If you’re thinking about doing BC Bike Race this year and you’re not sure whether you should say yes, watch this recording of our Regroup, Reset and Restart Call and let us twist your rubber (yet muscular) arm.
Life is unpredictable. Opportunities that are here today could be gone tomorrow. That’s why we believe that if you want to challenge yourself at the BC Bike Race, there’s no better time than NOW! There’s still time for you to register and train for an amazing week of camaraderie and mountain biking with other riders from around the world.
Don’t risk another year going by with the BC Bike Race still on your bucket list. Watch our Regroup, Reset and Restart Call and take action!
In this call, we talk about:
• what it takes to do BC Bike Race
• support we have in place to help you prepare
• what it’s like on course
• how you can make 2025 your BCBR year if you really want to
If you still have questions about the race, contact Moniera in Racer Relations: [email protected]. She’s sitting at her computer, waiting for a message from YOU!
If you’re ready to register, click here! 🔥 🙌 🚵🏻♀️
Below is an AI transcription of the call. Please forgive any errors in this unedited text.
Hey everybody. Welcome. See, we’ve got some familiar faces in the room. Josh, nice to see you. Who else have we got? David Christ. Christ. Is it Christ or Christ? Christ. Christ. Okay, awesome. Hi, nice to see you. Alan! Is Val there?
Maybe not. Oh, he dropped off too. Who did? Oh, and he is back. Val’s here. Hi Val!
Great, so we’ll have a little chit chat while we wait for any stragglers to come on in. We are expecting just a few more people. In the meantime. Just some questions from our side. So I’d love it if you type in the chat where you’re from. What about BC bike race excites you? And what part about it makes you feel nervous?
Any or all of those would be awesome. And if you want to just pipe up and raise your hand, that’s fine too.
And who here is registered? I know Josh is registered, Lisa’s registered, David’s registered. Okay. Mark, are you coming back this year?
Thinking about it?
Edwin’s coming back with his wife, I believe, this year. And I know Gil Goodrich is registered as well. Hi, Gil.
I think we got background chatter. Okay. Mark, hope to. That’s great. Unfinished business. Isn’t that always? Isn’t that always a zinger?
David, how hard is this thing? We’re going to talk about that for sure. Tom, Partland, Port blah, blah, blah. Partland, Portland. Thinking about it. That’s great. Monica from Wisconsin. We are we want more women in the race this year. Manera and I are on a mission. We want to get to 25 percent women this year.
Yeah, we would love to see you on the start line. That would just make our hearts sing. Jamie, Cobble Hill, you’re just up the road from me. I’m in Victoria. Close. Close a couple of times, but not quite registered. I’d love to know more about that. Close than no cigar.
And Mark, first you need to treat yourself to a new bike. Okay. Maybe. Maybe not. We actually we, Dean and I have talked about this, how you can, depending on what you’ve got I did the race in 2015 on a, like on a mid range travel bike. And so it would have been maybe a little heavier than what the pros were riding, but the serious racers were riding, but it definitely got me through the whole thing and to the finish line.
So how old is your bike?
My bike’s not that old. It’s a few years old, but it’s an all mountain bike. And what I’d like to get is a an XC bike, something with less travel. I was way over forked. And yeah, my bike was just a little heavier than what I’d like, especially for the Campbell river day.
Oh, that was tough on the big bike. I bet. Yeah. Campbell river. Isn’t as demanding technically as some of the other stages. Yeah. Okay, and Matthew, nice to see you. Shonigan Lake. Let’s see, we’ve got Dave. Dave, you’re from Seattle. Nice. Riding, oh, riding with your son. That’s awesome. We’ve had a few parent child teams and that’s that’s always super, super cool to see.
And we’ve just had Nick join us. Nick, I don’t know how to say your last name. Is it Malindane? Nick is joining us all the way from South Africa and I’m hoping to finally meet Nick when I’m there for the EPIC later next month two months from now. Because Nick’s been hovering in the background since 2019, I want to say, and has never quite made it happen.
So maybe 2025, Nick, maybe 2025. Awesome. Super, super awesome. Okay. And then Chris, is it Chris Meng or Meng? Did I get that right or horribly butcher it? Mengy. Mengy. Oh, I wasn’t even close, but not too bad. Great. So you’re in Washington and you’ve written up here, but Just a little bit concerned about the distance, the elevation gain that kind of the endurance part of it.
