For our final racer call before our 2025 event, we focused on courses and bike maintenance.
COURSE UPDATE
With all 7 courses now finalized, our Course Director, Jeff Stromgren, joined us on Zoom to share what to be aware of as you finish up your final weeks of training. Updated course profiles and descriptions are now available on our Course page. You can also search BCBR 2025 in the Trailforks app to find maps and trail descriptions to help you anticipate what you’ll encounter during the race.
RACE WEEK BIKE MAINTENANCE
To keep you rolling all week long, we have a dedicated team of mechanics from Obsession Bikes who work overnight fixing all manner of mechanicals. Over their 18 years with us, they have collected some wisdom to share with you. Obsession Bikes owner, James Wilson, also shared details about their race week a la carte services and their Platinum Service Package.
Below is an AI transcript of the call. Please excuse any errors.
Jeff, I’m gonna pass it over to you with just a reminder to everyone to please mute yourself if you are unless you’ve got your hand raised and asking a question just so we have less interference. Jeff, over to you.
Alright, how’s everybody doing? I don’t have my I don’t I’m working off my phone right now, so I like to, I usually like to see who’s who’s on and on board and say hi to people I know, but I can’t see that right now. I’m not even gonna try to get into it. But nice that everybody has joined us from all over the world, and I’m sure you’re all pretty pumped about starting the BC bike race within the next few weeks here.
And I’m hoping to be able to provide you with some information in order to in order to help you prepare and know what you’re up against. I think the most important thing to recognize is that our website and our and our trail forks maps are up to date as of, right now.
And they’re the ones that, they’re the, that’s the place where you can really find the information that you can use to, to help yourself prepare. Using our website Carmel can maybe jump in and tell us exactly how that’s set up on the website. ’cause I’ve not looked at it for a little while.
I could just open it up right now. But under the course section with the BC bike on BC Bike Race you’ll find our under the race about the race and you’ll find our our most, let’s see course info, 2025. It says 2025 course info. So it starts. Yeah, we’re good there. That’s the, I just wanted a point of reference where everybody could start that and that’s the best place to look and I don’t see on here direct links, so I’ll give you one more good resource that you can use, which is a website called Trail Forks.
And most mountain bikers in the world know what it is. Everybody asks me, Hey, what’s the most important invention for mountain bikes in the last 20 years? And some people, regular answers say, drop or post. Other people say disc brake. Some people say the battery and motor. I say trail forks because to me, trail forks has been the most important part of my mountain biking.
And not just in this business, but also in in my own mountain biking On trail forks. You go to the and of the search bar in trail forks and and you can search BCBR 2025. Okay. And on BCBR 2025, you’ll see, stage one prologue, stage two, stage three, stage four, stage five, stage six, and stage seven.
All are up to date with the most recent course files. And some of them, sure, most of them now also have the fox downhill sections identified. I think I got one more to put in there still. And those links won’t change. They’ll be the same from now until the end of the week, and so you can always use that.
On your phone or on a computer on your phone, I recommend paying a little bit of extra and buying the premium membership for a Trail Forks. They’re a great partner of ours and I would always say to anybody who wants to get the boat outta Trail Forks is to buy the Premier membership. And it just makes life a little bit easier for you.
Minimally, however, sign up for a free account in order to do that so that you can so you can get access to all that stuff. Just like always our our our stage race is seven days. Okay. James and I were talking just before the meeting and James and I agree with James when he says that if you looked at this each day was his own race and you prepare your bike and your head space and your body for each day as its own individual race, that you’ll probably have more success than if you think that you can just.
Get through it without thinking that way. You gotta be prepared each day like you were yesterday. And that means having your body, your head space, and your bike all in order every day fresh. Okay. The stage one prologue Okay. Is the first day we refer to it as stage one prologue.
Okay. In total we’re really on the bike for about 23 kilometers that day, but what we do is we push you out and then you run the prologue. And then you come back and just that middle section of of the prologue, which is about eight K on trail, but it’s one really demanding single track loop that we take a time from you and that time will be used to seize you in your in your group.
And for the most part. You’ll probably be around the people that have the same time as you got in the prologue for most of the week. We do section you into waves for starts every day based on that prologue time. And it’s redone daily. So you may move up or down a wave, but it generally still puts you in the same group of people that you’ll be riding around all the time.
And yeah. So at stage one we start out with the prologue that’s gonna be at maple Mountain this year. It’s a good taster for what’s to come on stage two, which is the prologue plus a bunch of more riding on that mountain. So you’ll recognize some of the same trails the next day on stage two, where you’ll be on the clock on the way out, the on the way out the, the paved road and double track heading towards a single track. And then you’ll do a massive single track loop and then back. It’s a great day on Maple Mountain. And third day we’re we got a remote start at a school not too far from our base camp. And we’ll start off a short, steep, climb up some pavement and into the and into the, did we just lose Jeff? I think we might have. Oh, no. Okay. I think what we will do then, as we’re waiting for, I’m assuming he’s trying to get back in. I wonder if anybody has any questions so far on what what’s been said. Yeah, I would like to jump here quickly. Thank you for the team to organize that.
