When Holly Henry rolled across the line to finish fifth in Belgian Waffle Ride Arizona, it was the most impressive ride of the day. It wasn’t just finishing on the podium with two Olympians, but in the Victoria rider’s first race back in nearly three years after dealing with lingering concussion symptoms. If that return wasn’t enough weight on the start line, Henry set off onto Arizona gravel less than a month tragedy struck the family. Her sister, an accomplished triathlete, was hit by impaired driver while training on the roads of in Phoenix.
“It was the hardest race I’ve ever done in my life,” Henry says.
BWR Arizona is a hard course to start with. At 165km of doubletrack, singletrack and roads, both gravel and paved, and over 2,200m of elevation gain, it’s a demanding race for everyone on the start line. With finish times over six hours, it was also the longest of Henry’s career. Add in everything else happening, and it is an inspiring ride from the Victoria athlete.
We caught up with Henry back at home in Victoria to find out more about the ride, everything leading up to it, and what the aspiring athlete/coach is up to next.
Holly Henry with Sandra Walter on her wheel. at ’22 CX nationals, where she finished third. Photo: Nick Iwanyshyn
The long road to Arizona
Henry’s road to the Belgian Waffle Ride starts over three years ago. After finishing a season on the road with the Instafund team, she had a hard fall while mountain biking.
“I recovered fairly normally, I had a really good cyclocross season for the first bit, right up to Canadian cyclocross national championships when they were in Victoria,” Henry says. Third in the elite women’s race would be the highlight of any season. The glow didn’t last. “Literally the week after that, I had another fall.”
That fall set the Victoria-based rider up for what would be a string of concussions and concussion symptoms.
“I just kept relapsing, I don’t know,” Henry says, thinking back three years. “I did actually race a little in 2023. I raced Redlands and Joe Martin.”
A crash and broken collarbone ended her run at Joe Martin. Late that summer of ’23, Henry crashed again.
“That was the worst. It seemed like nothing but I had concussion symptoms for two, almost three years after that. I’m only back to feeling normal this year.”
Henry says that, while she was still able to train occasionally, the symptoms kept returning.
“Some days I’d be fine. Some days I’d feel horrible. I’d go through long periods where I thought I was completely better, then I’d relapse with concussion symptoms again. It was just a really long three years of dealing with that.”
From the front of the elite cyclocross races in 2022, to coaching cyclocross for Canada. Photo: Nick Iwanyshyn
A side career in coaching
With her racing on a forced hold, Henry didn’t just sit idle. She dove into coaching, earning a NCCP Competition Development certification, then Chartered Professional coaching designation and is working towards a Masters in high performance coaching at UBC.
“I love working with all the athletes. Seeing their progress is so fulfilling,” Henry says. ‘We have such a good community in Victoria for young cyclists, for all cyclists, so it’s pretty cool to still have been able to stay involved with it as much as I could while I wasn’t able to race.”
Henry works with athletes across a wide range of ages, from early teens to rider’s well into their masters careers. Her focus is on the junior and under-23 ages, a group she recently joined on a Cycling Canada cyclocross project in Europe over the Kerstperiode, an intensive stretch of high-level races over the holidays.
“Everyone had big goals, but these athletes are trying to make it at the highest levels in the sport. And they’re just so young in their careers that it’s pretty cool to be a part of that period for them.”
While Henry says she’s new enough to coaching that she’s still trying to pinpoint exactly where she wants her career to go from here, she’s focusing on growing her own coaching business while hoping to have the chance to be involved with more national-level projects.
Plotting a return to racing, disrupted by tragedy
Henry’s coaching business is growing and she’s clearly having quite a bit of success with that side of her career. But the goal was still to return to racing. Leading into 2026, that finally seemed like a real possibility. After the Cycling Canada project, a training camp in the Canary Islands with her younger sister, Heidi, had gone well. Jumping right back road racing wasn’t appealing.
