Fighting cold temperatures and rain, three Jasperites beat the elements to win their respective races during Jasper’s first Gran Fondo, June 13.
With more than 130 cyclists, the race was broken up into three groups and included a 65 km route, a 100 km route and a 165 km route.
It was a photo finish for Matthew Decore, co-owner of Jasper House Bungalows, who beat the runner up by 12 milliseconds with a time of 5:04:44.
“Rain is the great equalizer,” said Decore, a former professional cyclist and co-chair of Jasper’s local organizing committee for the Tour of Alberta. “I dressed for success and was nice and warm.
“You’re not supposed to win your own race, because we are a sponsor of it, but if that’s the way it goes, I’m happy to win the first Gran Fondo.”
Sean Allin, a local Jasperite who was competing in the 100 km race, made it look easy crossing the finish line more than six minutes ahead of the next closest competitor with a time of 3:25:22.
“I rode by myself for about 95 kilometres,” said the 19-year-old athlete who signed up for the race the night before.
“I find when you have someone in front of you or even people to ride with, you can draft which is way easier. When you’re by yourself it’s a whole different ball game.”
Amy Phillips crushed her competitors in the 65 km race, beating the runner up by more than 11 minutes with a time of 2:07:42.
All three races started at Centennial Park before splitting off on their own routes.
The 100 km and 165 km routes both included an elevation gain of 1,338 metres as riders made their way up Marmot Road. After turning around and heading back down, competitors turned onto Highway 93A and continued to Athabasca Falls. From there competitors headed south on the Icefield Parkway. The longest route had cyclists ride to the staff complex at Poboktan Creek before turning around and returning to Jasper.
For Allin, this was the 10th time he has biked up Marmot Road already this year.
Trevor Soll, the race director, said he was pleased with the way the race went.
“Being able to push [the race] later into summer would be great, but at the same time this is a good kick off to the season,” said Soll.
The route was similar to what cyclist will ride during the Tour of Alberta in September.
“When I started putting the route together I had no idea the tour was even coming, let alone we were going to do most of the same route,” he said, adding the hill climb to Edith Cavell was scrapped due to bridge construction.
He said he hopes to make the race an annual event.
“There’s so many variations that we can do and we’ll keep changing it because people want the challenge.”
As well as the Gran Fondo, MultiSport Canada also hosted a triathlon with two different lengths.
On June 14, athletes biked, swam and ran the Sprint and Tri It and ultimately, Zac Lipinski of Leduc came out on top in the Sprint and Seth Joyce of Chetwynd took the top prize for the Tri It.
The Sprint was comprised of 30 lengths of the pool, 26 kms on the bike and a five km run, while the Tri It included 12 lengths, a 13 km bike ride and a 2.5 km run.
For the full results, visit www.granfondo-jasper.ca.
Paul Clarke
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