Are we able to put it was great that he started taking notes. It’s possible to give more detail, like he was going 23 k. No, massive drop style. UCI so I don’t need to be worried about it. It would be great if we can go, if we can go through the days in that way. I think it was very I’m not gonna do that.
Okay. Perfect. Perfect. He’s back. Yay. Sorry. Andreas called me and I tried to swipe his name off and I got dumped. Listen, I appreciate that you want a play by play on the BC bike race before you get here, but I’ve actually found that’s it’s gonna help you with your. With your nerves, but it’s not gonna help you when you get here because you’re not gonna remember what I say on this thing.
So I’m just gonna revert to what I said earlier about that. And go on to trail forks. Dig up the prologue, dig up day two, day three. Go through that using the tools that are available to you on Trail Forks to find out the information that you need. Literally, you can drag your cursor along the profile and see what part of the course it is, and then you can click on the trail.
And then when you click on the trail, a profile of that particular trail comes up, and then there’s pictures of it below. Okay. And so you can get a really good feel for what it looks and feels like best you can from your seat in Indiana or wherever you are. By using the Trail Forks to get some of those answers, I’m not gonna be able to satisfy in 10 minutes what you’re looking for.
If you want me to go through every course meter by meter. And I don’t do that. It’s just it’s not helpful. I agree that it would be good for your nerves and good for your head space possibly to get some more answers out of that. But part of doing the BC bike race is that feeling of.
Not knowing what it’s really gonna be like till you get there. And then as it unfolds, what makes a really good stage racer is that you go out there and you deal with what’s in front of you at the end of your rubber. And yeah. If you’re approaching something then that you’re not sure that you’re capable of doing, slow down, take a look.
You’ve got that, you’ve got that right as a bike rider to just take a look at it before you plunge. And I’m not gonna tell you there’s gonna be some things on these courses that are over your head. And as you approach them with your own two eyes, you’re gonna see what you’re comfortable with and what you’re not comfortable with.
I can’t promise you that if you just go into it without looking, that you’re not gonna fall off your bike. That’s bike riding and that’s mountain biking. And so I wanna make sure that you know that you are gonna face the hardest terrain you’ve ever probably ridden in your entire life on this bike race.
And so if you’re not. Completely comfortable with what your eyes are and your body’s telling you as you approach those parts of the trail, slow down, even stop and take a look at it before you take a shot at it, okay? And in the meantime, get to know the courses and using the tools that we’ve set up for you, which is the trail forks.
So it’s on trail forks and you just. Search BCBR 2025 and you can definitely find a lot of information about lower maple syrup, trail, solar coaster. It names the trails that we use right on the map. Okay? So stage stage one, two, and then stage three. Stage three and Mount Halen and Carmel and Eric can help me, we’re, we provide information, obviously to the racers about all the kind of technical things they need in terms of like where race starts are, locations of the school and all that.
We don’t need to go through all that stuff now. And there’s a lot of information that comes at you through our relations that’ll help you with that. The logistical side of things. The, the fourth day after we’ve been in the Cal Valley for a little while, and all three of those. Days in the couch in Valley, while two are on Maple Mountain.
The third one on Mountain New Halo, which is a colossal single track loop. It’s just all single track through beautiful forests. Both those two locations while in, within kilometers of each other are very different realms. The riding at Mount Zoo is so much in Mount Zoo.
Halen is very different than the riding over at, maple Mountain and and yeah, I think you’ll see that. You’re like, wow, are we really just a couple kilometers apart? And yeah. If I had to describe the differences between them Mount a Maple Mountain. Is can be much more technical in some places in terms of the downs, whereas the downhills on azu hala are often much flowier and machine built.
That being said, on the on flowing trail, which is on which is on day two, you’ll find a very flowy trail at Maple Mountain. So every day we’ll provide a healthy dose of flow and technical nar at you. That will challenge every one of your skill sets on your bike. So the first three days one to three in the couch, in, in the north couch and is absolutely stunning.
And by the time we leave the area, you’ll have had a healthy dose of the riding opportunities in that zone. And we pump into Nanaimo. Nanaimo is a, is a really interesting place. Again one of our one of our clients rich Scott, who’s been riding with us quite a few years. I think he’s done four or five BC bike races and knows the riding areas very well.
He once told me Nanaimo had four distinct zones all on the stage. Like he felt like he was in four different riding areas over the course of the stage. And that’s a pretty good way to look at it. The one thing I’d say about Nanaimo stage four stage four is that it’s more.
Gear. It, I think the difference in the racing, like that’ll, the, put more time into your competitors, the people you’re, are racing against will be your ability to go fast over cross country type terrain as opposed to up or down. Yeah, Nanaimo has quite a bit of really undulating territory and then one really big up and a really big down.
A fantastic a set of trails going up and down there, and then a beautiful finish outta a lake. The time you come off the timing right at the lake, drop your bike, drop in the lake in your shammy, and then do the short route back to the base camp on your bike with a wet shammy. It’s it’s worth it.