Yeah. Oh, yes. I’m sorry. But yeah, I put myself on mute. So Yeah, all good. Drive safe. I’m not driving right now. I’m parked. I’m just sitting in my truck. Okay. Okay and David we’ll get to that question maybe about the heavier bike a little way in okay. Awesome. Welcome everyone.
I’m super excited that you’re here. We’ve got a little bit of a mix of racers people who are already registered And and folks who are still on the fence, maybe a little bit. So excited to have everybody in the room. My name is Carmel. I do I’m in the marketing department here at BC bike race.
I’m also an alumna. I wrote it in 2015, as I mentioned. And so all the emails that you get, those generally are coming from me on behalf of the team. And I’m really excited about having this call today and get a conversation going. We also have on here Manera, who’s in Racer Relations. We have Andreas Hessler, who’s our co founder and was our head of marketing.
And we’ve got Dean Payne, who is another co founder and the president of BC Bike Race. We’re all super stoked to have you in the room. We’re going to be probably about 45 to an hour on this call, and hopefully we’ll be able to answer all of your questions that you have about the BC Bike Race and whether it’s a good fit for you this year.
The reason that we created this call and why we called it regroup, reset and restart. Is that this is the time of year where a it’s really great to put something big in your calendar to help you stay in tune with All of your man, all of your, it sounds so big. Any New Year’s resolutions that you might have that relate to like fitness or biking skills or just simply lifestyle, wanting to be on your bike more.
And BC Bike Race is a really great option for that. So that’s why we’ve had the call. We want to take the, any mystique that’s out there out of what the race is and whether you can do it. So I’m gonna just I have a little teeny tiny thing to share with you. So I have a little PowerPoint presentation.
I promise it won’t be deaf by PowerPoint. But the BC Bike Race. I put together this little photo collage to just give you an idea. For those of you who haven’t been here and have just been watching from afar for a number of years. This is what the BC Bike Race is. It is. Yes, absolutely.
Riding some really amazing trails. But it’s also very much a cultural experience, a stoke experience. It is getting to go out and meet people from all over the world on our Nanaimo stage. The last couple of years, we’ve had a Lake finish, which is always really nice and refreshing. So BC Bike Race isn’t just one thing.
It’s not just a race. It’s actually an experience and, in fact, the ultimate single track experience.
So who we have coming to BC bike race, we’ve got those committed racers, the pros and the people who are really aiming for aiming for the podium or eating, aiming for like a top 10 finish or something like that. Maybe a top 20, maybe even a top 100. And then we’ve got the challengers. who are definitely looking to do their best.
They are, they maybe race a few times a year, and they definitely want to hit a top spot. Maybe not podium, but definitely looking to do really well in their category. And then we’ve got the bucket listers, people like me, who it’s an, it’s really is about the experience of doing the BC bike race, riding these amazing trails, meeting people from all over the world and challenging ourselves to see what, just what we’re capable of.
When I finished the race in 2015, I actually wrote this blog post called, I am an athlete. Because I’ve never really seen myself as an athlete up to that point. And this really changed my sense of who I am in the world and what I’m capable of. So the questions that we’re going to be looking at today, and wow, that’s a lot of white.
When I was designing this, I wasn’t really thinking about that, but we’re asking three questions. Can I do this? Do I want to do this? And do I want to do this right now? And what I really hope is that by the end of this, you’re able to answer these questions. And my personal wish for you is that you do arrive at this place where I can do this.
I want to do this. And yes, I want to do this in 2025. And it’s not because there’s any benefit to me whatsoever, because there isn’t. It’s that having done this race. I just know what the impact is, right? When I did it, I just, I had so much fun, and it was really life changing for me. And we’ve heard that from other racers too, that it’s a life changing experience.
And so that’s what I’d love to happen for you. Yeah, if you’re even remotely considering this I would just say you should absolutely do it and I will be your biggest cheerleader.
Okay, so we will start with, can I do this? We’re now 22 weeks away from day one, which means you have 22 weeks to train. And if you’re a relatively active person you’re not a total couch potato, this is very doable. Especially with the training guidance that we have in our coaches corner program and actually manera Do you want to do me a wee favor and grab the link to our coaches corner web page.
It just gives you a little bit of an idea of what we have available we have professional coaches that are providing advice so we have lots of resources available to you. And I say that now because I didn’t put that in the support column. I forgot about it. But so the race is seven days.