“I didn’t want be in a race where I was going to be around a bunch of people the entire time. And also I wanted to go and race as cautiously as I could,” Henry explains. “I wanted to do a race that I felt would be relatively low risk. I’m still quite nervous, especially being in a peloton, so gravel seemed like it would be a good intro. It’s still obviously still dangerous. All cycling disciplines are. But for the most part in the race, I was by myself,” Henry says, explaining the decision to take her comeback off road. “I knew that I’d have to ride within my own limits.
Belgian Waffle Ride fit the bill. Her sister Hannah said she would support her the race.
“She was going to be in the feed zones. It was going to be a lot to take out of her day. It’s such a long race and she was training for the Boston Marathon. Usually Saturdays are for her long run. So it was a big commitment for her to say she would help me out in it.”
Before that could happen, tragedy struck. Hannah was killed by a driver that later admitted being on drugs while driving. With just weeks left before BWR, Henry eventually decided to race.
“It was a very, very hard decision. I didn’t end up actually registering for the race until two days before,” Henry shares. “I wanted to do it for her. Also for my family, as well as for myself. It was a good distraction for the day. My sister, my aunt and mom were there in the feed zones all day and it gave them something to be excited for, I think.”
The decision meant weeks of a training in Phoenix leading up to the start. In the same area, on the same roads, that her sister had. That was, as you might expect, not an easy experience.
“I just tried to do what I could. I just kind of rode, mostly on the trails because it was a lot… it felt a lot better to be out on the trails. It was a really hard couple of weeks. But my sister, Heidi, came out with me for a little bit too, which was good.”
Holly Henry on a very strong podium at 2026 BWR Arizona
The first start line in three years
Henry did make it to the start chute in Arizona. Her first in nearly three years.
“It was very scary,” Henry admits. “I was super nervous getting back on the start line. And yeah, it was very emotional in general because of everything that happened.”
Despite years away, a racer is still a racer at heart.
“As soon as we got going I went kind of just back into race mode.”
An hour into the race U.S. Olympic mountain biker Haley Batten started attacking.
“That was good, it started thinning out the group. By the time we hit the singletrack there was only 10 of left in the lead group,” says Henry. “I was happy with that because, again, I didn’t want to be racing with a bunch of people. I was still nervous about crashing.”
Going back into singletrack, Henry’s tire started to lose pressure.
“I buses I burped a bunch or air, so it wasn’t completely flat, but close to it. I probably has eight p.s.i.,” Henry says. not wanting to be caught by the chasing group behind, and able to see the lead group in front, she pushed on to the top of a substantial climb where the air was completely gone. She pumped the tire up and it held.
“I ended up losing way more time. I probably rode like 20k on the climb. It was just a silly mistake,” Henry says. With the bike back in shape, she chased back through riders that had started to drop back from the effort of chasing Batten. Through some difficulty dealing with the heat, it was solidly above 30 Celsius in Phoenix, Henry made it to the finish. In fifth, no less. Not a bad day out for the Canadian’s longest race effort ever.
“I was super happy just to finish. And very happy with fifth place as well, especially given how strong the field was and how hard of a race it was,” Henry says, adding that the result didn’t really sink in right away with everything else happening in the finish area.
Back to the races, on and off the bike
With her first race back successfully behind her, Henry is looking forward to adding more time on the bike in with her coaching. Sea Otter and BWR San Diego are on the list. As is Levi’s Fondo.
“I think it’s 210km with 4,000m elevation gain. That’s my favourite thing to do: go up hiss and ride for a long time,” Henry explains.
After that it’s back to coaching for projects in Washington and Quebec before getting back behind bars herself.
“Later in the summer, I’m hoping to do a few more gravel races and hopefully try qualify for UCI Gravel Worlds.”
With the solid start at BWR adding confidence to the evident skill, worlds could be the keynote race in an exciting return to racing. Despite those ambitions, Henry doesn’t want to step back from coaching.
“I like to mix both. I love them both so much and I think they go well together. I can be a better coach, like I can relate really well with the athletes when I’m also racing because I know what they’re going through,” Henry explains. “And I can stay fit riding with them, or trying to. Some of them are really strong so I’m just hanging on a lot of the time.”