Bear Mountain XC

Last weekend I raced out at Bear Mountain in Mission, BC. The courses there are known for a big climb and rough, technical, really fun descents. Every year it is one of the hardest but most enjoyable courses of the year, this year was no disappointment!

Dawn and I travelled over Friday afternoon and started our journey from the ferries to Mission right in Vancouver rush hour traffic...always a good time. After waiting in line for the tunnel for an hour with no gas, getting lost a couple times, and realizing how much we LOVE the island, we finally arrived and checked in. Last year's lap count was 3 for the elite women, this year they raised it to 4, cut out a large section of singletrack climbing, and changed the downhill to include a relatively newly cut trail.

Once we got up the climb and into the singletrack I started to get excited about the race, the course was really technical with a couple steep rock faces, a sketchy, rough section of roots and drops, and a lot of hard work to be smooth.

On race day our start was at 1pm, the sky was clear but it wasn't too warm (still appreciated after Kamloops). When the gun went off Dawn took the lead, I followed with Melanie Vaughn, Linda Robichaud, and K.J. Sadler. Melanie and I rode together on the climb and through the first bit of technical singletrack, but just before the feedzone on a flat, soft section she took the second place spot. Heading up the climb again on my 2nd and 3rd laps my legs felt pretty flat and the descents were no place to try to recover. Going into the feedzone on the 3rd lap Linda caught and passed me, so I grabbed on her wheel and held on through the last bit of singletrack before the climb started again. Linda is a great technical rider, so I knew to beat her I would have to beat her on the climb (which had been beating me all day), I gave that final climb everything I had, redlining it to the top and got into singletrack ahead of her. The rest of the lap I was running scared, pushing all the descents and dropped my lap time from the 2 previous laps. I finished up in 3rd with Linda about 2 minutes behind me, to stand on the podium for the first time at a BC Cup this year. Definitely not my prettiest race, but a great learning experience!

Congrats to Dawn and Melanie for 1st and 2nd places! Thanks to Chris for the feed and pre-race tech support!

Now I get a month off of racing! I'll spend the month recovering, then training and fine-tuning for the last BC Cup/Provincial Championships up at Mount Washington on August 30th. After that we'll start Cyclocross season in Mid September! This has been a great Cross Country race season, and I can't wait to see what happens in the cyclocross season!

Elite Women
1 Dawn Berg (OBB/Everti) 2:16:37
2 Melanie Vaughan (Steed Cycles) 2:24:47
3 Joele Guynup (Island Racing Club p/b Robert C) 2:29:32
4 Linda Robichaud (Team Whistler) 2:31:07
5 K.J. Sadler (Active Life Multisport Team) 2:41:36