After its 2-year pandemic delay, the BC Road Championships returned last Sunday to one of its largest attended races in years. Taking place in Hatzic Valley, Mission, home to previous BC Championships, the course dished up a great selection of climbs, long descents, and flat approaches, to help feed race-starved riders.
With the cancellation of the BC Championships Road Race that was originally scheduled for August 8, 2021, the threat of not having a provincial championships race prompted Local Ride Racing to offer up their already scheduled August 15th Hatzic Valley Road Race as the BC championship event for 2021.
The current pandemic has put a huge strain on organizing races. Challenges from getting permits to finding volunteers and resources are a logistical battle. Things that used to be readily available, like race motos, traffic marshals, officials, and first-aid are now in limited supply. There is even a lack of portable toilets! Combined with all this, the two-year layoff has made everyone involved, even the riders, a bit rusty with re-figuring things out on the fly. “I literally had 2 weeks to put together a championship race but in the end, making the race happen was well worth all the challenges,” explains event organizer and race director, Barry Lyster.
Just days before the race, smoke from BC wildfires rolled into the area, threatening cancellation of the event if air quality did not improve by race day. “First Covid, now wildfires producing toxic air quality. If the race was to happen the day before, we would have been forced to cancel. Fortunately, the smoke cleared, and the race was on,” comments Lyster.
The races were as hotly contested as the weather. All championship categories were included and even had riders from the Yukon, Saskatchewan, and Alberta making the trek to take part in some long-awaited racing.
In the Elite Men’s race, Sam Morris (Mighty Riders), followed up his July 18th Jeremy’s Roubaix race win by taking the victory from a 3-rider break. A cramped-up Alex Murison (Red Truck Racing p/b Mosaic Homes) limped across the line on two feet in warrior-like fashion to secure second-place with U23 rider Evan Russell (TaG Cycling Race Team) rounding out the podium in 3rd.
The Elite Women’s race also saw a break get away with Holly Simonson (Red Truck Racing p/b Mosaic Homes) taking the win with a powerful uphill sprint with Krista Mathews (Glotman Simpson) finishing second and Sonia Taylor (The Cyclery Racing) taking third.
It was great to see our Juniors back and racing strong, a group who were greatly impacted by the pandemic. Isla Walker (Tripleshot Cycling) took the win in the Junior Girls category, followed by Lilly Ujfalusi (Escape Velocity Society/DEVO) in second and Ana Large (TaG Cycling Race Team) in third. Luke Hubner (Zone 2 Podcast) won the Junior Boys race followed by Luca Veeman (Cycledelia) and Marc Sato (Devo Cannondale).
A large, strong field of Master riders made for some exciting racing. Jon Bula (Bicicletta Factory Racing) took the Master A win, Joseph McNally (Victoria Wheelers) won Master B, Andrew Tuovinen (Tri-Cities Cycling) won Master C, and the Master D winner was Joe Barrett (Tripleshot).
In the Women’s Master races, the winners were: Solveig Stoebe in Master A, Carolyn Russell in Master B, and the Master C winner was Stephanie Brown (Lotus). Full results are available at www.localride.ca.
Local Ride Racing would like to thank Born Superior Sportscare, Power2Max, Cycling BC, Doma Cycle, race staff, volunteers, and the wonderful residents of Hatzic Valley for making this special day possible.
Local Ride Racing switches to gravel for their Gravel Omnium on August 28 and 29 which includes Rock the Ridge and Jailhouse Rock. For information and registration, go to www.loclaride.ca.
Source: Local Ride Racing
More event photos from @TLBVelo Photography