That’s a drop in. And then stage five in Cumberland. We move, we moved Base camp. So obviously over there Cumberland, up Island. Further, Cumberland is a dedicated mountain bike mecca, north American mountain bike mecca. It’s got more trails than we could ever possibly use in one stage, so we actually slid it up over two stages.
We do day five and day seven in Cumberland. Both starting right beside your vehicle, your tent. Very close to everything’s all very close parameters, and it’s it’s beautiful climbing up and down and incredible descending again, some flavor to day five is gonna be more of the tech and XC style of racing.
And then we add more of the flow based trails to the stage seven, which is a little bit shorter and faster. And stage six. In between those two, we travel from Cumberland up to Campbell River to racing the Snowden Forest. Make sure that you’re on point with your directions to get there, and we’ll make sure you have the right directions to get there.
If you’re on the move from Cumberland just because it’s really, like not in town type of thing. It’s like right in the forest where we start. It’s beautiful. It’s, it’s all beautiful forest, but I just don’t know of a more beautiful place to ride in the entire world than Campbell River.
It has got absolutely massive trees, a perfect band of single track through all, 40 plus kilometers of trail that we put on our course there. And, it’s got the least amount of elevation and elevation gain and loss. But and the longest course I believe by kilometers, I’d have to check that against safe five, but pretty close.
But still you just wish you were still riding by the time you finish because it is so beautiful. I guarantee you’ll want to come back because just what the real feast for your eyes. Okay that’s basically the rundown I wanted to give you. My biggest thing is for you to use Trail Forks to get those real nitty gritty answers.
And then and then if you still feel like there’s something that you’re not getting and there’s gonna be something you feel like you’re not getting because you’re nervous system is working on overdrive right now because you’re anticipating the BC bike race and it is just something that. We probably can provide you in terms of preparation, it’s probably something that’s going on in your mind and your brain that you need to have according to your brain.
But really what you really need is to get on your bike, a bike that’s ready, that is prepared for what you’re gonna put it through and just give it everything you can on the daily. Awesome. What else? Object. Before you go, can you just talk about course marking? Somebody asked about how the course is marked.
Yeah, absolutely. So we do have videos for that and I think we’re gonna send some out and all that jazz. But and you can usually find ’em on our site, but I’ll tell you how it’s marked. Okay. So generally we have an abundance of pink ribbon. And I’ve always said this if you see a pink ribbon hanging in the tree, go towards it and it’s gonna, it’s gonna take you to the place that, that you want.
But there’s a little bit more to it than that. We use a few more other marketing materials. We on the side of any kind of turn that’s coming that, that you have to make, we will always hang three of those pink ribbons in the tree. So that’s kinda like the protocol is that if it’s a single pink ribbon, you follow it along like a breadcrumb.
If it’s three pink ribbons, it means turn there. That’s the most basic language that you can ever have. But in some cases, that protocol just isn’t clear enough. And some cases we want you to make that decision a little bit quicker and not slow down and and look for the turn.
That’s mostly how we want you to do it. But in some cases we’ll put up an arrow or we’ll tie a ribbon off so that you can’t go one way or the other. And oftentimes that’s because you’re going fast and if you don’t make the turn. You could all of a sudden be off the course and you’re angry at me and I don’t want that.
So really if it’s a tough turn to make it speed, we’re gonna, we’re gonna add more to the course to try to get you around that turn easier, usually by ribbon off trees or putting a log across the trails. We don’t we don’t try to go. Way beyond just using our pink ribbon, but sometimes we have to.
And it’s really quite simple. You do not have to have your GPS turned on to note to find out where you’re going. The pink ribbon following it will take you all through the course and home. And just I think that the one lesson that you can learn is that pay attention if the pink ribbon starts getting more dense.
Because what that usually means is that there’s something tricky going on. In other words, it’s not just straight straightforward. Take an extra second to make sure you made the turn, you see the three ribbons, you make the next turn right in front of you should be another single ribbon saying, yeah, you made the right turn.
So single ribbons follow ’em like breadcrumbs. Three ribbons, you make a turn on the side of the trail that the three ribbons are on, and then look for the breadcrumbs again. And that’s a, and that’s a surefire way to make sure that you don’t get lost.
Anything else on that? Is it worth talking about for people who do have their roots on the computers? If we do a last minute change that the pink ve will always override what the GPX file says. Is that still the situation? Absolutely. You okay? You can’t rely on anything else except for the pink ribbon.
On game day, we could have a change the morning of, because a tree went down. Like just this past weekend we’re running a, an event in the Okanagan. We had a tree go down in the afternoon and we had to reroute the course that day. So it just, that’s that happens and and we can’t fix it fast enough, but.
That’s our, and we’ll note it like, yeah, we made a change on this or that, it’s gonna change this or that, but for the most part, I don’t want you referring to your maps or your GPS and in terms of for navigation, okay? You can use your GPS not afterwards to nerd out on where you went and download it onto your favorite whatever, and see your Strava times and all that kind of stuff for each of the things.
But during the race, just focus on the pink ribbons and focus on riding your bike.
