Busy times for the Sunshine Coast Cycling Club (SCC) have taken core team members all over the country in recent weeks.
The most recent races had the cross country team in Kamloops and the downhill team in the Rockies at Panorama near Invermere. The Race the Ranch cross country in Kamloops was part of the Canada Cup/B.C. Cup race series. The weatherman threw a curve ball at the racers with searing 40C heat, dust and a race course with no shade to be found. Luckily, due to the layout of the course, racers passed through the feed zone twice every lap. That meant they could exchange empty water bottles for fresh ones every 10 to 15 minutes or so. The atmosphere in the feed zone was hectic as support teams struggled to keep water bottles filled and cold. Ice melted in minutes. In the last few laps, racers were taking three bottles, one to drink and two to pour on themselves. Christine Lynch (junior women) and Louis Dillon (U15 men) both finished first in their categories. Sebastian Sleep was second in junior men while in the U17 women's category, Jessica Marquis was third and Sarah Fedor fifth.
Ride of the day goes to 12-year-old Eric Dillon, who stuck it out in the exhausting heat to finish first in U19 citizen men.
Katherine Short, Eric Lalonde and Jonas Lomax ended up pulling out of the race either to heat exhaustion or bike failure. On the same weekend, five SCC members competed in the Mad Trapper Panorama B.C. Cup downhill race. Holly Feniak (U15 women) and Harrison Duxbury Sleep (U15 men) both took top spots in their categories with Forrest Riesco (U15 men) and Linden Feniak (U17 men) finishing second and sixth respectively. Another local racer, Reese Nelson, took second in the U19 citizen category. Congratulations are also in order to Jessica and her dad David who rode as guest riders in the BC Bike Race last week. Dave and Jessica completed stage five of the seven-day stage race riding about 70 kilometres on trails from Sechelt to Langdale. Congratulations also to Sebastian as well as he was selected to Team BC and is off to Quebec next week to represent the province at the National Championships.
Next race for the cross country team is the Cardiac Classic at Simon Fraser University July 12. The event is race number four in the BC Cup series.
The downhill team is next in action on July 20 with the Bear Mountain event in Burnaby.
