A group of four men from North Vancouver’s Steed Cycles recently completed in the inaugural Chilko Challenge , a 3-day, 126 kilometer XC mountain bike stage race through the heart of southern British Columbia. The group posted highly informative write-ups of their experiences on the Steed Cycles Blog . Following are excerpts from the write-ups. Perhaps this will encourage you to sign up for next year?!

Chilko Challenge Day 1- The Beginning
The Chilko Challenge! What a nutty event! Loved it! The organizers were super cool and explained the night before Day 1 that this event was grass roots and we shouldn’t be expecting dream single track riding on groomed trails. Instead we should be ready for a tough plow through the Chilcoutin on some of the most remote beautiful trials, which would entail SOME bushwacking. A must was a GPS which they gave us co-ordinates for each day in advance so we could program them into the unit. The views were incredible! Continue reading…

Chilko Challenge Day 2- Epic Suffering!
Day 2 was our longest day by far. My Giant Reign was the perfect bike. It would consist of huge climbs, long alpine meadow rides and fantastic views. The initial weather forecast called for sun and clound, but the day started with beautiful sunny skies. Looking at the weather at the start of the day I re-evaluated what I was going to bring - neoprene gloves, nope don’t need those. Goretex pants, gone. Wow could I have made any worse decisions. Continue reading…

Chilko Challenge Day 3- Creek Crossing Fun!
It was cold the night before day 3. We woke up with a good layer of frost on our tents and grass. There was a dog that had followed a group of riders through all of day 2 (someone had to take a 2 hour car ride to return this dog to its home ranch) and it barked half the night. Continue reading…

This just in from BC Bike Race organizer Andreas Hestler…

Register a new two-person team for the 2009 BC Bike Race (BCBR) between Aug 15 and Sept 15 and receive a bonus package valued at $600! This offer is limited to the first 30 new teams registered during the promotion. The bonus package includes, for each team member, a custom Suarez BCBR jersey, custom Sock Guy BCBR socks, and a limited BC Bike Race edition, custom Syncros Bar & Stem Combo.

A creative joining of art and function, the Syncros all-mountain Bar & Stem Combo - BC Bike Race edition - is a unique addition to any mountain bike. Celebrate your training plan for the 2009 BC Bike Race with a redesigned control center that subtly highlights your goal every time you ride!

The BC Bike Race - “The Ultimate Singletrack Experience” is an epic seven day mountain bike race that runs approximately 550 kilometers from Victoria to Whistler and showcases some of BC’s finest singletrack - made by mountain bikers for mountain bikers. This scenic journey through lush rain forests and majestic old growth regions boasts spectacular views, picturesque sailings with the BC Ferries and more sweet singletrack than should be allowed in just one week.

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From CBCSports…

Olympic silver medallist Marie-Hélène Prémont topped the list of four athletes named Friday to Canada’s mountain biking team for the Beijing Games. Prémont, 30, from Chateau Richer, Que., placed second in the women’s cross country race in Athens in 2004. She finished fourth at last Sunday’s world championships in Italy, and has posted three World Cup top-10 finishes this season.

The other riders named Friday were Catharine Pendrel of Kamloops, B.C., (sixth at this year’s worlds), along with Victoria’s Geoff Kabush (14th) and Seamus McGrath of Carlisle, Ont., (24th).

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The BC Bike Race is fast approaching (June 28 - July 4). Now in its second year the event is getting major publicity. Some of you who are not participating are undoubtably wondering what it takes to do a race of this magnitude - 7 stages from Victoria to Whistler with each stage ranging from 50-100 kilometers. Riders compete in either teams of two or new this year, teams of four.

There’s a lot of great information out on the web but there are two great resources that are good places to start, the BC Bike Race website which has an entire section containing training information, and the Wings of Steel blog , which is all about what it takes to participate in the race.

Registration for next year’s BC Bike Race begins July 5th. Ride on!

A number of participants from last weekend’s Test of Metal mountain biking race in Squamish have posted write-ups..

• NEW! Tall for a Girl - Test of Metal - "The Test of Metal is a classic mountain bike race in BC. A Canadian Epic as they say. And it is."
• Randomly Generated - Race Report: Test of Metal - "The second race in the newly-constructed Squamish Triple Crown race series is the ever-popular Test of Metal, a 67-kilometer race that not only packs over one thousand racers onto the singletrack around Squamish, but is known as Canada’s premiere mountain bike race and attracts Olympic-caliber athletes from across the Great White North. And let me just say that having now experienced it, it is easy to understand why this race sells out within minutes each year."
• Playing Outside (this one’s got lots of pictures) - 3:01:21 Test of Metal Race Report - "3:01:21 - Not quite enough to get it down. Despite a solid race, I don’t think I ever came out of my pedals, I just didn’t have enough jam to finish under 3hrs."
• Gary Robbins - DNF, All The Cool Kids Are Doing It!! - "This will be brief and to the point, even though i would like to tell a somewhat detailed story i am currently having troubles typing."
• Todd Nowack - Test of Metal Race Report - "Yes, I have been sucking on the blog lately. I’ve been super busy at work, am going up to Whitehorse this week, going up to the Queen Charlottes next week, and then heading to BC Bike Race the week after for the best week of mountain biking that I’ll have yet to experience!"

