By Ian Stewart
News Reporter
This weekend’s three-stage Tour de Whitehorse started Friday with a four-kilometre downhill race starting at the top of Robert Service Way.
Mike McCann logged the fastest time of four minutes and 24 seconds, for an average speed of just over 54 kilometres per hour.
On Saturday morning, riders clipped in for the 33-kilometre individual time trial, under near-windless conditions. By the conclusion of this race, the overall championship race — determined by adding up times for all three events, with the lowest accumulated time winning — was heating up.
Jonah Clark, who finished third in the downhill the night before, dominated the time trial and established a 62-second lead over Jesse Reams in the men’s expert class.
Kelsey Kabanak took control of the sport women’s division, while Allison Furniss was well on her way to a repeat of last year’s win in the women’s expert field.
John Berryman held a slim 12-second lead over ageless wonder Bob Bowerman in the sport men’s class, heading into the final race on Sunday.
The grand finale of this year’s tour was an 83-kilometre road race starting at the Takhini Hot Springs Road and ending at Braeburn Lodge.
The men’s expert class came down to a bunch sprint and the Yukon’s best mountain biker, Daniel Sessford, edged Jonah Clark for the win, though Clark ended up winning the Overall Championship.
Allison Furniss was the road race winner and overall champion in the women’s expert class.
In fact, she ended up in a bunch sprint with a select group of men’s sport division riders, and was just edged by Dan Reimer.
Reimer won the sport men’s race, but the overall championship was taken by John Berryman. Berryman hung on to the title, but Sean McCarron, who had been 35 seconds behind Berryman going into Sunday’s race, was gaining fast near the end.
Berryman retained the overall championship by one second.
First-year cyclist Kelsey Kabanak dominated in the women’s sport class, winning the final road race in impressive fashion.
Top finishers — overall championship after three events (110 kilometres of racing):
Expert Men
1st Jonah Clark, 2:52:57
2nd Jesse Reams, + 1 min. 15 sec.
3rd Ian Parker, + 1 min. 21 sec.
4th Daniel Sessford, + 1 min. 40 sec.
5th Troy Henry, + 1 min. 55 sec.
Expert Women
1st Allison Furniss, 3:08:59
2nd Trina Irving, + 30 min. 44 sec.
Sport Women
1st Kelsey Kabanak, 3:38:28
2nd Joanne Weninger, + 59 sec.
3rd Leslie Vandermaas, + 3 min. 35 sec.
4th Kaitlyn MacDonald, +9 min. 59 sec.
Sport Men
1st John Berryman, 3:07:38
2nd Sean McCarron, + 1 sec.
3rd Robert Bowerman, + 12 sec.
4th Jud Deuling, + 1 min 1 sec.
5th Graham Riske, + 1 min 3 sec.