There’s a prologue and then there’s six stages. In 2024, our shortest stage was 23 kilometers or 14 and a half miles. And our longest stage was 48 kilometers or 30 miles. I like the kilometers because it sounds better. 48 compared to 30. And I would say roughly, and Dre correct me if I’m missing the mark on this one, but I would say 80 plus percent are single track and most of our days are more single track than even than that.
Time to finish, one and a half to two and a half hours for the pros. For kind of that challenger category, it’s usually two and a half to three and a half hours. And for everyone else, it’s somewhere in the neighborhood of three and a half to six hours. I can’t tell you what what your finishing time might be.
But I would say that, people with average fitness around here, they’re moving on these trails. It’s about eight to, eight to ten kilometers per hour. On the trail just because of the technicality of the terrain. That can give you an idea. For support, is anybody scared about what are your fears about being out there?
I think, Chris, you said you were worried about the distance and the elevation. Anybody else just have some input on what you’re worried about? You can just unmute.
I would say, yeah, the technical that, what type of, if it’s roots and rocks, if it’s mainly rocks, if it’s, or just maybe undulating soil types just different from what we have. Around here would be my concern. But, mountain biking is mountain biking.
But what type of terrain is typically those trails is it? Is it a lot like the, for example, Pisgah National Forest, where you’ve got, off camber exposed roots on the trails, or is it mainly rocks on the trails, that kind of thing, drops, those kind of things? That’s mine, but Yeah, great.
Yeah, you’ll encounter roots. You’ll encounter rocks. We don’t have any mandatory drops on the course. Everything is rollable. And just that’s a, we don’t want anybody to be surprised by anything. So everything is rollable on here. And but it is West Coast riding. So there are a number of roots and rocks and we’ve got bridges anything else.
And I guess, Manera Dean Dre that you’d want to add is talking about the terrain. The east coast, you mentioned Pisgah. Is, it’s wet Rudy and Rocky and There is a similarity definitely between the east coast technical nature and the west coast where, there’s the coastal word.
It’s the, we do mix now a lot of flow trails in the new modern trails. So there’s a combination of the type of trails as as Carmel mentioned there, there’s no mandatory drops or craziness, you’re managing your own speed. There’s lots of nice flowy man made trails. There are roots and rocks.
I think, we have, we do focus on blue square as a majority with a highlighted black feature, but that trail, but that might be, 1 km, 2 km of the day. Slow down and whether it’s a steep up or a steep down, mountain biking usually involves for many of us a little bit of walking and that’s, that’s not that’s part of the game. It’s, safety first, get through the event, slow down. It’s a long it’s a long journey, but these are also long summer days where you get, you have an all day adventure ahead of you. And so it’s the patience to get through the roots, the rocks, the hills.
But yeah we’re not setting out to endanger people. We’re just looking to challenge people. Yeah, absolutely. And as Dre said, everything is walkable not that we want you to walk, we don’t design it so that it’s so hard that you feel like you have to walk, but there’s nothing that’s so challenging that you’re like, holy crap, I don’t even know how I’m going to get, walk myself and my bike down this thing.
So just know that if you come up on something scary for you, you’re, yeah. It will definitely be walkable if it’s not rideable for you. I hope that puts your mind at ease. Jessica had the same question. Jessica, if there’s anything that we didn’t cover in that just pop a comment in the chat and let me know.
Brandon bonking hard three days in coach’s corner is going to be your best friend. We’re really in the midst of. Making sure that people know what they need to do in order to endure for seven days. And maybe, Dre, you can again pipe in, for anybody who doesn’t, isn’t familiar with Andreas Hessler.
He’s a former Olympian actually, no, Olympian. I’ve been corrected on that. Not, you’re, once you’re an Olympian, you’re always an Olympian. And and a pro racer. And so he’s just got a wealth of information and he heads up our Coach’s Corner team. Yeah I’ll let you take that, Dre.
We’re talking about the bonking. Yes, we don’t want, this is so eating and drinking through a stage race requires some diligence and you may reach a point where you don’t want to eat and you don’t want to drink. Hydration, but we keep that engine going through the entire process of the race.
And that said, managing your power output is again, a patient’s game. We don’t get to the top of Everest in a day. We build a base camp. We set up our base camp. We move the next base camp. That would be stage one. We do work through stage one, stage two, stage three, stage four. And as you start to see.
