Finally, Toronto’s Ashlin Barry is a junior. Believe it or not, during the past few years when he’s been riding (and beating) adults, he wasn’t even under-19 yet. In 2023, he signed up with Jonathan Vaughters’s EF Education-ONTO junior team, and became teammates with riders like Enzo Hincapie, son of George, who raced with Ashlin’s father, former WorldTour pro, Michael. His mother, Dede is a former junior world champion, and Olympic silver medallist.
He already has some impressive results. In 2022 and 2023, despite being not yet under-19, he took the overall win at the Green Mountain stage race, and raced in the Pro/1 category at the Intelligentsia Cup crit races in Chicago. Now that he’s a proper junior, what is he looking forward to?
“My biggest goal is to learn as much as possible in all the races and take opportunities to get results where I can,” he said. “I have a great race schedule lined up for the year which I’m really excited about and I’m looking forward to taking advantage of all the chances I get to learn and win races.”
Quick on the road, quick on the track
Barry is an accomplished track rider, and has some impressive speed on the boards. He is often seen at the Mattamy National Cycling Centre, zipping around on the indoor velodrome. Despite being under-17, he had special permission to race with the under-19 category at the track nationals. At the 2023 event, he took gold in the elimination, the madison, the team pursuit, along with a silver in the individual pursuit, keirin, and points race.
As well as racing in Milton, ON, he returned to the Next Generation Track Meet in Apeldoorn, The Netherlands, where he was second in the individual pursuit and points race, and first in the scratch, tempo and elimination. He was leading the madison along with another Enzo–this time, Edmonds, until a puncture ruined their race.
“I’ve been keeping busy racing on the track, training hard and in school,” the 16-year-old said. “Over the last month I had a couple of training camps on the road bike and I also had the opportunity to race in Apeldoorn, which was super fun and a great opportunity to race against a lot of the top European riders in January.”
Education first
School is important to Ashlin, and the challenge of training and studying takes some good planning. Currently, he’s…
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