Any questions
we do have sorry. Jonathan was asking are there any drops above one meter and Jeff, do you wanna, there are no drops. Okay. Okay. What’s a drop to you? Some people think a drop is just a steep part of trail and yeah, there’s steep sections that are longer than a meter long. But if you’re talking a drop that goes this and then drops that way, no.
There would never be something that that would be dangerous. Beyond just challenging. So we don’t have drops that are like, you go up the wood and you gotta drop your bike six feet to flat. That’s not what we’re, that’s not what we’re doing to you. Okay. If there’s woodwork, it’s probably more like balancing type of woodwork or over a bog or to protect the ground underneath it, type of woodwork.
Sometimes they’re elevated. If they’re elevated, they’re probably not too skinny. In some cases where it is skinny, it’s low to the ground, and if you don’t like that, then just walk along it and get outta the way of the person behind you that’s riding it. But we’re also known for that kind of stuff, some of the drops in the woodwork and stuff like that.
Yeah if it’s a fast trail and it’s at speed and you take it at speed, you’re gonna, it’s gonna be a jump, but you could also roll it. So most trails that we use are blue squares, some are black diamonds, and some are tough black diamonds. And each one of the each one of the days presents some stuff that’s harder than others lower maple syrup or upper maple syrup.
On on stage two is a very difficult trail. And matter of fact, there’s 20 meters of some of the hardest trail that you’ll probably ever ride in your life. But it’s not impossible, and it’s not just roll off to your death, dangerous. It’s just hard technical riding. And that’s what we’re up against and that’s what you’re up against, right?
We wanna give you the hard stuff. We want to give you the flowy stuff. We wanna give you everything but we’re not out to hurt you. And if you get hurt, it’s because you probably didn’t squeeze the brakes. Or listen to your eyes. You probably just decided to give her a go. And that’s part of mountain biking too.
I’m gonna try it, but it’s not gonna be because it when a meter straight down and you’re, and you couldn’t handle it.
Yeah, everything’s designed to be as, as safe as possible to ride blind. We know that there are plenty of people who can’t come and pre ride, the locals lucky you, you can go out and check it out. But yeah, we’re really mindful of making sure that we’re not sending you down anything that’s unnecessarily dangerous because we know so many of you are riding it blind.
Jeff, someone is asking about how long ahead of time will the pink ribbon be up for pre riding?
I think the prologue will be up the day before for sure. Okay. Which means day two is up. Most of that day two hanlin will probably go up so stage three will probably go up on, prologue day or the day before. So generally the pink ribbon’s not a. Reliable for pre-writing. It’s reliable for race day, but it’s not reliable for pre-writing.
You can go and get a flavor of any one of those places using a trail forks. You don’t have to ride the exact course to get the right flavor for what you’re up against. You can pick any kind of. Route on the mountains that we’re at and get the right flavor. So if you’re there a week ahead of time and you’re going into Cumberland, just ride Cumberland.
Ride some of the recommended routes on Trail Forks, ride, ride, what you think is our route based on what you’re reading on your trail forks if you need to, but just by riding in Cumberland, you’ll get a flavor of what you need to know to ride in Cumberland. Same thing with all the other locations,
Mike. Any other questions? I have my last one. Thank you for asking. I’m wondering about the, and I think I asked for that before. Are we having a sense of, in each of the stages already polish the, if we will, we having the distance for any aid stations like water? Yeah, there’s an aid station.
There’s an aid station on every stage, and it’s lo it’s identified on the map. Okay, now what it’s identified on the profile and on the map of the of the on the trail forks. And then the it’ll be identified on your profile, on profiles given to you, like in terms of where it is on the profile.
And then, for really hot days, we will just add water where we think is necessary. So we’ll put a truck out there with a water station and maybe sometimes some electro legs, or we’ll throw up an extra one if we really need to. But one of the thing that we’ve done purposefully because of the time of the year that we arrived is we’ve intensified the courses by adding.
High dose single track. If you looked at our race courses 10, 15 years ago, we were a lot longer with way lower percentage single tracks, more of a kep style or a race. But we’ve really become the ultimate single track experience because. We’ve shortened the distance, but we’ve intensified the difficulty through the amount of single track, right?
So it does take its toll on rider in a different way than just riding a double track whether you’re going up or down. And our courses aren’t super, super long when you think about it like, but I dare you to ride, like day two or three or something around 25, 26 k. And it’ll feel like you’ve ridden 50 on double track.
That, that’s the way that it’s designed to make you feel. And so we generally try to put the aid station about halfway through those courses, and I know you can make it between them. Now if we get really hot exposed areas and there’s a couple out there on in various stages and we’ll throw up some extra water just because we know that we wanna make sure that you guys are hydrated and have access to that.
But for the most part, you want to head out with enough water for. For half the course and then replenish with electrolytes and water and nutrition at the aid station, which is about halfway through.
Okay, thanks Jeff. We, Jeff’s gonna be on for a few more minutes and we can continue to u use the chat for further questions, but I wanna make sure we need leave enough time for James. So if it’s okay, I think let’s jump over to James now. Great. Sounds good. Hey everybody. I’m James Wilson. This is Rob Haw, and we’re with Obsession Bikes and we’ve been doing BCBR Tech since the events inception close to 20 years ago.
