Fairbanks and stuck together for most of this year’s race. After Hudson Lucier’s attack at Million Dollar Falls, Kuizenga said he and Flaharty followed cruising down the descent at around 50 miles per hour. The three cyclists split on the Haines Summit descent, which led to what Kuizenga described as “basically what my worst nightmare was going in,” – a two hour solo time trial. For the rest of his race, Kuizenga worked on holding out his lead ahead of Whitehorse racers Simon Connell and Jonah McConnell. He said this was tricky because of the headwind. The duo behind him had the advantage of drafting off of each other. The night after he finished the race, Kuizenga said he spent around two hours going through the Strava data of everyone who he raced with. He wanted to figure out what the gaps were and where he gained or lost time during the race. The physically hardest part of the race for Kuizenga occurred on the Million Dollar Falls climb, but the hardest part mentally came with the last two hours of the race, while he was “leaving it all on the table.” However, he said he still felt strong, seven hours in going up the finish climb. 

In the week leading up to the race, Hudson Lucier was worried that the race would be quite rainy after it was raining every day in Whitehorse. This year’s men’s solo race winner did not see any rain on his ride, however did face some wind around 25 to 20 kilometers from the finish line. Lucier won solo last year, making this his second solo win. Lucier said that his race was faster by about 10 minutes over last year’s race, even with the gravel section that had larger rocks compared to last year’s gravel. “There was some extra body degradation that happened because it’s just so rough,” Lucier said. However, he was able to get through the construction zone without getting a flat. Lucier explained that the race typically plays out the same year after year, with racers starting out hard going up the Haines Junction hill and then sticking together until the Million Dollar Falls climb. On this climb, the peloton broke down into five solo riders and three two person riders. Lucier made his move and attacked on the Guardsmen climb and was able to get a two minute lead to the border.  “This year it was all just about building/ maintaining the lead.” He said that this is not his preferred strategy, however with the finish on the climb, he did not want to gamble with coming up to the finish line with other people. Breaking away from Tyson Flaharty and Matteo Kuizenga simplified the finish for Lucier. Lucier is the head coach of the Cycling Association of Yukon. Last year’s Canada summer games led to an uptick in people interested in racing. Lucier said that their program saw an increase in participants with 24 people under 19 signing up for the race program. He said this was more than the Yukon ever had in a cycling program. Lucier’s athletes will be going to Saint George, Quebec after the KCIBR for Canadian Road Championships which goes from June 25 to 28. For many Yukoners like himself, Lucier said that the KCIBR is the goal race for the year. For athletes going to nationals, the race acts as their last big training ride that they do. Coming from the Yukon, Lucier said that they don’t have a ton of practice riding in the heat. This year’s heat impacted his last 40 kilometers, with his feet starting to hurt quite badly. “Ensuring that you’re eating and drinking enough is super key,” Lucier said about biking in the heat. Lucier estimated that around nine of his racers from the under 19 and under 17 categories raced the KCIBR solo. He said it won’t take long until those racers start fighting for the win as well. “Theres been a huge surge in the last two years of people interested in racing their bike,” Lucier said about the Yukon cycling environment. 

Growing up in Whitehorse, Heather Clarke participated in the eight, four and two person race relays. For the past four years, Clarke has won the KCIBR solo women’s race. Clarke was not sure how many times she has completed the KCIBR total over the years.  “It’s just one of my favorite events, I love it,” Clarke said after completing her fifth solo race. Clarke said the weather the past few years has been amazing, with “pretty good” winds during this year’s race. She said that the first three legs had a huge group of strong riders. Throughout the ride, Clarke was managing both the heat, swiping salt off her face after the finish, as well as her nutrition. Looking at her strategy over the past few years, Clarke said she tries to stay at the front of the group and hang on as long as she can. This year, her chain dropped right when the first move occurred, which resulted in her being dropped from the first group. With around 40 kilometers to go before the finish, Clarke got into a good group. This was when her dad came up and said that they were on track for the record. “So I looked at her and said, ‘Let’s go.’” Before the race started, Clarke explained how the border crossing worked to another solo women’s rider, Rachel Canning, who was racing the KCIBR for the first time. “People wait [at the border] because there’s always a headwind coming into Haines and you just want people to ride with,” Clarke said. Biking through the construction on the Haines Highway, Clarke said they saw a lot of casualties with some people getting flat tires on their front and rear tires. Clarke, however, made it through with no flat tires, but was waiting for them to go while biking through the five mile section. She explained that this is one of her favorite races, because of the community, amazing scenery and how hard it is. “I love the challenge of it. It is a truly hard race and you’re really out there.”

“I also think there’s a huge uptaking, like the solo women, which I’ve been trying to build and bring people.” She said that when she did the race four years ago, she was fully on her own with the solo men’s racers. This year, she said the turnout for the women’s solo race increased greatly. “It makes me so excited that all these strong women are taking on this really challenging event,” Clarke said. “It takes a village for sure, and everyone lives it.”