BCBR Mountain Bike was going to be tough this year with a deep field. 3 past champions, Geoff Kabush, Felix Burke and myself, Karsten Madsen, young gun, Carter Nieuwesteeg, and World Cupper, Andrew L’Esperance. Andrew races short pinner races all year and was likely the favourite as these stages would fit right in his wheel house. A couple fast Americans, Payson Partridge and Matt Fox were also on the start line for what was going to be an intense 6 days of racing with the stages hovering between 13 and 30 km long.
My plan was simple, go hard on day one while the legs still had some freshness in them, then settle into a conservative battle for the week. With already 5 days of racing in the legs the matchbox would be a bit low compared to the riders coming in fresh. The other contenders, outside Karsten, were coming in rested and would likely get a bigger advantage as the race week wore on.
Stage 1 went well for a while pinning it from the start with only Andrew Lespy willing to come along at that pace. He’d up the tempo even further, putting in a small surge, trying to ride a sustainable pace, i’d let him go, Felix and Carter would come by a bit later, but they seemed to hit there limit, I’d come back to them and we’d form a solid chase group. Riding pretty conservatively over the first gnarly rock section I must’ve ran over a four leaf clover, hitting a rock wrong, putting a huge gash in my tire. Ripping out the cush core, undoing the valve, putting a new tube in, I was ready to get back into the race in under 3 minutes but my Co2 head blew it’s seal while trying to inflate the tire. Dang, a meltdown like this happens once every 5-6 years, bad timing though on this one.
I had to walk down a bit to find a pump, pumped it up, then somewhat conservatively rolled to the finish as tubes never seem to hold up at race pace, especially over such rough terrain. Another flat would completely end any GC hope. Lucking out, it didn’t go flat, but I lost 12 minutes on the stage which essentially ending GC contention unless a miracle happened in the coming days. 4 of the top 9 would have catastrophic flats this this stage with Kabush, Karsten and Nathan Killam all falling victim.
Stage 2 was in the hills above Summerland. Sitting about 8th overall, the tactic was to send some long bombs from the start on the opening road section hoping to get a gap with one or two riders. Unfortunately their was too much firepower in the group and they’d work together to bring me back every time. with 2 x 13-15 km stages this day, the racing was going to be short and intense. The legs were hurting, rolling in 8th, losing a few more minutes, in what turned into a sub 1 hour effort.
Stage 3 was directly after Stage 2, with a neutral feedzone, then the riders could start the next stage whenever. I had to do a small adjustment to the bike, took a solid 15 minute rest, before waiting for the right opening to put in a 13 km effort over Conkle hill. The legs felt good, rolling in 3rd on this stage which turned in to be just over 30 minutes long. Not too bad I figured for a diesel engine already on day 7 of racing!
Stage 4 was at the nearby Apex Mountain ski resort. This was a stage I had been eyeing up as it was at a bit of altitude (1700-2100 m), could be cold, and riders might be tired from the drive up etc. I went up the night before to camp in the woods, thinking it would be more relaxing. The plan was to wake up a bit later, ride a bit of the course to get a good warmup up in and then hopefully catch some riders off guard. The plan was to send a long bomb from the start again with a 20 minute climb straight out of the gates.
Unfortunately this plan went astray when the logging trucks started rolling through camp at 3:30 am. At first I thought it was just a bad dream and some WW2 tanks were rolling through. When the parade didn’t stop I went outside to witness one logging truck after another. Not sure why the hell they get up so early but it meant a tiring day ahead for the bike racer. Pretty groggy eyed, I likely should’ve aborted my plan, but with the short racing all week their wasn’t anytime to waste if I was to claw back into GC contention. The long bomb worked well with Andrew coming with me, we had a big gap quickly but when he came around to take his turn I realized my legs weren’t at their top form any more and had to ease up a bit. The rest of the stage riders would roll by one by one, eventually hitting 8th position, before rebounding to 7th, then the stage was over in just over 1.5h hours. It was the first real sign the matchbox was getting empty from the previous 8 days of racing.
Riding back up to my van/campsite, I decided to drive down a dirt road to find a place to sleep for a while. Seeing signs that kept saying “Vista” I thought great, I’ll drive to the vista, take a view, then have a sleep. The road disintegrated into a grass path and took me down a steep pitch into a bowl. I figured shit, this is far enough so parked the van under a pine tree and fell asleep for a few hours. Waking up I realized it had rained throughout my nap and all 3 grassy roads leading out of the bowl were now greasy as hell. I picked the shortest hill and kept taking runs at it with my Pontiac Montana Soccer mom van. Eventually making it to the top but the van would just get high entered going over the lip. It wasn’t the best situation. I was starting to think to load up my backpack with all the valuables, leave the van there to RIP and ride back down to Summerland.
The soccer mom van was bought 5 years ago for $800 when I was in a pinch and needed a vehicle last second for TransRockies when my truck had a meltdown. It doesn’t owe me anything that is for sure. Being stubborn, I opted to keep trying to get the van out and eventually took my axe to the hillside to knock down the dirt and dig out some rocks. Eventually the van scraped over the hump and back to Summerland we rolled, a bit haggard but still in one piece and not even any oil was leaking which was a bonus.