I. Every year we prepare diligently and it’s been a super long history, but we’ve learned a lot along the way. And as a matter of perspective, we’re gonna be bringing seven mechanics. We’re gonna be working through the night, we’re going to be carrying close to a hundred thousand dollars worth of inventory.
Which includes tires chains, drive, trains, brakes, handlebars, you name it. And what we will not be carrying is the derailer hanger for your bike. I. So whatever unique parts your bike has, or if you do a Google search on your bike and please do and search, your brand. Call it, I don’t know, intense tracer fails.
And just search out what problems those bikes have inherently got going on. And try to find yourself some parts that in case that does happen to you. Our role is in this is to help you get across the finish line. For many of you, this is going to be your first opportunity to taste British Columbia single track.
And though you won’t be free riding, this is nonetheless the birthplace of free ride. And what that means is you’re gonna be dancing across, slimy roots and rocks and down train and a lot of blind descending. And so I. What we wanna talk about today is how to prepare your bike, which may be ridden in a desert for riding on the North Shore, or sorry, in British Columbia behind the green curtain, I think we like to call it.
And so there’s a lot of things that we want to cover today. If you have a notepad, you can write this email address down James w at. Obsession bikes.com, and you can send me direct messages after this. If you have specifics about your bike or you’ve missed something or you want some more clarity on this we’re gonna be dropping a video shortly after this call.
And just a very brief one on Instagram. So our Instagram handle is obsession bikes. So Rob’s been doing and handling logistics and so when it comes to question time, we might go over there. I just wanna put everybody in the correct context right away, and I’m not asking for a show of hands, but just ask yourself outside of this event, would you enter seven cross country mountain bike events in a year?
And, I’m pretty sure I know what the answer to that is. ’cause I’ve been doing this for almost 20 years and then, I’ll, I usually ask the whole crew and I get, five people put up their hand and then we get down to one. And so the point in asking this question is, it’s a, it’s of course about your bike, and it’s what’s gonna happen in a seven stage seven day state race is you’re gonna do seven cross country races.
Now, here’s the truth about cross country bikes and trail bikes. Bicycles are endemically flawed. That’s right. Bicycles are endemically flawed. That means that they’re not built to handle seven days of racing what they’re designed to be, and of course the more expensive or the more, more cross country oriented is, they become more fragile and they’re more precise.
And if any of you own, performance cars Porsches and such, they’re very finicky and they need to be worked on. And so what we’re. Here to talk about is like what we do to make sure that your bike works and you can do this yourself. You don’t have to hire us to do it. But you’re entering seven mound bike races.
Beware like that thing’s not gonna make it through without some tender love and care. That’s for darn true. The mechanics that we bring are some of the best in the province, and I can say that because they’re all return mechanics. And so we know what they’ve been working on. They’ve been working on bikes like yours.
And so these finicky flyweight light bikes made of like paper thin carbon fiber and such. And we can fix all kinds of things, by the way. Like you shatter a seat stake on some, poorly designed or some bike that you’ve just walloped into a rock. As long as that thing still looks like a bicycle, when it shows up, it doesn’t look like two unicycles, then we can put it back together.
It’s not gonna look pretty and you’re not gonna get warranty for it. ’cause it’s gonna look like we put a cast on the thing because that’s literally what we’ve done. There’s some really cool materials now that we can use to fix bikes on the site. What a lot of folks and are really going to struggle with, I think is tires tire pressure suspension settings.
So when you enter a stage race, and I have stage traced unfortunately I’ve never done BC bike race, but the, but I’m thinking of changing that for next year, mine. And so I. What we generally see is a lot of the bikes are set up with 25% sag or 20% sag for racing and deserts, and that doesn’t work here.
So you might as well start messing around with your SAG now, try to run ’em at about 30% of the rear, 25% in the front. You don’t achieve the same speeds as you would in say Phoenix or Sedona and those sort of places. As Jeff said, it’s primarily single track. So the tires need to be, they need to absorb the terrain that you’re riding on light.
Sorry. Okay so 35 PSI doesn’t cut it unless you’re over 200 pounds. And so get used to running your tires. That softer tire pressures now. And if your tires like, look up your tires online. If and if it’s all hard pack, icons and maxis race tires and super shallow treads.
Let’s bring those by all means. ’cause it could be bone dry by the time you get here. But don’t be surprised if it feels like hell on wheels when you come into some of these corners. And so we bring, I don’t know, Rob, how many tires do we bring with us? About 40. 40 or so tires. So if you’ve got problems with your tires, come and see us early ’cause we will run out.
Thinking about what you’re going to do instead of what we’re gonna do. So if we offer two, two pathways through our services one is called a platinum tube, and you can go to our website, obsession Bikes. Have a look at it. It’s, it is your pro level bike servicing. It’s everything but a so yard. And so we’re not gonna massage you or, take much care of you, but we’ll certainly take care of your bike.
