BC Bike Race: Showdown on the North Shore
Classic step down.
Stage 5 of the BC Bike Race brought the event back to mainland British Columbia for a 9.5-mile time trial on the testing trails of the famed North Shore of Vancouver. Total climbing was a leg burning 2778 feet, with an average ride time of just under 2 hours.
Check out the stage 5 course profile here, video recap here, and full results here.
Quality signage.
While the day may have been short in distance, turn for turn it was packed full of the most fun technical riding of the week. The formula for success was to stay on top of your bike and let it wiggle through every rocky and rooty funnel as you cascaded your way down Seymour Mountain. This is where bike design has progressed the entire industry for the better, as bikes are asked to navigate more challenging terrain at higher speeds than ever before.
This year’s stage sent riders off in groups of five at 15-second intervals. The unique format helped ease the congestion of sending 600 racers off at once on such a short course.
Riding the freight train.
The start and finish combined with the time-trial format at Park Gate Park allowed a course design that optimized fun and quality from start to finish. Seymour Mountain has always been the “North Shore” to the locals, but the rest of the world has a narrower view of the shore and often overlooks this staple to the local riding community.
It is here you will find trails still holding on to some old-school feel, while mixed with more and more rebuilds of old trails such as Good Sir Martin and Penny Lane which combined got over 1880 hours of rework recently.
Tacky trails anyone?
In the open women’s contest, Kelli Emmett (Juliana/SRAM/Lululemon Athletica) squeaked out another win after a front flat on the first descent caused her to hit the tire with a quick blast from her CO2. She had to make it quick because Kaysee Armstrong (LIV Giant) was on fire, motivated by the terrain that pointed in her favor. Armstrong grabbed her first second place finish of the week, finally taking some time out of Sammi Runnels (Ride Biker Alliance) who had built a substantial lead on her.
As for the open men, it was another exciting day, as Cory Wallace (Kona Bikes) charged hard in search of the time he lost on stage 3. Wallace worked with his teammate Spencer Paxson on the opening climb up Old Buck taking turns attacking the rest of the lead men.
The theme of the day was to go just hard enough to build pressure but not blow the cap off the next two days of racing. Stephen Ettinger (Ride Biker Alliance/Focus) managed to hold on to the pace of Wallace and Paxson until the descending speed started eating at his confidence and he couldn’t bridge back up. In the end Paxson held onto the leaders jersey by a thin 22 seconds, and Wallace moved into second place, just 11 seconds ahead of Ettinger.
Sitting in the pain cave.
“Today was probably the hardest stages per kilometer,” said Wallace. “You just had to pick the right line, keep it upright. One of those days you can’t go too hard which is easy to do in a one hour stage.”
Next up the race heads east to Squamish for a 53km long day that is always one to remember. The featured trail Pseuda-Tsuga 1, 2, 3 is always a favorite and will have riders on the rivet to the end.
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