Cycling BC is excited to announce that it has collaborated with Echelon Racing Promotions for the second year in a row to deliver the BC Cup Virtual Race Series on the RGT virtual cycling platform. The BC Cup Virtual Race series was introduced in 2021 to keep the cycling community motived, connected, and committed after a year of in-real-life events being cancelled and postponed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
“What we learned from last year’s series is that not only can virtual cycling and esports serve as an effective training tool and supplement to outdoor riding, but it can also be a heck of a lot of fun as its own independent series too,” says Erin Waugh, CEO of Cycling BC. “We see virtual cycling as something that will be here to stay and not just a stop-gap that we put into place while we wait for in-real-life events to get up to full-speed. There’s definitely a place for it in the realm of Cycling BC so we’re thrilled to be putting on a second season of the BC Cup Virtual Series.”
This year’s series will consist of three races and riders will have the chance to accumulate points based on their results after each race, chasing the opportunity to ultimately be crowned the BC Cup Virtual Race Series winner. A virtual leader’s jersey will be awarded to a winner each week to be worn during subsequent races and the overall series winner will be awarded a real-life jersey.
The first race in the series will take place on Saturday, February 19th on the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic racecourse which is a road race on a 27.8km loop with over 300m of climbing and some tough rolling sections. The second race on Saturday, February 26th will have riders going hard for 30-40 laps on a one-kilometre loop of Canary Wharf in London which is mostly flat but has many turns. The series will conclude on Sunday, March 6th and while the course is yet to be determined, there is a strong possibility it will take the form of a ‘Magic Road’ – a unique RGT feature that takes a GPS file of a route from anywhere in the world and creates a virtual version of it on the platform.
The BC Cup Virtual Race Series lines itself up just ahead of the first-ever Canadian National Esports Championships presented by Wahoo taking place on March 12th & 13th. The national championships race will also be held using RGT, making the BC Cup Virtual Series the ideal preparation and training for the inaugural event.
The BC Cup Virtual Race Series is free to anyone with a current 2022 membership licence from any UCI-affiliated provincial or national cycling federation and only $5 per race for any non-members. There will be categories for all ability levels and female racers will have the option to race in the women’s open field or any suitable category based on power output.
Registration for the series is open now and riders can choose to register individually for each race or register for all three at once.
For more information about the BC Cup Virtual Cycling Series, go to cyclingbc.net/virtualbccup
For more information about Echelon Racing Promotions, go to https://www.echelonracingleague.com/
For information about RGT Cycling, go to https://www.rgtcycling.com/get-started/