Last weekend saw the opening of a new format for the provincial calendar with the opening of the BC Premier XCM Series at the Vedder Mountain Classic, one of North Americas longest standing mountain bike races.
Newly added to the calendar of sanctioned races for 2017, the Vedder Mountain Classic saw a big-hitting start list including local Olympian and Cliff Bar Team rider Catherine Pendrell who took out the Women’s Elite race.
US Olympian Spencer Paxson from Bellingham won the mens Elite race with BC riders Evan Guthrie and Rhys Verner rounding out the podium.
Provincial Cross-country Mountain Bike Development Team rider Cam McCallum was there to catch the action and race his very first marathon event, with some words of encouragement for other young riders thinking about entering their first race:
I had so much fun at the Vedder Classic XC. It was so exciting to make my very first marathon event to be the opening race of the new Cycling BC XCM Premier Series.I was amazed how awesome the trails were. Racing real BC mountain bike trails is about as much fun as I can imagine. The climbs were hard but so flowy and we’ll made. The descents were the most fun I’ve had on my bike this year. I almost forgot how hard I was working.I get a lot of attention for what I do on a bike but I’m just an ordinary 11 year old that likes to ride. If I can do it so can you!
Race number two in the series is this weekend at the Sunshine Coaster, where riders will battle it out for valuable series points in efforts to be crowned the Provincial Series Winner with Pemberton’s Nimby 50 and Squamish’ Spakwus 50 (XCM Series), and the Silverstar Mountain Classic (XC BC Cup) still to come.