The week of the days rolling underneath you, that you paste yourself properly, and if you do power out at some point, you’ve got a full night of sleep and eating and drinking to recover. It’s just about really having a good game plan and managing your hydration and your food, this is part, it could be a marathon.
It could be anything, you could. You could have a bonk, but usually if you just eat some more food at that time, some gels or some shot blocks or a bar your energy will return and you will complete the day with a little bit of a hiccup. So bonking, while it isn’t a it’s not a positive fun thing.
It is a part of sports, but it’s a recoverable part of sports. Okay I hope that answered your question, and I would just add on to that pacing yourself, if you’re not someone who races a lot, it can be really easy to fire out of the gate, you’re excited to be here, the adrenaline is high, and just going in with the mindset of, Okay, I’m gonna pace myself on day one and see what happens.
And then based on what happens on day one, you can see, okay, day two, can I go a little harder or do I need to dial it back? Or is this pace good? You can pay attention to your body throughout the event and really Manage that so that you’re not feeling oh my God, I’m, you hit day three and you’re like, I don’t know if I can do this.
So I know on day one, I went a little hard and I was like, oh my God, I don’t know if I’ve got this. So yeah don’t do what I did. May I add to just back to the trail technically it, the kilometers It’s not like road kilometers. As we know, it’s West Coast mountain biking. So little slow going a bit of a more all body experience, but I’ll just say just back to the technical difficulty.
We get that. We get that question a lot over the years and it’s, it’s the, it’s BC single track it, but it’s not Crank Works and Red Bull single Track. We just have to be clear about that. And there’s a amazing community out on the trail and Dre calls it, find Your People and you’ll be around the same 25 people for most of the seven days.
And, it’s it’s something that we’re really proud of. It’s just people just cheer each other on and there’s, day one, everybody gets a little wrapped up and naturally with our egos and then after a while we realize It’s a very supportive environment if I feel like I need to walk something not a big deal Also a good opportunity to stretch out the back and the hamstrings.
That’s something that I like to do once in a while Just get off the bike But but back to the trail I thought maybe I would, we would ask somebody like Mark or say Josh, I know you, Josh, you get to live in Cumberland anybody who wants to pipe up right now to just talk about the trail if you’ve done the BC bike race, what your enjoyment level was with it or what your experience was as, as maybe if anybody want to jump in there, maybe Mark, you’ve done it before.
Hey guys, I really enjoyed the variety of trails from, as you say, you’ve got some blue flow to some black, a little more technical, there was nothing there that, uh, an intermediate and above rider couldn’t handle. Like I, it’s a challenging day.
It’s a challenge, challenging courses every day, nothing crazy. And I think that’s what made it fun. We could really ride fast on the downhills. And you knew you weren’t going to come up to some crazy. Stunt or would feature that would really put you in any jeopardy. So I think that the courses are super safe, fun.
And I found it very challenging, and don’t be misled by the distances, like 23 kilometers or 30 kilometer day. You’d be surprised your body takes a beating. And although the distance doesn’t seem that long, tell you when you’re out there for two and a half hours covering, 30 kilometers it’s tough.
Yeah, you feel it. Yeah, those are my thoughts. That’s awesome. Anybody else have any comments? I know, uh, Josh, do you have any anything to add? Oh, yeah, sure. I live in Cumberland and last year two of those days was in Cumberland so It’s always hard to really let people know what Cumberland is when it’s all you know.
I think I have a bit of a skewed perception on the difficulty of Cumberland because that’s my terrain. But going down to going down to Victoria And Cowichan and stuff like that. I found it was just whoever designed the course really did a great job. And if you’re a pro, you’re still going to find stuff that’s challenging.
There was some crazy shoots on Maple mountain on day three that were. That, some people had to walk, but but a lot of people found that they if they weren’t in a race, they might’ve walked and maybe got sketched out, but they just went for it and made it. Other than that, what a great balance of riding it was out there.
But, it’s no joke, like I had to work hard up to it, for sure, as someone who rides every day, and it still destroyed me by the end, I don’t think this is a race that’s easy for anyone, even the people that win. So you definitely weren’t destroyed through anybody who was there last year, you might’ve seen someone doing a backflip in the dirt jump park on, in Cumberland day seven, that was Josh.
And also Josh, you finished in the top 50. So you I think you destroyed yourself there. You’re pushing hard. Yeah. Anyway, I look at it like swimming. You can swim hard or you can go a little doggy paddle style. But that’s a great perspective, Josh. And yeah, we can move on to the next thing.