More reports will be added as we become aware of them. If you send us yours we’ll post it here on the site.

Also, check out these wicked 360 panorama photos from the event here .

From Cyclingnews.com - It was a day for records to be broken at this year’s North Shore Credit Union Test of Metal. Max Plaxton of Victoria, Canada, riding for Rocky Mountain Bicycles, won the elite men’s race in a time of 2:31:46, taking more than five minutes off the record time of 2:37 set by Chad Miles in 2000.

In the elite women’s race, Kona Factory Team member Wendy Simms of Nanaimo finished with a time of 2:56:35. Her time beat the previous record 3:10 set by Alison Sydor in 2005.

To continue reading and for full results click here …

Stacked men’s field will add excitement to seven-day epic.

In 2007 the inaugural BC Bike Race served up seven days of technical singletrack, breathtaking scenery and predictable front-of-the-race action. Trek-Volkswagen’s duo of Chris Eatough and Jeff Schalk won every single stage en route to a 43-minute overall victory.

That won’t be the case in 2008.

This year the BC Bike Race, which runs June 28 – July 4, boasts a stacked field beaming with talented North American cross-country pros. The sold-out race again begins in Victoria, on Vancouver Island, and ends on the mainland at Whistler Resort, sending riders on a journey of approximately 550 kilometers.

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Olympic silver medallist Marie-Hélène Prémont of Chateau-Richer, Que., won the bronze medal in comeback style Saturday in the women’s cross country race at the fourth stop on the mountain bike World Cup circuit at Vallnord in Andorra. BC’s Geoff Kabush of Victoria also took bronze in the men’s race.

Read more …

With great anticipation among the Lower Mainland mountain biking community, Whistler’s Mountain Bike Park opened yesterday with a special screening of Kranked 7 . The Park offers over 200 kilometers of lift-serviced trails for mountain bike users of all abilities and styles.

The Park will be open every day from 10am to 5pm, with hours extending after June 13. There is a variety of lift and pass options, ranging from single day passes to season-long passes that offer unlimited access.

Special events will be held at the park throughout the summer including the Kokanee Crankworx Freeride Mountain Bike Festival which runs from August 9-17. This is the Park’s marque event and includes a variety of events that are free for all spectators.

For more information:

• Whistler Mountain Bike Park
• Kokanee Crankworx Freeride Mountain Bike Festival
• Getting to Whistler

Written by Sylvie Paillard and published in the Squamish Chief.
The logging of an area around a bike trail crucial to numerous races has sparked frustration between forestry and recrational interests. On Thursday (April 24), Squamish Off Road Cycling Association (SORCA) president Cliff Miller received information that tree harvesting was taking place at George’s Crossing – a crucial connector between two sides of a gully at Ring Creek.

Organizers for the multi-stage race MOMAR (Mind Over Mountain Adventure Race) intended to use the area for its May 10 race, but delays over necessary advance trail work could jeopardize that leg of the event. The area also accommodates the Gearjammer and BC Bike races. Miller immediately sent off an email to local BC Timber Sales (BCTS) manager Jerry Kennah expressing frustration over what he perceives is an ongoing lack of communication.

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The Canadian Cycling Association has just unveiled its 2008 National Mountain Bike Calendar. On the schedule are 9 Olympic cross-country events, 6 downhill events and two four-cross events at a total of 7 locations across Canada, 2 of which will be within BC.

The following is from their news release:

The season will start in Baie-St-Paul on May 11 where precious UCI points will be offered early in the season to help athletes who wish to enter a World Cup event. Since 2007, riders need a minimum of 20 UCI points in order to enter a World Cup event.

Canada will be host of two World Cups in 2008. The first one will be held in the magical venue of Mont-Sainte-Anne for the 17th time now. Mont-Sainte-Anne has hosted a World Cup every year since the beginning of the series in 1991, except for 1998. That year, Mont-Sainte-Anne hosted the World Championships.

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Written by Tom Berridge and published February 23 in Burnaby Now

Burnaby Mountain has been approved as a possible site for a cross-country mountain bike festival this summer. The non-profit West Coast Racing cycling club has been granted permission to hold a fat-wheel festival at the Burnaby Mountain Conservation Area July 13. Parks commissioners approved the idea unanimously during a parks and recreation commission meeting Feb. 20 at Confederation Centre. The highlight would be a B.C. Cup race all the way up Cardiac Hill and then down the new Gearjammer route and through lower park trails.

“It’s a good time and showcases Burnaby as a recreational destination,” said Mike Tunnah, president of West Coast Racing. “It’s exciting, and I hope it’s a positive thing, and if the city is permitting it, they must see it as a positive thing as well.”

But Tunnah added that his group has not yet decided whether the ultimate destination for the festival would be in Burnaby, Belcarra or elsewhere.

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