Tuesday, June 30th, 2009
BC Bike Race – Day Two: Nanaimo to Parksville Update
Image by Dave Silver
Posted on BC BikeRace.com
When most cyclists sign up for a mountain bike race, they can expect to climb on their bikes and ride either loops of a single circuit or a point-to-point course of trails. It’s doubtful whether they anticipate a scenic ferry crossing as part of the “warm-up.”
For the almost 400 BC Bike Race participants, an early wake up in North Vancouver precluded their BC Ferries morning voyage across the Georgia Straight to Vancouver Island. The sun shone overhead as many riders relaxed on the upper deck to map out their race strategy for the day.
Once the vessel docked in Nanaimo, racers donned their day’s kit and traded their street clothes for their mountain bikes. Close to 400 riders toed the start line in the shadow of the looming Bear-On-Bike crowned arch for the countdown to the 10:45am start.
With the start horn, two Royal Canadian Mounted Police members on bicycles led the controlled start that carried racers to their first drop in of the day. From there until the first feed zone – anywhere from 80 minutes onward – riders gobbled up endless polished singletrack. The inside scoop on this area is that the passionate riders in the local mountain bike club hand-build and painstakingly maintain the trails, some of which were purpose-built for this second BC Bike Race stage. Their efforts were not lost on the pack.
Seamus McGrath and Chris Sheppard (Team Jamis – Santa Cruz) were new to the trails in this area. “We didn’t know what to expect but it was honestly some of the best trail that we’ve seen. It was relentless, fast, flowing, tight technical. A little of everything – drop offs, bridges – everything of what mountain biking is about. There were some great new sections. Whoever built it deserves a bunch of clapping!“
