BC Bike Race- Day 1 on the Shore!

Course profile of Stage 1

The start of the 1st stage of the BC Bike Race today was incredible. I have never been part of such a big biking event. The starting chute was filling up wildly almost an hour before the gun went off. I rode my bike to the start as I live about a half hour away and when I arrived saw the crowds converging on the Ice Rink at the foot of Berkley on Mt. Seymour Parkway.

Mark and Noel all happy at the start line

At 10am when all 400 racers were at anxiety level code red, they pressed go, and we ripped through the starting gate. The start took us on a 180 degree turn up Berkley, and uphill I might add, for 5 minutes. The pace was like cyclocross; eye bleeding. I was in about 150th place at the start and had to work to get closer to the front.
The bottleneck was pretty obvious at the connector to the trail linking to Blair Range. From there we headed past the golf course to Bridal Path and down Empress Bypass to Old Buck. The climb up Old Buck was fast and furious. I attacked and tried to pass as many people as I could as daggers seared into my quads on every pedal stroke. The goal was to get as fast as possible to Severed so I could relax on the descent. When I got there, Wade Simmons was high fiving everyone so I couldn't say no.

Michelle and Oliver

Once back at Bridal we worked our way west back to Fisherman's trail where we found the wall of Homestead climb. This slowed down the pace and pushed the heart rate up to the max before we worked our way up to Mountain Highway and up the fire road to Pipeline.

Chris Brown ripping off the line at the start of Stage 1

Ok, we all ride the fire road up to Pipeline, but when you have ridden all out for an hour and a half, most of which uphill, Pipeline is hard! I found even the small steeps difficult to navigate and corning a challenge. Everything ached. It went quick though and we found ourselves ripping through Princess Park down to Lynn Valley Park to the finish. My time was 1:51 and 8th place in Solo men. The winner in Solo was North Shore's Colin Kerr at 1:39... wow!

My only comment after today's first race is, six more long days. This was the shortest of all, enjoy it!

-Kimbo