If there’s any more questions. I just also wanted to get maybe Val, if you don’t mind piping in Val is in our women’s 60 plus category, and I’d love to get, you’re coming from Hawaii, I’d love to get your perspective on the technical terrain and the distance and how it is for you. I think for me, I’m one of those bucket listers, and so it’s like a challenge, I love the challenge, but if I have to walk, I have to walk, and I think what I enjoy there is the beauty of it.
The single talk is such a challenge. And the people. I just love the people and I know there’s not a cut off time, which is amazing, so I can relax on the trail, because if I have to walk, I’m going to walk, and that’s what I love about it. Awesome. Thank you Val, and yeah, that is a really good point.
There isn’t a cut off time. Our course team will definitely guide you, they’re always out there and watching what’s going on with the people on course, and we’ve got a patrol that, you know. Brings up the rear and makes sure that the very last person is taken care of. Yeah, just know that you’re being cared for out on the course and our goal is to get you across the finish line feeling as good as you possibly can.
And that, that might even mean, making a little, taking a little chunk out of the course. And if you’re, if you want that, if you’re okay with that, if you want to. push through, that’s fine too. But just know that we’re watching and we’re making sure that you have the best day that you possibly can every single day.
So since we’re talking about that, I’m going to go back and just talk a little bit about the support that we do have available. I’m just going to quickly rip through this. We have mechanical support both on course and and on back in base camp. We’ve got Obsession Bikes. They’ve been with us since the beginning and they have, they work all through the night.
If you have any repairs that you need done, it is on a pay, pay per pay per service. Or they’ve got packages that you can buy in advance if you really want. But we’ve got that mechanical support. And then we’ve got the Shimano team out on course at the aid station. Halfway through you’ve got a little bit of a finicky thing.
We’ve actually even had them give their own Bike wheels to people to racers because they’re hub exploded or something like that. So They are absolutely amazing and we’re so grateful to have them and have that support for you out on course We’ve got like I said our course team that’s monitoring who’s out there what they need You know if you have any struggles of course, if you’re doing great, they’ll leave you alone with maybe give you a wave and also making sure that you’re staying on course we’ve got our medical team.
They’re roving around, making sure that everyone’s okay. And again, back at base camp if there’s any issues bloody knees, whatever have you. Our wellness team. Also, we’ve got massage. In the past, we’ve had Cairo and also, what else have we had? I’m missing something. Maybe if Dre remembers or Manera remembers, but we’ve got a medical team that’s helping people recover each and every single day.
Like I said, we’ve got aid stations, watermelon is a big hit, we’ve got pickle juice, which is apparently just packed with electrolytes, if that works for you. We’ve got all kinds of snacks, real food, we really, because you can pack all the bars yourself, so we really want to provide you with real food that you can stop and grab a few things.
Partway through and of course electrolyte drinks as well and water so you can refill those water bottles And then of course our staff and volunteers our red shirt team. They’re always out there Trying to make sure that you’ve got everything you need And we’ve got trail side cheering which I gotta say when you’re you know Part way through a course and you bit you feel like you’re in the middle of nowhere You haven’t seen anybody for a while and all of a sudden there’s some guy out there playing playing a harmonica or a banjo or, ladies in hula skirts or, just something where somebody’s out there cheering you on saying you can do this.
It’s just the best thing ever. We love that we provide that for you. Now we did have a question. I don’t have a slide on this, but we did have a question about logistics. Getting here. We do have a racer guide. That I can send to anyone who is wondering about the logistics.
We have a guide that outlines, where the major airports are helps you with organizing ferries if that’s the way you want to work that. We can also get lists of like. Car rentals, things like that. So we can give you a whole pile of resources to help you figure out how you’re going to get here and how your week is going to go.
Now, to that point, we have kind of three options for the week. There’s, your program. Our program or a mix and match. Your program, you’d be in your own vehicle, you’d be staying in hotels or Airbnbs or something, and you’d be making your own food on our program. You just get yourself to Vancouver Island and then you can, we’ll take care of you.
You can stay in our tents. We can transport you between base camps. And you can be on our food plan. And then there’s always the option to mix and match a little bit of each. But one thing you’ll wanna be aware of is that if you get. Transportation with us. You will need to stay in base camp in a tent because we’re not going to be transporting you to local hotels or Airbnbs or anything like that.
