Devon Clarke and Benjamin Perry (Guava x Castelli S.O.G.) took flight in the final stages of Paris to Ancaster to claim the elite victories at the Canadian round of the UCI Gravel World Series.
Clarke defended her title emphatically with a time of 3:15:02, crossing the line solo after carving out a lead of 1:42 to her nearest rival Anne-Sophie Hebert (Competitive Edge Racing) who came second ahead of Hannah Simms.
“It was pretty much all together the first, I’d say 40k and then there was a bit of a split – eight of us working together – and then at 60k the national champ [Katja Verkerk] attacked and I followed and the two of us worked together till the final ten k,” Clarke told Canadian Cycling Magazine in an interview put out on Instagram. “I put some more effort in up a climb and was able to hold that for the final ten.”
The 114km long race with 881m of climbing has been running since 1994. Starting at the fairgrounds in Paris Ontario if took place over varied roads, trails and farm tracks with 62% unsealed surfaces. There were a number of muddy sections in the race with this year joined the UCI Gravel World Series and a brutal steep and rutted climb on Old Martin Road just 3km from the finish line.
The final sections of mud were crucial to Perry’s race, after a group of about a dozen riders had split off at about 40 to 50km into the race.
“Everyone was thinking about those two mud chutes in the last 8k and I luckily won the sprint to the first one took it easy down to the bottom,” Perry told Canadian Cycling Magazine. “Rode really hard in between the two mud shoots and went first into the second one and then got a gap on the second mud chute and just TT’d to the line and never had more than five seconds for the last five minutes. It was brutally painful but luckily I held on for the win.”
Perry – who is set to take on Traka 360 next weekend – crossed the line with a time of 2:47:49, three seconds ahead of Yehor Volkov while in third it was Theo De Groote (Factor Racing) at ten seconds back.
The Paris to Ancaster was one of two rounds of the UCI Gravel World Series – a qualifier for the Gravel World Championships – in North America on Sunday. Crystal Anthony and Skyler Taylor winning the Highlands Gravel Classic in the United States.