It was a busy May long weekend for the Sunshine Coast Cycling Club (SCC) with races happening from one end of the country to the other. Most of the team was in Nanaimo for the Turner downhill and Pivot Mach 5 B.C. Cup races.
The downhillers travelled early for Friday pre-riding on a fast, safe, flowing course through the Vancouver Island forest.
There weren't a lot of extremely technical sections to the course, but the trail was very close to the trees, keeping the racers on their toes.
In the U17 category, less than half a second separated the second to fourth place finishers with Harrison Duxbury-Sleep capturing third just 1/100 second off second place, Forrest Riesco was just 42/100 second back taking fourth place. On the podium in the junior men's category was Linden Feniak finishing second.
The cross country course followed some of the previous day's downhill course, so after a long rocky climb, riders were treated to some fast, fairly technical sections followed by an extremely fast, flowing section through the forest.
On the podium for SCC were Sebastian Sleep, first in junior men; Jessica Marquis, first in junior women; Grace Stanhope, first in U15 women; Eric Dillon, second in U15 men; and Jonas Lomax, third in U17 men. Jonas ran his bike with a flat tire for a full 5.5 km lap before reaching the neutral repair zone where he was able to fix his flat and finish the race.
Rod Camposano and SCC youth coaches Bob Stanhope and Denys Jones also took on the cross country course with Stanhope finishing just two minutes ahead of Camposano in the master men 40 to 49 and Jones pulling in a fourth place finish in master men 50-plus.
In Quebec, at the Canada Cup cross country, SCC's Louis Dillon, racing for team B.C., suffered with some mechanical issues, but was able to complete the race, finishing 40th in the cadet men.
The highlight of the weekend at the Canada Cup downhill was 15-year-old Holly Feniak, racing in a Team B.C. jersey in the cadet women category (U17). She had the fastest women's time of the day, beating all the pro women as well as many of the junior men.
