Epic Racing around the World

80 miles. 78 of them on dirt logging roads.

Dusty. Dull. Hills and wind towards the finish. Flat tire on Bart’s bike at the crux of the action and I doubt there could have been worse moment for it to have happened. The writing was instantly on the wall - the 4 best teams at the front after a stiff climb, us making a pit stop to fix Bart’s tire….its road racing 101: 8 guys do their best team time trial while Bart and I dug deep into our bag of courage and kept them at 10 seconds for fourty painfully frustrating minutes.

I’m not sure if we lost the lead to the Kona boys….but I think we likely did. Now we have a new race on our hands - two teams tied for 2nd (us and Kona) and two more teams lurking only 2 minutes behind.

Today’s chase was expensive and I’ll be feeling it in the morning.

Tinker and Mitchell rolled in somewhere ahead of us after getting a bit lost in the few K’s of single track just before the finish, while Sue and Matt held strongly onto their 2nd place, but seeded a couple of minutes to the leaders of their category.

Photo dump:

Tent City. The infrastructure of the race is amazing. I give everything an A+ except for course marking, which ranks only ahead of La Ruta for going budget on the marking tape. We even became lost with Andreas Hestler and his partner Max Plaxton…and they live here!

Sue and Matt. Dust and sunscreen equals…mud mask!

There’s nothing like a bike race to make you miss a bunch of scenery. Luckily cameras help you catch what we all were missing.

Nat Ross and I loving every inch of today’s dirt roads.

Even with the leader’s jersey, you gotta sit around in the staging area just like everyone else.

Stage 1 awards - Co-Ed category, Sue and Matt in 2nd.

Pro Men.

The leader’s jerseys for the different categories.

Like I said, with the exception of a few vaguely marked turns, the BC Bike Race is one of the most professional events I’ve attended. The daily press keeps us busy before and after each stage, helicopters are filming various parts of the event each day, and the facilities and communities are stellar. Here Tinker and Mitchell ham it up for the mic.