So just know that transportation intents go hand in hand. Did anybody have any specific questions about logistics? I can’t remember who it was. That mentioned the logistics. It was Monica. But I’ve just dropped the handbook in the chat, Carmel, so that’s available to anyone. And also I’ve put my email in there as well, so that if anybody has any other logistic questions you can just reach out to me.
Okay, fantastic. Thank you so much. And if you have a burning question about logistics that you just really need it to be answered today, throw it in the chat and we can always address it at the end. Not, never the most inspiring part of anything like that. So we’ll get on to the inspiring part.
Do I want to do this? It might seem silly. I showed up to this call. Of course I want to do this. But the reality is that so many people keep this on their bucket list for years and then never actually say yes. So do you really want to do this? And as I, as I. As I mentioned earlier, it’s so much more than just riding your bike.
We’ve got people from all around the world. I met people from, where, Switzerland, from Australia. I’m trying to think of, it was so long ago, I’m trying hard to remember where everybody came from. But and some people that I’m still connected to. And we actually have people that have made lifelong friends.
Dean, who was it that, They became best buddies. Remind me, Simon and Connor. And they Simon was on bike patrol and then Connor showed up and they’re both living in New Mexico, Albuquerque. And they were like, no way, and they ride the same trails, didn’t know each other. We just bumped into them in Moab and they’ve been best friends ever since.
And there’s a lot of those stories, and the social aspect of this is huge. I’ll just add a bit more most mountain bikers go off into the woods by ourselves, but why would we All come together like this. And I guess that’s been one of the, I’d say it’s 50 percent single track and 50%.
I think Val said it is best at the people and that’s not just the wonderful BC bike race crew and staff. It’s the people that show up here. It’s really interesting folks from all walks of life, actually, and on average, 30 plus countries. It’s the biggest kind of honor doing this work for me is just the people come from all over for this.
And another example, my daughter’s done the BC Bike Race the last couple of years. She was doing from a child, we put her into Child labor at the BC bike race, but then she graduated to racing She’s just down in Australia now staying with some of our racers down there doing some racing and you know taking a room At one of our racers friends, so there’s a network to this that is really fun it’s a big deal, actually.
Yeah, absolutely. And I’ll just you, funny things that happen on the trail racers help each other out. I think, now I might get, I’m, I might be wrong in this story, but I’m pretty sure I got it right. We had one racer, he snapped his fork midway through the race, and there was another racer, I can’t remember he wasn’t gonna be able to finish, or something was going on that day, and he just handed this guy his bike and said, here finish your stage.
What? Who does that? So you know it’s full of stories like that. I remember blowing down this technically section the year that I did it. And there was a guy that I’d been, we’d been yo yoing the whole time on the race courses. And he’s walking down and he sees me and.
He was from Australia and he yells out, Kamel, you’re the lady! And it was just this, put the biggest smile on his face that I had. This guy I didn’t really know, but I’d been yo yoing with him all week, cheering me on something that he, you know, he, he chose to, to walk down. It was just, it totally brightened my day and it’s still a super highlight.
The writing that you do is going to be amazing. You’re going to love the trails. The riding here is so fun and there’s so much more to it than that. So just, yeah. And then I have a, just a quote from one of our, he’s a two time alumni alumnus, James Cameron. If you like riding your bike, you’ll love BCBR.
If you sign up for BCBR, you’ll ride your bike more. If you ride your bike more, you’ll be happier for it. And you could even put it a simpler way. BC bike race equals more mountain bike time equals more happiness. And I could not agree with that statement anymore. I’d love to know, I’d love, just call on our alumni again what, when you signed up, I know Josh you signed up for the first time last year.
And what was, what changed for you when you actually signed up? If anything, it was the motivation throughout it lit a fire under my butt to, to buckle down for the longterm. Because. Because of the work that you need to put into it and made me set goals.
It made me look ahead many months in the future. But I’ve said this before, like since I live on Vancouver Island, a lot of people were like, why would you do BC bike race? Why would you spend the money? Because you ride those trails all the time. But. Man, once I raced it, it was a totally different thing.
Even riding the same trails, like everything changed. It was the it was just the atmosphere of the race and everything like and being able to having a reason to go down to Victoria and just travel across the island. And also meet all these people from around the world. I felt like I had a role to play as an Islander.