And so included in that is, is unboxing your bike, making sure it’s ready for the prologue. We transport your bike to the race site daily. We take care of it. Obviously at night it’s primarily for folks that really hate working on bikes. It just blah, I can’t stand the bike. I’m just out here for a good time.
I’m trying to socialize and don’t wanna stay in a hotel and I don’t wanna a cart or bike around. So that is currently 1200 bucks for the week and it’s going up to 1400. 1400 when? June 8th. June 8th. So you got a little bit of time to think about it. The other service is called a la carte. And the a la carte is to just when you have trouble and ideally before you have trouble, that would be really cool.
There’s gonna be over 400 of you. And we think that we’re not there to take care of everybody every day. We just can’t handle it. You don’t need it. A lot of people like working on their bikes. But we do anticipate seeing most people at least once, what a lot of people do, and what they really should do is when you get to the race site, register with us.
So we put your credit card on file. We don’t charge you a thing unless. Your bike comes in for service. But what that does mean is when you finish the race day and you’ve realized that something went sideways. You just show up. You’re already registered, and we just talked to you briefly about what went wrong, and you can walk away.
And so there’s no standing around and you’re shammy waiting in a lineup, just getting rotten. That’s not what we’re doing. We’re processing people, so we process you through. I said broaden. Sorry about that. And anyway, so that’s the most important thing. Show up, register and then when something goes wrong, we’re there for you as far as that process goes.
You’re gonna meet a service writer’s gonna listen to what you said, and you’re going to be descriptive. Oh, it made this creaky, clicky. Sound old was the clicky, creaky, creaky sound when you were. Pedal in pedal in uphill, or was it all the time? Oh, it was all the time.
Okay great. That’s gonna help out a lot in the diagnosis and then we’ll charge you less. Now it’s pretty straightforward. We gotta create the clicky, ticky, ticky sound. Just tell us what it’s about. Then, you obviously you gotta pick it up and move it up, get your bike back and get ready for the next day and all that.
But we’ll talk about that at the race site. I need to speak briefly about electronic drive trains. Sora is incredibly popular at this event, and so many people fly in from other countries and they left the battery on their derailer. Now, the problem with the surround system is it’s designed so that the shifter can communicate to the derailer, and the trigger for that is movement.
So whenever that bike gets moved, the derailer turns on. And many people show up at this event and their derailers don’t work. Wow. Now what do you do? I don’t have a derailer. So you come over to us and you buy our batteries. Here’s a thought. Buy your own battery before you get here. Get it fully charged.
Put that little plastic piece that it comes with over it so it doesn’t show it out and bring it with you and carry it with you throughout the event. And it is the absolute best thing I can tell you with access to rails, like those things are buer great, they’re amazing, but if you’re flying in from anywhere, I don’t know, farther away than Toronto, you’re gonna show up with no power in that thing.
And that’s a bummer. Speaking of electronics, if that shifter is, that system’s over three years old, hopefully. Phrase B. You took that to your bike shop now and got them to give that bike a full overhaul because believe me, three-year-old bikes did not do well in this event. But there’s little watch batteries in the shifter.
And so those things need to be changed at about, I don’t know I change ’em once a year. I don’t know how long they last for. But if a shifter goes dead, you might as well walk. So change those little watch batteries. It’s called a CR 2 0 3 2. It’s the most common watch battery in the world. And then on Schmale systems, obviously you don’t wanna leave your derailer on the travel case or in the travel case or however you’re gonna travel with it.
The wiring on DI two systems is incredibly frail. The system comes with the, this. Thing, it’s a black fork. Everybody wonders what it’s for. It’s for pulling the wires off and putting them back on. And it wouldn’t be outrageous to remove that wire right before packing that bike away because if that thing gets severed, you’re paying us some real big box to get a new wire in there.
And all you had to do is disconnect it. So there’s another good tip for you. Talking about tires, sealant, it’s too bad we don’t have people could put their hands up, but whatever sealant lasts for between. Some of those race seals last about 10 days, like it says right on the bottle race, which implies you have a mechanic, which, so you put that stuff in there and it’s meant to harden off as soon as you get a hole in it.
What it also hardens off without getting a hole in it, and within about 10 days it’s just a gummy mess in the tire. So you might wanna avoid that one unless you put it in right before the event, regardless. That’s right before the event and. The regular sealants, depending on the circumstance, dry up in about three weeks to three months.
So write this down. Put new sealant in your tires today. So if they’ve had sealant in them already, you don’t have to put a ton in. I would top it up with what about ounce? Yeah. And if you’re putting new tires on you use more. ’cause the new tire absorbs some of it. Big tires. We go to three ounces.
Skinny mini tires. We start with two. So there’s your conversation about sealant. We prefer orange seal. It’s got a ground up particulate in it. It acts like platelets in your blood and it does the best job stands. Race sealant also recommended, but again. You probably have to pull it out when the race is over or get your mechanic tooth and then the regular stands.
Isn’t that solid? It wa it was when it was toxic and illegal to use in California. Sorry. But it’s yeah, it’s not what it used to be, that’s for sure. Some people by the way, with stands are now taking a pepper shaker, dropping a boat. Oh, I don’t know about a. Maybe half a jigar glass of pepper into the bottle, shaking it up and then applying it.
