Heading into the final corner before the BC Bike Race's day seven finish line at Whistler Olympic Plaza, Spencer Paxson was inches away from teammate and overall winner, Sechelt's Kris Sneddon, both fighting off Denmark's Erik Skovgaard Knudsen.
"I knew coming into that last turn that I wanted to be right on the inside so I could dump down into that last turn," said Paxson, who had scouted the final curves of the course prior to Saturday's (July 6) closing stage in the resort. "I had the positioning regardless, but we were going so fast that if you were six inches off, you were going into the gravel."
Knudsen went down on that final corner during the tussle for first place, allowing Paxson a clean finish for the stage win. Sneddon - who had a comfortable lead in the overall standings - gallantly waited for Knudsen to take second place before crossing the line himself as overall men's solo winner of this year's seven-day chase.
But for Sneddon, the victory was bittersweet after a thrilling battle with Squamish's Neal Kindree came to an end on day six, when Kindree withdrew from his hometown stage due to a nasty stomach bug. Sneddon led Kindree by less than two minutes after the first five days.
"It really kinda sucked that Neal [Kindree] had to pull out," Sneddon said. "It would have been close. Neal is a very good bike rider. We train together a little bit and historically he's beat me more than I've beat him. We've had a pretty good little rivalry going."
Kindree reportedly fell ill during day three in Powell River, but was able to hang with Sneddon until eventually pulling out. With a large gap going into the short Whistler course, Sneddon put the focus on getting Paxson across the line for a stage win.
"We went really hard out of the gate up that first climb and opened up a gap," said Paxson. "Kris helped motivate me a bit. It's always easier with a teammate. [Knudsen] caught us on the singletrack, which is really awesome because he was new to this neck of the woods. He's learned how to ride trails really fast in a week."
The atmosphere at Whistler Olympic Park last Saturday was one of jubilation as riders from all over the world finished an exhausting seven days of singletrack mountain biking through southwestern B.C.