It just it’s, and also growing up as a freestyler, I always rode bikes in more of a creative way. So having this fitness motivation, having this reason to push myself in a cardio way. And apply bike skills in a different way. Just changed everything. It’s it made me an XC racer.
Like I was mildly dabbling in it and then doing one week of full on XC racing, like I’m hooked now. So there you go. So you’ll be doing the Island Cup series is what I’m hearing. Yeah. Awesome. For anybody who’s not here with on Vancouver Island, we have a, an XC it’s actually XC Enduro. Do they have a downhill series.
So anyways, it’s all three. And it’s a series that goes from town to town in the weeks over the spring and part of the summer. Yeah, Island Cup series. It’s fun. It’s a, if you’re, if you live here it’s a great precursor to BC bike race. Yeah, any, I’d love to know anybody who’s not yet signed up ask, having that question put to you, do I want to do this now?
What comes up for you?
Do you alert? Do you alert? Nobody ever lets you know. I’ll check a question out. Okay. Let’s talk about the Dirty Cousin in the room, the EMTB portion. Dirty Cousin?
The person no one likes. I’m that person. Can you, is this the right platform or no? Sure, yeah, we can talk about that. How is it going to be different? How is the EMTB portion going to be different? Exactly. Let’s first talk about how it’s going to be the same. Perfect. Okay. Dean, I think you you’re going to have a great time. You’re going to ride six single track. You’re gonna meet some great people. You might have one more beer than the non e bikers at the end of the day. And that’s okay. And it’s similar same vibe, and we just believe that it’s including more people into this, and we’ve got some more plans for that.
And then having said that, what’s different is really Um, we’re not, you’re not going to be on your e bike jostling out front with the pros because you’ve got some assistance. So we’re really conscious of and mindful of introducing you into the course. And not mixing with the non e bikers.
So that’s something that we’re we’re working with. You’re going to be by far the minority out there and not lonely, but the base camp is waiting for you and you’ll have at least a big smile as everybody else. That’s fantastic. Slightly longer day maybe? Than when we saw the stats earlier? No, very similar stats.
Okay. There might be on a couple days. Every day is very dependent or different in that there might be a couple days where we give you a different lobe than everybody else does that might have a steeper climb section for, that e bikers like to go up steeper things. It’s a type of challenge.
If anybody’s an e biker, you tend to go out on, often go out and do a different ride plan. Up is the new down, so we’re not going to be a radically different course. We’ll be tinkering with it. And, e bikes aren’t going away, so we’ve had some demand for it, and we’re, we’ve made ourselves available.
But we’re very mindful of making sure everybody feels like they Did something awesome out there e bike or not. I feel like it’s it’s the ultimate single tribe experience, right? You can push as hard as you want on your bike. So what are you considering doing? The e bike version, Matthew, I’m considering just, similar to our conversation earlier in the week.
And yeah, I’m just, I’m curious. My, my plan is to do the acoustic, the Amish, whatever we want to, right? I don’t know if that’s what you call it, but if that doesn’t permit for whatever reason, then I’m excited about the option to have the e bikers on site as well and at Basecamp. We’d love to have you on either platform.
Perfect. Okay, question. Yeah. Any other questions? I see Jessica from there’s a question from Monica about if anyone’s done the black epic to compare the technical lighting. What I definitely do know is we’re not at altitude. So sea level is going to be a lot easier. Yeah it’s shocking.
You think it wouldn’t really, just Oh, what difference does it make? It’s just a little higher. But yeah, it does. It does make it. I know when I travel to other places that are at higher elevation, just even just existing. It’s harder . I would say just the general terrain in Colorado versus the coastal mountains here, they tend to have longer big climbs.
Great single track. I think it’s just the difference between interior style and coastal. We tend to have a bit more rock rocks. Rocks are probably about the same, but maybe we have more roots because they’re getting above the tree line. So we kind of hunt around on our granite faces for little what do you call them slabs and, nice, fun features to ride.
And then we are known in the West Coast for our ladder bridges to. Basically get you over swamps and things to stay out of the moisture. So I’d say, we’re, if you call it a density of technical features per kilometer trail, and I think we’re probably just a little bit higher cause we’re existing in the woods where those roots are.
I think if you can do the Brack Epic, you can certainly do the BC bike race. Perfect. Thanks, Dre. Yeah. And then we had a Jessica’s comment that your barrier is or your consideration. I don’t like to call them barriers. Consideration is the financial piece and we totally get that we’ve had and I hate to put Josh on the spotlight again, but I do.