And it does the same thing as orange seal. Okay. So you’re not using our services. Great. No worries at all. And but you still have to clean and inspect your bike daily. We’re seeing a lot of this happening as bikes are getting a little bit lighter and fatiguing easier. People are putting, they’re doing bolt checks on their bikes, which is recommended of course.
And they’re shearing the head of the bolt off. Those bolts are getting fatigued, especially on these lightweight bikes. Putting a wrench on it and breaking the lock tight is just gonna create a problem. So if you’re gonna put a wrench on it. Just snug don’t move the bolt, just make sure it’s not loose.
So make sure it’s not loose is one. I personally don’t do that. I just run my thumbs across the top of the bolt and make sure that it’s not sticking out. If it’s not sticking out, leave it alone. We don’t carry. Every bike’s, hardware, and we’ve had some hilarious stories over the years with what we have used to keep bikes together.
If you break the head of one of those bolts off the, and they look like a large coin with an Allen key fixture in the middle. Typically you can run a zap stat, a zip tie right through them, and that’ll hold the bike together. But it’s far better just not to break ’em off.
And then so we’ve spoken a little bit about tires. If it starts to rain sticky tires are better than hard tires, you can bring ’em with you if you want. Drive trains. So one of the more noteworthy things we’ve seen at BC Bike Race is people show up from other regions and say, if you’re in desert country again you tend to use the the 9, 10, 11, 12.
Positions of your cassette, not so much the first, second, third. And so what happens is these bikes get really used to what they’re used to. And then you start slamming the chain up into the high high cogs, the big cogs like that big 52 on Thera, or the 51 on the schmo. And that chain can’t take it.
It’s been ground in these low Cox. So again. You like, you can see if that’s a problem. You can buy a drivetrain from us that all our pricing on parts is MEP. It’s the same as any bike shop. But, you really gotta have a good, hard look at and look at your calendar or if you gotta log on the bike, just hey, or your Strava, like, how many hours do I have on this thing?
Make sure you get it, get the chain on. And generally, what would you say Rob, you could, a modern drive train can take three chains before it’s trashed, right? Yeah. So you know, if you’re putting your third chain on, but you’re entering BC bike race and the trip’s costing you thousands of dollars and you’re gonna keep the bike anyway.
Just take that old drivetrain off, put it in a bag, put a new drivetrain on, and put that piece of junk back on the bike in the winter. And you’re, you’ve put so much effort into this thing, you’ve probably been training for two months. It, it’d be bummer to again, have something go wrong.
Getting into suspension setup what we wanna do is two question marks. Okay. With suspension again, you’re good. Set it up a bit softer than you used to, especially after day two or three when the fatigue cycles starting to kick in. Also, a lot of these race bikes. Use like lightweight forks and there’s less than an ounce of lubricating fluid in those things.
So those lowers have to come off, they gotta get cleaned and they go back on with Fresh Lu. And that is that every. 50 hours I think is the general, yeah, 50 to 80, 50 to 80 hours. Personally, I wouldn’t enter this event without having that done before I get there. And same thing with the rear shock. That little air can there.
It’s got 75% of your weight sitting on top of it. It’s working super hard and all, most of ’em are sitting sideways, and so the fluid gets down near the bottom, and so we want to get fresh fluid in there. It’s greasy stuff and it definitely makes the bike feel a hell of a lot better. And if you, so then when that rear shocks out, that’s when you articulate the back end of the bike and see if any of the bearings are dragging and if they are.
Come and see us or of course your bike shop. Now a lot of people show up from areas where there aren’t great bike shops, fair enough. We’re, that’s why we’re packing so much equipment. ’cause our mandate is to get your bike across the finish line, whether you wanna be on it or not. So the bike isn’t holding you back.
That’s our mandate. So if you got, if carry all kinds of bearings, it’s literally $10,000 worth of bearings or something. It’s nuts. This isn’t really about your bike, but it could be, don’t change your bike fit right before the race. Don’t put a new saddle on it. Bad idea if you have to.
’cause you bent yours and it’s not the same as the original buy shammy butter. Lots of it. Okay. Big old tube of it. And I I just discovered hoo-ha. For a big trip I did in Mexico and I came off the couch to, to do this. And and boy oh boy, I am sure. I’m glad I did. I think I was putting that stuff that, that that slimy stuff on every hour.
It was incredibly it became my best friend. I took a very, like a give it a hug at the end. Hoo-ha. It’s for her, by the way. The guys like it too. I’m not in their marketing department, but it’s okay. It’s got a bit of peppermint in it. It’s funny. I think that’s why it’s called Hoohaw. Kinda lights you up a bit.
James I just wanna make sure that we have some time for questions. Okay. Yeah. Is there stuff that like really needs to be covered before we go to questions? One more thing. Thanks for the I can go on all day. Matt, get your pens out. There is a protocol that BC bike race has for what you carry on the bike.
