Ashlin Barry (EF Education-ONTO) claimed his second title of the 2024 USA Cycling Road National Championships, soloing away from the junior men's field on the final lap of the road race in Charleston, West Virginia.
Barry soloed to the victory by 1:16 ahead of runner-up Brandon Reitz (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale NewGen), third-placed Adrian Groman (DC Devo Racing Academy), while Brendan Luongo (Hot Tubes Development) finished fourth.
Barry won the junior men's individual time trial and placed second in the criterium on Thursday in his first US championship as a dual Canadian-US citizen. The victory capped off a year of achievements including an overall victory in the Tour du Bocage et de l'Ernée 53 and a top 10 in the junior Paris-Roubaix.
"It feels incredible," Barry said of his road race title. "It's so much more than I expected to achieve coming here, and I'm really, really happy with how it went, with how hard my team worked to get the win."
EF Education-ONTO were aggressive throughout the race, putting Peyton Burckel into the early move with Joaquin Medina Garzon (Hot Tubes) but that move was brought back by the third lap. A counter-attack came from Brendan Luongo (Hot Tubes), and he stayed clear solo for the third lap before Barry bridged across with two other riders, William Barnett (EF Education-ONTO) and Groman, while Noah Streif also came across to make it three for EF Education-ONTO in the lead group.
"My teammates worked really hard to try and split up the race," Barry said. "On the last climb, there were five guys, and my teammate Noah went on the bottom the last climb, and Brayden went just at the top, and then I just attacked over the top and went clear, and they had regrouped behind. Then I just went as hard as I could."