Stage 5 was back in the tire eating 3 blind mice with a short 20 km stage. The plan now was to conserve whatever was left for one last big effort on Stage 7. Not going off the front, actually made the day harder as the body never received its adrenaline surge to wake up. Instead it gave me more time to realize just how screwed the legs were getting after all the racing. It was interesting as we went up the same single track climb as Stage 2 of BCBR Gravel, and my time was slightly faster over the 20 minute effort on the Gravel bike. This was in part due to fatigue but it’s interesting just how capable gravel bikes are getting. After dropping far back early on, it was a mental push to get back up to Karsten and Matt Fox, riding in 6th and 7th, I figured I better keep some riders in site so I didn’t lose full motivation. The 10km descent off the top was a great ride with Karsten as we rode over the ever challenging rocky terrain of the Mice.
Stage 6 was back on Campbell mountain, alot of the same terrain we raced over on our gravel bikes during Stage 1 of BCBR Gravel. Again I sat in early hoping to have a steady day. We ended up in a fun chase group of 4 riders (Matt, Karsten, Nathan and myself). Matt tried to drop us on a descent and instead went over the side hill into a cloud of dust, it was a very impressive gymnast move as he cart wheeled down the hill. Karsten slowed down to see if he was ok, Matt looked ok so I figured screw him for attacking us on a DH, let’s pin it and drop his ass!
Matt’s actually a pretty good friend, we battled each other hard at Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder earlier this year. It’s all friendly rivalries at BCBR and we’d all stop the race in a heartbeat to help each other, luckily today we could see Matt was ok so kept on trucking.
Rolling across the line in an hour and a quarter capped one of the flowiest & enjoyable BCBR days yet. It was impressive to fit 25 km of riding onto that little hill. The BC Bike Race team was sure killing it this year, as always 👍.
Stage 7 started with the same climb as Stage 1. I sent the long bomb from the start hoping the other riders may have tired themselves out a bit in the previous stages, and maybe just maybe my legs would start to bounce back. It was a feeble attempt as Kabush, Felix, Carter and Andrew would stick to my wheel pretty easily before Kabush would put in a surge. Looking at the Strava segment up the first pitch of the climb, we were nearly 45 seconds faster on Stage 1 over that same 6-7 minute section. Apparently fatigue was setting in. Settling into the chase group with Payson and Matt it was a fun last stage cruising some great trails with the Americans. It was great to watch the two battling as they were within minutes of each other in GC for 5th overall. Payson would eventually pull ahead, I’d settle into 6th on the day, with Matt not far behind as we raced down the gnarly 3 blind mice trail system once again.
At the finish line the BCBR crew had a festival atmosphere waiting complete with a beer garden and the entertainment of watching riders roll in for the rest of the day. This marked the 11th day of racing in the past 12. The legs were shot, but the body actually felt ok, in large part due to the fact we only raced around 9 hours over the 7 stages, one of the smallest riding weeks I had all week. With 10 am starts, and all the stages in the same area, it made for a relaxing week. Penticton was a great little hub as it seems the BCBR has found a nice new little home!
It was time to catch up with some friends and have a few drinks after the regimented past few weeks. Not knowing what was up next on the schedule I shut it down just before midnight, just in case something big was around the corner. Jordan, South Africa, USA, and Vancouver Island were all potential options. Thanks to support from Kona, my friend Japie in South Africa, a lucky deal on an entry, and running into the right teammate at the right time, the cards all magically fell into place for the legendary untamed race of Africa, the Cape Epic! I had noticed a great deal on a flight to South Africa a month back, so bought it, just in speculation. Thus all the pieces were in line to fly out of Calgary on tuesday to basically the furthest inhabited place on the globe you can go from Canada!
Looking at different possibilities to get to Calgary, it was shocking to find out a 1 hr flight from Victoria to Calgary ($600) was going to cost more then the 22 hour flight from Calgary-Amsterdam-Cape Town ($530), and this one even came with meals. I’m pretty sure Canada has the most expensive domestic flights in the World. Thus it was into the Soccer Mom van for the 6 hour drive to Calgary. Luckily I have great friends their in Joane and Wayne Worobec and they brought me in for a Turkey feed monday night, and helped get everything ready for the mid day flight out of Calgary. I had left my truck with them back in May when I flew down to Guatemala. When it was time to come back to Canada in July their were essentially no reasonable flight options so I had biked back from Bend, Thus my truck was still in Calgary, now moved out to their friends in the countryside. I was a bit sheepish showing up with another vehicle to leave but they just laughed and pretty soon Wayne was dropping me off at the Calgary airport to start my journey to South Africa!
I’ll be teaming up with Christiaan Janse van Rensburg from South Africa. Our mutual friend Japie Swanepol linked us up, and by the looks of it we should have some good horsepower for the 8 stage Cape Epic. With a bunch of proper Marathon stages in store it will be a treat to go back into Diesel mode as we will be up against the toughest competition of any MTB stage race in the World. The body feels good, it will be a surprise how the legs bounce back from 11 days of BCBR, but I think it will be good. Only one way to find out!
Follow along the race action this week at Cape-Epic.com
PS Once landing in South Africa, my teammate Christiaan broke his collarbone on our first training ride. Arrangements are being made to find another teammate within the next 24hrs or else it may be a prolonged wine tour here in Africa…
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