BC RACE Stage 6

Day 6
The town of Squamish was the setting for what many had said would be the crunch of the BC race. This stage is a combination of 2 separate cross country races the Test of Metal and the Gearjammer. The Test of Metal is widely regarded in Canada as the unofficial MTB Championship of the World, the winner of this one day race held in May every year must be an excellent mountain bike rider, Max Plaxton won the race just before the BC Race started this year and along with his partner Andreas Hestler managed to win the stage as well. Today we made it through without any problems but I was really feeling the effects of only 4 hours sleep the night before. After the ferry trip back from the Sunshine coast I had gone into Vancouver for a couple hours before trying to head up to Squamish. A propane leak on the Whistler Highway closed the road until 1 a.m. so what should have been a big nights sleep turned into a stressful evening instead. Our plan was to ride smoothly and pick up the pace on the long logging road climb about halfway through the race,a couple times I had to tell Yoshi to back off a bit and even though we managed to maintain our position we could have done a bit more with this super hard 65 kilometer course today.
A big thanks goes out to the mechanics who worked until 3 or 4 a.m. every night repairing racers bikes, my bike spent the night before the 6th stage in their hands as I had manged to destroy a chainring and chain on the 5th stage. Due to my traveling problems I didn't have a chance to check the bike out at all before the stage start, I pretty well walked up to the service area 10 minutes before the start of the race, begged them to let me "pay you later" and lined up at the start line. The bike was perfect right from the word go and after the race when I paid up I also gave them my thanks. There is a lot that goes into putting a 7 day stage race together, somebody was taking my tent down and putting it up again every night, somebody else was making me breakfast and dinner everyday, when you think there is about 600 people traveling along within the race. A big shower truck was always near the campsite, I never had to wait more than 10 minutes to get clean. The organizers of the race made a few mistakes but were always quick to take the blame and make the corrections, very impressive group.

BC RACE stage 5

Stage 5
If you ever have the chance to get over to the sunshine coast , make sure you ride the trails around the towns of Sechelt and Gibson known as the Rat Race Trail System. The locals have built some of the most fun flowing trails that I have ever had the pleasure to ride. Not super technical but just tricky enough to keep you on your toes. Great banked trails through the rainforest help you keep your speed on these fast smooth trails. We were feeling good about our riding over the last couple days and were looking forward to this day. The cycling gods were not on my side though as today was my turn to have the mechanical problem , with about 15 kilometers left to go on this 65 kilometer ride my chain snapped. Not only did it break but a whole section of chain came off. By the time we got that fixed we had lost at least 20 minutes and once again finished the day feeling a bit unsatisfied.

Stage Winners-

Team Old School ( Canadain 2008 olympian Seamus Mcgrath, Chris Sheppard) 3:36

Brownfishjumpers 4:47

BC RACE Stage 3-4

Stage 3
With our new plan of action we start out on a 65 kilometer day which takes us to Cumberland. We had been told that the last 20 kilometers of this day were like the icing on the cake with the last 10 kilometers being the sweetest. Lots of singletrack and logging roads took us to the Qualicum river. The cool river waters felt great as we hiked through to the far side, Yoshi layed himself down in the water while we waited our turn to get up the river bank, he started a trend as by the time we got out pretty well all the racers behind us were submerged in the river. The final hour of riding was awesome , we had energy left in our tanks to really enjoy the technical riding and we finished feeling tired but good about our day, a big contrast to our 2 previous days
Stage Winners – Team Trek VW- 3:42
29th- Brownfishjumpers- 4:39

Stage 4

A 4:30 am wake up call greeted the racers today, we were herded onto buses, driven to the ferry. After a breakfast provided by BC Ferries we had time to go on the deck of the boat and take in a classic BC scene of　mountains, ocean and blue sky. Today’s race started right from the Ferry Terminal and would take us 60 kilometers down the Sunshine Coast to Sachet. Once again we started of at a reasonable pace and slowly worked into the ride. Lots of excellent trails along the way today and we were well on the way to having our best ride yet when Yoshi had the first of 2 flat tires in the final 2o kilometers. Having a mechanical problem in a race of this length is not really surprising in fact we had seen many other teams dealing with their problems right since the first kilometer of day 1. Mountain Biking is all about finishing.
Stage Winners – Team Kona- 3:11
31st Brownfishjumpers- 4:15

BC RACE Stage two

Stage-2
135 kilometers of gravel roads was the answer for the snowed in trails that separated Lake Cowichan to Port Alberni. I used to ride allot of road races but hadn't ridden in a pack at 35kmh for longer than I cared to remember, Yoshi as well has spent many hours riding but mainly on the trails that abound in British Columbia. The hard thing about riding in a pack is that at first it is not that hard in fact if you get right in the middle of it you get a good draft and get pulled along. Problems started to occur after about 90 kilometers of hammering along trying to stay in the slipstream. 1st I had to chase back to the pack after a slow stop at a feed zone , next Yoshi got left behind on a short climb and when I dropped back to him we made a huge mistake, For the next 5 kilometers we chased back to the pack one more time. As soon as we made contact the road turned up, the climb was only 3 kilometers long but after all the high-speed riding Yoshi`s legs stopped going around. This Combined with his overheating the previous day and the pace of road racing today he experienced what is commonly know as the bonk. It is almost impossible to recover if you have let your body get into this state, Yoshi tried to eat and drink as much as he could but in the 35 degree heat and with 30 kilometers still to go we were in big trouble. I should have realized what we were getting into well before we got to this point but both of us were elite racers not to many years back and it felt great to ride with the pros again. Yoshi completely drained himself getting to the finish then had to spend 3 hours in the medical tent rehydrating and cooling his body down. That night I said to Yoshi that on the 3rd day we should start very easy, forget about riding with Sheamus Magrath(Canadian Olympic Team Member) and finish the day riding strong not dead.
Stage Winners- Team Flight Center- Aus.- 4:21
32nd- Brownfish Jumpers - 5:18