I haven’t looked at it in years, so I’ll just rattle this off. A multi-tool. Remember if your bike’s a Scott, they use torques, and so you need to have that multi-tool has to include torques. A pump or CO2, a plug tool for tubeless, please take an inner tube with you, tape it to the bike. You don’t have to carry it on your body.
A chain tool and a link specific to your bike, an extra access battery, and I mean it. And if your bike still uses a derailer hanger, make sure you carry that with you as well. Okay. Questions. Okay, great. We’ve got one actually in the chat. Jonathan is asking, I serviced my UX ultimate about a month ago, but we’ll have about 30 hours before BCBR.
Should I service it again before the race? The short answer with that fork is yes, right? That thing’s got less than any of the other forks for lube in it. And it’s also super light and it’s not a full service. It’s a lower service, so the lowers come off, it gets re lubricated, goes back together.
Great. There was also one question about if shock pumps will be available if needed. Will there be a communal shock pump that people could use? Yes, we will have two to three shock pumps on hand. We’ll also have probably five or six floor pumps just out around our tent as well for pumping up tires in the morning as well.
Okay. I should add we’re, we also have a section of our area for sundries. Things that you may need during the race. Like CO2 cartridges, you’re not supposed to fly with them. So we have CO2 cartridges if you want. We’ll also be bringing some of those newfangled battery charged pumps, which are super convenient for these types of trips.
’cause you can just tuck it in your pocket and change your tire pressure in a second. Okay, cool. Sorry guys. Can I ask a question? Hi. Yes, go ahead. Go ahead, James. Thanks. I’m doing the raise with my wife this time. I did it seven years ago and loved it. That when I’m back. Question for you though is that I did take the a la card program, but I, if I remember correctly, every day I will drop my bike.
They will clean it, and if there’s nothing to do. I’ll just get it the next day. So is that kind of the same process? Or do you have to clean up the bike by yourself and then give it up and then the next day they will give it back to you? So for the ones who are picking the a car program, can you walk us through the mechanics of the daily routine?
Yes. A la carte, in order for us to properly repair and assess the bikes they need to be clean. The dirt can hide lots of hidden things on a bike. So if you’re doing a la carte we would recommend that you use BC bike races, wash services, to give your bike a rinse off first before coming to us.
We can, however, also wash the bike for a fee. But pretty much we’re not gonna work on a bike unless it’s being, rinsed off. Got some of the dirt off so that we can accurately assess and repair it. Okay. And then, okay. Got it. Either we do it ourself or. Some will do it for us, but ultimately we’ll give the back to you and whether there’s, you will just check it out, right?
If it’s working well, you don’t do anything. If there’s something missing, you’ll fix it. Correct? I remember my front suspension had to be rebuilt three times. Oh dear. Oh yeah. But you saved it was a saver because otherwise they would’ve been not possible to continue. But is it the same that I like this year?
It would be the same as it was when you came seven years ago. Perfect. Fantastic. Yeah. I should note though with the a la carte, we are not transporting bikes for a la carte. That’s up to you to transport your bike. We’re only transporting bikes for our platinum package.
I do have the transportation package program though. So the transportation program, we’ve, we are transporting your bike for you, so you’re good. Thank you guys. Appreciate it. You betcha. Thank you.
Okay, any other questions?
Again, so if you have any direct questions, so James w@obsessionbikes.com. I may or may not answer them myself. I may simply forward them to somebody else in our. Station or in our our organization. And I have to take a moment just to applaud everybody, not only for, registering for the event, but all the work you’re putting into to get here.
It is simply the ultimate single track experience. It is a trip of a lifetime. And again, to you.
Okay, now we did we did promise that we would do a draw for a jersey, so I’m gonna bring up the wheel of names. Here we go. We’re gonna pick one Lucky winner. So here we go.
Everybody’s favorite part.
Okay. Chad Nicholson. That’s you. So Minera. Actually, can you email minera at info@bcbikerace.com And we will, we make that happen. Okay. Minera, do you wanna close it out? I butted in. No, I think we’re good. If we’ve covered everything if there’s something you think of afterwards, whether it’s course or about obsession, you can either email James directly of course, or email me always at info@bbcbikerace.com.
And I am gonna ask everyone to please be diligent about keeping an eye on their newsletters in the next couple of weeks. There’s a lot of things going on. To read your newsletters. I know people tend to feel like there’s a lot of information and it can sometimes dismiss them, but now is not the time to do that with what are we, I think 25 days out.
So please do pay attention to your newsletters. Yes. And we have one, one last question from Debbie. Can we pick up our orders at race packet pickup? Are you talking about jerseys that were ordered? Is it DEI or Didi? It’s probably Didi. Yes, your jersey will be at it’ll be on the day of packet pickup, but it’ll probably be at retail, so not where you get your, after you’ve checked in, then go over to retail and they will have all of those pre-ordered items available for pickup.
Perfect. Thanks James. I think Jeff’s had to jump already, so he is up. Thanks Robert as well for joining us. Lynn’s asking about where to buy the Obsession Bike package that will come out in a newsletter. And also it is an obsession’s website as well as an our website. So I think we can wrap up on that note.
Thanks everyone for your time. Okay, great. See you there. Have a great day.