 After a week of mountain bike racing in the TransRockies Challenge British Columbia, the Kiwi’s have placed in the top 10.
This is the fifth edition of the TransRockies Challenge with 450 racers from over 20 countries starting last Sunday from Fernie, British Columbia and finishing at Panorama Resort today. Over the last week riders have mountain biked over 600km’s and climbed over 12,000 vertical metres of single track over the Continental Divide twice.
For safety and to allow sharing of saddle sore stories, riders must stay in pairs for each leg of the seven day race. For most, it’s a once in a life time challenge, others a chance to race/tour the remote Rocky Mountain wilderness, and for the fast end of the field the joy of standing on the podium at the finish of each day.
Over the course of the week Kiwi’s have performed constantly in this epic endurance race, placing near the top of their categories.
The husband and wife pairing of Blair Martin & Heather Evans have placed between 8th and 12th over the seven days of racing to grab 9th in the final classifications. Both have represented New Zealand, Blair a former NZ Champion runner & Evans a NZ Triathlon Champ & Commonwealth Games representative.
In the open over 100+ (combined age), adventure racers Bob Foster & Steve Moffatt alternated between 2nd and 3rd each day to place 2nd overall just 1hr:08 minutes behind the winners after seven days/stages totaling 34 hours of racing.
Also in the open over 100+ category the duo of Malcolm Law & Graeme Brown placed 4th overall after placing between 4th and 7th during the 7 days of racing.
In the 80+ category another Kiwi David King raced mid field with Canadian Don Shewan for the first few days and then being unranked but continuing to race for the remainder of the stages.
The TransRockies Challenge British Columbia ran from the 6 to 12 August 06 over the following stages/days.
Race 1 - Fernie to Sparwood
Race 2 - Sparwood to Blairmore
Race 3 - Blairmore to Elkford, ,
Race 4 - Elkford to Whiteswan Lake
Race 5 - Whiteswan Lake to Nipika Resort
Race 6 - Nipika Resort to Invermere
Race 7 - Invermere to Panorama Mountain,
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