The first time I ever raced on Vancouver Island was in 2017 during the BC Bike Race, a seven day mountain bike stage race. I was drawn in by the dense green forests and the stunning coastlines with mountains shooting straight up from them. When I saw the BWR calendar included a BC race I knew I had to make the trip. I traveled to Vancouver with a friend of mine and we made it to the island around midday on Wednesday. Over the next few days we checked out as much of the course as we could. We hit up the FasCat Shakeout Ride on Saturday, dialed bikes, ate as much rice as possible and then set the alarms for 4am on Sunday.
The race started off with a neutral roll out on the pavement heading towards the Maple Bay singletrack section. Unfortunately I got boxed in and ended up entering the singletrack a little further back than I had hoped. After the singletrack I popped out on the road with a few riders, but the lead group out of sight.
We’d work together well over the next few miles leading into the next climb and descent on course. I hit this next 15 minute climb hard. I was able to get the leaders in sight but wasn’t able to make contact. I ripped the descent and dropped onto the pavement with one other rider. A few race volunteers told us we were about 90 seconds down. I know that usually there’s a big lull in the front group around this time in the race so it was time to bridge. We were patient but rode hard to get the lead group in sight but the gap still hovered around 30-40 seconds. Coming up was a mandatory dismount and an underpass. Knowing there’d be a bottleneck in the front group, this was the time to push hard and finish the bridge. We made contact with the front group after an hour of chasing. Time to fuel up because we still have 5+ hours of racing left.
All this time there was one lone rider off the front, Andrew Lesperance, so there was a little pace in the group to keep that gap in check. A bit later we caught Andrew and the pace chilled out but we kept tapping out the miles. Around 3 hours in we were cruising down a very fast road section making our way to the south end of the course. I noticed the riders on the front of the group were just coasting and I rolled to the front to keep the pace up. After a solid pull on the front I looked over my shoulder to find myself off the front with a sizable gap to the main group. I hesitated for a moment, but decided to keep on the gas and see what comes of this.
I rode solo for about 30 minutes and thoroughly enjoyed my time off the front. I chatted with Michael Marckx in the lead truck as he gave me a bottle and I kept ripping. I might not find myself solo, off the front at another BWR again so I reminded myself to enjoy this moment. I soon started up a steep doubletrack climb in the woods that topped out with a techy singletrack section. Just over the top Rob Britton bridged up. These were his local roads and trails so I let him lead the way and jumped on the wheel. We dropped out of the singletrack and onto the road. We were cruising for just a few minutes when we accidentally blew a turn. By the time we noticed and turned around we could see the reduced chase group coming down the road so we joined back with them.
We were then rolling into the second biggest climb on the course. Rob attacked hard at the bottom and no one else cared to follow. Our group of about 10 continued on with a relatively good pace up the climb and managed to drop a few more riders. I was starting to feel the earlier efforts in the day so I kept the fueling up and ripped a caffeine gel. For about the next hour or so our chase group rotated and worked together to chip away the miles. We moved quickly and efficiently through the next bit of course but Rob was putting in huge amounts of time on us.
We made our way towards the bottom of the Mt Prevost climb which was going to blow this chase group to bits but also get us to the finish. It was basically every man for themselves at this point and we started making our way up the long 30 minute climb. I watched the podium ride away from me on the climb but it took every last bit of energy just to hold a high endurance power up the remainder of the climb. I just wanted to keep it steady and ride smoothly on the descent. I was able to keep air in the tires and rolled in for 7th.
I’m super stoked with the finish and the day I had on the bike. It’s never easy to pick a setup for a Belgian Waffle Ride, but I was happy with all the decisions I made on mine. I used a Cervelo Aspero 5 with a SRAM AXS drivetrain (50/37x10-33) and Maxxis Receptors in 40c which were fast and capable equipment for the rugged terrain. A Starlight Apparel custom skinsuit, USWE pack from The Feed filled with Neversecond C90 made sure I was comfortable and well fueled all day. I’m looking forward to capitalizing on this momentum and apparent good legs in two weeks at BWR North Carolina which is a little closer to home!