Young riders, soloists
earn spotlight
in Kluane
By Jessica Edwards
Forty-three Haines cyclists, including seven riders under
age 20 and the youngest-ever two-person team, battled a steady headwind in the 17th
Kluane to Chilkat International Bike Relay Saturday.
A total of 234 squads and 1,050 people competed, down
from 244 teams and 1,255 individuals in 2008.
Relay U.S. vice president Judy Ewald said numbers in the
solo category hit a new record, with 49 riders going it alone, up from 32 last year and 28
in 2007.
Jordan Piper, 17, and Corey Piper, 14, were the youngest
Haines two-person team to compete in the relay to date, Ewald said.
“It’s always been an ultimate goal of mine to
do it by myself,” said Jordan Piper, who said she might attempt a solo ride next
year.
Piper said she volunteered at the Haines Summit
checkpoint at age 15, rode with an eight-member squad the following year, and signed up
this year for a duo team with brother Corey.
The pair trained by riding 10 to 20 miles a day, taking a
60- and an 80-mile ride in the weeks before the relay, she said.
“I trained so much for this, I felt comfortable
doing it,” said Piper. Even so, she said, gusting winds at 10 Mile Haines Highway
made the final stretch tough.
“I had a great time,” said Corey Piper of his
first relay. “It’s a fun race to be in because you have a lot of people racing
with you.”
He said he had to gut through a windy stretch near
Dezadeash Lake, but said descending the hills, especially to Million Dollar Falls, was
thrilling. Piper said he aims to ride solo when he’s 17.
Other young riders included a team of four 2008 Haines
High grads – Tristan Sebens, Kelly Edmond, Chandler Kemp, and Evan Humphrey –
and 16-year-old Quinn Asquith-Heinz, who teamed up with father Sean Asquith and Chip and
Heather Lende on the town’s top team.
Relay veteran Heather Lende said it was encouraging to
see young cyclists turning out for the event. “We’re finally getting some youth
involved from Haines. We’re training up a little group of cyclists.”
It was Lende’s first relay since 2005, when she
suffered a broken pelvis after being run over by a pickup while biking. “I almost did
it last year, but I chickened out.”
Lende’s team, Tour da Haines, led Haines squads,
placing second among mixed four-person teams with a time of 8:12:26, even after the team’s
first rider, Chip Lende took a scary spill.
Lende attributed his crash to high winds, which caused a
large group of riders of varying experience levels to bunch together. As the group began
to sprint in the final mile of Leg 2, a rider just ahead went down. Lende and a third
cyclist also went down.
“I came down on my shoulder and bloodied my nose. My
brakes and gear shifter were broken, but my wheels were true. Luckily, it wasn’t too
serious.”
Cyclist Emilie Entriken, who moved to Haines in April for
a tourism job, wrecked near 2 Mile Haines Highway, when she bumped the wheel of the bike
just ahead. Entriken said the two women she’d been drafting with waited for her to
recover and rejoin the race. “It was amazing.”
Solo rider Ed Michinski said the camaraderie between
competitors made the relay special. He said when someone crashed near the end of Leg 1,
nearly every rider in the large and fast group he was riding with checked to be sure the
biker was unhurt.
Michinski went on to finish his second solo of four
attempts since 2006 in 10:13:32.
School secretary Leigh Horner rode with seven other
school employees or board members on the team “Rotary Connection,” placing 71st
of 71 mixed eight-person teams with a time of 12:16:55.
Horner said her team rode in the true spirit of the
event. “We had a really good time and that’s what it’s all about. My face
hurt from laughing so hard.”
Rotary Connection missed the “red lantern award”
by about 15 minutes. The last place prize was awarded to a trio of Canadian solo riders in
their 60s.
Race winners Eric Breitenberger and Fred Harbison, a
two-man team from Fairbanks, clocked this year’s fastest time of 6:49:26, edging out
solo speedsters John Bursell of Juneau and Jeff Oatley of Fairbanks, who posted times of
6:56:41 and 6:56:42, respectively.
Wind pushed top finishers far off the course record of
5:55:55, set in 2002.
Haines’ Greg Schlachter, a former decathalete,
finished first among 71 riders in the mixed-eight division on leg six, clocking 42 minutes
on the 16.7-mile leg from the Haines Summit to just short of the U.S. Border. Schlachter
was first in 2008 on the relay’s final leg.
Haines Finishers were: Tour Da Haines (2nd of
34 four-person mixed teams), 8:12:26 (Chip Lende, Sean Asquith, Heather Lende, Quinn
Asquith-Heinz); Heads or Tails (8th of two-person men’s squads), 8:41:57
(Chris Millar and Robbie Cant); Chilkat Chain Gang (10th of 73 mixed
eight-person teams), 9:14:44 (Aaron Johnson, Emily Seward, Malene Gajewski, Kate Boor,
Gina St. Clair, Greg Schlachter, Dan Fitzgerald, Daniel Anderson); The RFC (15th
of 22 four-person men’s teams), 9:23:56 (Tristan Sebens, Chandler Kemp, Kelly Edmond,
Evan Humphrey); Eleventh Hour (14th
of 73 mixed eight-member squads), 9:28:21 (Russ Lyman, Andy Hedden, Jessica Edwards, Emily
Harris, Paul Nicastro, Darren Shields, Dennis Durr, Emilie Entriken); Border Riders (50th
of 73 mixed eight-person teams), 10:24:30 (Ken Ewald, Barbara Stevens, Joe Berry, Bill
Darling, Scott Berry, Marinka Darling, Judy Ewald); Pedaling Pipers (11th of 11
two-person mixed teams), 10:59:28 (Corey Piper, Jordan Piper); Rotary Connection (71 of 73
mixed eight-person squads), 12:16:55 (Leigh Horner, Michael Byer, Jo Ann Ross-Cunningham,
Patty Brown, Sam McPhetres, Michelle Byer, Cheryl Stickler, Daymond Hoffman).
