1. The Decision

The BC Bike Race is THE mountain bike race.  Also known as BCBR.  People flock to it from around the world.  Seven days of riding the best trails in the world...  The ultimate single track experience.  There has been an unchecked box beside this race on my bucket list since the first edition in 2007. 

In the past 2-3 years, I started getting serious about it.  The stoke was building.  To make matters worse, they started covering the race with daily videos on Pinkbike.  So yes, I basically blame Brett Tippie for me needing to do BCBR.  Last year they released a 40 minute video on the experience.  If you have time, check it out.  In January 2014 I finally moved from the “maybe next year” camp over into “let’s do this”!

Picking a partner was not difficult.  If I am going to ride the BC Bike Race, I’m going to do it with my brother.  While he has not spent as much of his life caught in the dirt obsession, the bug has bitten him hard in the past 5 years.

Minus 15C and snow, no worries, we'll hit that...

He also has two key attributes which lend themselves well to BC Bike Race success:

1. he has a propensity for suffering.
2. he is very light. 

It takes a special kind of person to think that doing 5x 5 minute intervals @ 130%FTP is a great way to spend an evening, after the work day is done and the kid is asleep. 

Epic pain face.

We’ve done some crazy rides together before, like 60kms in the desert in 32C conditions for 6 hours.  Or climbing 2300m in a single ride.  Add in the fact that he has considerably less of a battle with gravity than your average dude, and I think I’ve got the best partner.

 In Squamish after 5+ hrs of gnar.

We had some work to do to align life around this major event.  Managing time off from work and family vacation plans is not easy.  We are both very thankful for the support from our wives and family to make this possible!

The tiny members of my cheering squad.

As I finish up writing this, we are only a few days away from heading to BC.  The preparations are nearly complete.  It's finally time.

We can't wait to get rollin'....   Photo: Masa Higuchi

Stay tuned for two more posts about the preparations that we've gone through to get ready.  Warning, it might get pretty nerdy.  I also hope to update Facebook/Twitter throughout the race so you can see how we're doing.