I just got off the phone with Gary Robbins from Team Helly Hansen / MOMAR who just wrapped up Day 1 at the BC Bike Race. Today’s 89km stage went from Shawnigan Lake and finished in Lake Cowichan. The race started with two laps around the Shawnigan Lake School campus in an effort to spread teams out before the single track. As could be expected, teams hammered off the start line to get a good position in the narrow trail. However, in this early loop teams had to cross a farmer’s field which had just been plowed the day before. This made things a bit muddy and one of the Trek teams blew BOTH of their derailers in the first few km into the race. They ended up getting the bike fixed but left 20min+ behind the last team–still they ended up finishing 4th overall for the day!

Gary and Todd were hanging with some top teams for the first few hours of singletrack, but 3/4 of the way up an 8km climb, Gary started suffering from severe leg cramps. These cramps would plague him any time they came to an incline and he had engage his inner quads. Todd was a workhouse for they day and by the sounds of it, very patient with his suffering teammate. Fortunately the final 20km were on the Cowichan Valley Trail (old rail bed) and they were able hammer it out at a ~24km/hr pace.

MOMAR Squamish winners Team Helly Hansen / Vancouver Island (Justin Mark & Jeff Reimer) had a troubled day one as well. Justin was suffering from the heat which reached highs of 32 celsius. Todd went through 10 bottles on the day and Gary chugged 2L of water at one aid station (almost made him puke).

Unofficial results had Gary and Todd finish in 25th place with a time of 5h15min and Justin and Jeff in 5h28min. Other notables include Team Kona (Normon Thibault and Wendy Simms) who finished 10th overall with a time of 4h45min. Today’s winning team finished in 4h14min (I think it was one of the Cannondale teams). The Trek team finished second. The results will be up on the BCBR website soon: www.bcbikerace.com.

Tomorrow’s stage is 125km long with 123km on mainline forest service roads. It’s going to be a day where teams will ride in packs just like a day on the Tour de France. It’s going to be fast and furious!