BC Bike Race: Gearing up for a wild ride

This summer, B.C. will see an influx of mountain bikers from all over the world. They’ll come to test their mettle in the inaugural BC Bike Race, an event combining endurance, speed and strength with some of the best, not to mention most scenic, mountain bike trails in the world.

According to Dave Narona, a former pro cyclist, a B.C. version of this kind of race is overdue.

“I’ve raced all over the world, and the big ones build tourism,” says Narona, a director of the event. “People come, they bring family and friends, and they’ll go back An epic climb out of the Cheakamus
Canyon on part of the Day 6 race route
from Squamish to Whistler (Cheakamus
Challenge Fall Classic mountain bike
race/Joern Rohde)and say how great Victoria was, or the Comox Valley or the Sunshine Coast, Vancouver or Whistler, and talk about all the things you can do there.”

Multi-day races are a relatively recent phenomenon, and are now held in Europe, South Africa and the Rockies, to name a few locations. The BC Bike Race: Pacific Traverse mixes aspects of marathon, adventure and stage racing, such as a reverse time trial like that found on the second-to-last day of the Tour de France. With more single-track trails than any other comparable race, and unique features like a skyline ride through old-growth forests, it’s a uniquely B.C. event.

“Although our initial goal was to have it all single track, 100 kilometres of single track per day would kill most people,” says Narona. With that in mind, the course is a mix of single track and wider logging roads, of which there is an abundance in B.C. “For multi-day races like this one, you get a small group of professionals that are very fit. But the majority are weekend warrior types coming from all over the world. They want to see Vancouver, Victoria and Whistler. It’s like a holiday on their mountain bike, basically.”

And they’ll have a lot to say, if Andreas Hestler has his way. The Victoria-born pro-racer says he designed the course to tell a story, one that visitors can relate to friends and family back home. “I want people to experience the best aspects we have—coastal riding, rainforest riding and mountains—and, also, a variety of terrain,” says Hestler. “I have to be careful—we don’t want people to burn out.”

After all, we wouldn’t want our Lycra-clad visitors to miss the incredible views.

For information, tap into www.sevenbikerace.com