BWR-Team Honey Sweetie Part 1

BCBR 2009 is finished! Scott and I had a great race and even put up a couple of good finishes towards the end of the race. Yeehaw. The BCBR is a 7 day mountain bike stage race that strives to have the most and best singletrack of all the multi-day races. This is the 3rd year for the event and the race courses were better than the previous year's. I rode my new Siren which was a tremendous improvement over the Specialized Enduro I rode last year. Scott was on his trusty, utilitarian WaltWorks single speed (only 1 gear!).

DAY 1- The North Shore, 29 kms

The first day was short at 29 kms. Endless Biking designed the course. The race started fast, uphill, and hit a bottleneck within 5 kms. The first of only 2 climbs was the non-technical grunt up Old Buck. We had a bit of trouble getting past another co-ed team on the climb. He was pushing her up the trail and not sharing the trail. This is a very experienced team (La Ruta x 2, Trans Rockies, Trans Alps and Cape Epic!), and friendly when off the bikes, but not willing to let others by. Local North Shore ripper Wade Simmons was marshalling at the top of the climb and encouraging riders to drop the saddle before dropping into Severed Dick.

From a previous ride on Severed....

We both had good descents and rode off to the middle chain ring climb up Mt. Fromme. Scott was in the front and pulled in maybe 10 or 12 riders! We took the time drop the saddles for the Pipeline descent. We've both ridden this trail before, although in a different disguise...It was imposible to pass other riders, so I hit the 3 rocked in rollers to avoid the walk-around and managed to ride into an open gap. We kept riding well and finished 7th for the stage after getting passed in the last 500 m on the road. Me on the rollers on a non-race day.
DAY 2 - Nanimo to Parksville, Vancouver Island, 73 kms
The morning started with an early ferry ride to Vancouver Island. The trails were great today and we were enjoying the slickrock-esque steep pitches on super sticky outcrops and the views across Georgia Straight. We were riding strong and made up the time lost spent getting my chain unsucked (I may have commented on the upside of singlespeeding here). Then the singletrack stopped. The final 15kms of today's stage was a gradual descending logging road best ridden in the big chain ring. Scott and I worked together, but even with a bit of help from me, he was seriously spun out for all 15kms. Four fully geared co-ed teams passed us in the last 6 kms and we finished 10th. Here's the only picture we took during the race.
DAY 3 - Comox Valley, Vancouver Island, 56 kms

This is some GOOD riding even if overall the day was hard for us. I got chain suck again about 1 hour into the race and we lost 4-5 positions. We managed to regain our position on a 40 minute forest road climb and rolled through the first aid station in good spirits. Then I broke my chain, interupting a sweet, steep, rocky descent. :( Scott came to my rescue and we were rolling again, chasing down teams again. We faultered a bit during a long forest road section and Scott's legs took a beating. Combined with the 15kms at the end of Day 2 and this long, high cadence section, we took a break to refocus. Turns out all Scott needs is single track! He rocked the last 10 kms of single track which were nothing but bridges, short rolling climbs/descents and a few thousand roots.

Re-fuelling in Cumberland.