Do you mind sharing your story from last year?
Yeah. Yeah, it’s not cheap depending on where, who you are, what you do for a living or whatever. It’s just not cheap at all. And like I said earlier, that was a big question. People were asking me, it was like, why would you spend all that money to ride the same stuff you ride all the time?
But it was the experience. So what I did, it was a, I borrowed a little bit of money, but I had to pay it back. And the way to do that. I just work at a bike shop, right? Bike shop wages. And I usually tree planted what, which would pay it off pretty good, but I wasn’t tree planting that year.
So I collected empty beer cans. It, and I also had to quit drinking, so that helped me save a lot of money because that’s a lot of money to just drink all the time. But so instead, all my friends kept drinking and then I just collected their beer cans. Over the course of over the course of the year I made an account at the return at depot and returned bags.
Of empties and eventually saved up 1900 bucks to, to pay back for BC bike race. So it worked out well in the end. So I was pretty stoked to be able to do that, it still takes a lot of work, a lot of consistency and stuff like that. But it worked out great. Awesome. Sorry.
Drink a lot. Awesome. Sorry. I’ll just add to the financial piece. Just if you’re coming from the States folks may don’t always know this, but it’s like our dollar right now is 69 cents. 1, 000 Canadian is 690. And currently we’re tariff free up here for I couldn’t help it, but we’re tariff free.
So you, we’re not going to charge you extra duties. On your race entry as a B. C. Tourism product. So So that’s good news. Good news. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, the money piece is definitely one of those things. The year I did it, it was my vacation money. I signed up the year before and all, it was all of my vacation money.
I was I was a single parent at the time, had an okay paying job. But I just committed, I was like, I want to do this. And, this is where I’m going to spend my money. So it really just comes down to a matter of choice. If you want it, you will make it happen. So which maybe yeah, I just I’ve lived that.
And so everything as my mom would say you can have anything you want, you just can’t have everything you want. So it really just comes down to choices. What do you want to do? Do you really want to do this? So yeah any other questions on the, yeah, it’s definitely an investment.
We’ll acknowledge that it’s it’s an investment for sure. Okay. So final section which is my favorite part, do I want to do this now? I don’t have a crystal ball. I can’t tell you that doing BCBR won’t be available to you next year but I can tell you that you’re not getting any younger. Nothing in the world is getting any cheaper and there are absolutely no guarantees that your life situation in the future will make it any easier to be a part of this experience.
I’m really glad that I did it back in 2015. Like I said my circumstances were not perfect. I didn’t, I wasn’t flush. I didn’t have a pile of cash floating around to just Oh, yeah, sure. I’ll do this. My son was three years old. I had to figure out what I was going to do with him for an entire week.
But I’ve never regretted that I did it. And actually I just knew that the window of opportunity might not exist. So I jumped on it. I prioritized it. I made it happen. It just so happened that two friends of mine were doing it the same year and we had a blast together. We just had so much fun and it’s now this shared experience in our friendship together that we can reminisce about and, and just look really fondly on and we had a lot of cheerleaders back home that also made the experience really special. So the question really is is this experience important to you? Is this something that you want to spend your time, money, effort your 2025 commitments on and the sooner that you choose that you’re going to do it, the better the event’s going to actually get because it’s not just June 30th to July 6th.
It’s not just a one week event, even though that’s what we’re, that’s what we’re selling. That’s what we’re promoting. But we’ve actually got a full program going on. We’ve got two zoom calls every single month. Where you’re getting training and racing advice and you’re also getting the opportunity to just connect with other people who are coming to the race.
It’s really cool when you’re connected to people from different parts in the world. And then you get to come together in this seven day like, Hey, great to see you in 3D. And it’s just it’s a really cool experience. So we love that we’re able to bring people together all year round.
And then it culminates. in this one week in person experience where you get to do, something that you’re really passionate about and you get to have fun and and connect. And then yeah, Minera in Racer Relations is always available to support in the lead up to the race. She’s actually pretty amazing at it.
I’m always a little bit in awe of her. And like Josh said, on top of that, once you’re committed, your daily choices change. You look at your bike differently, you look at your day differently. You’re just you’ve got a goal on your calendar. That is drawing you forward instead of you pushing yourself to maybe make some choices, if I don’t know what your other goals are this year in terms of riding, fitness, whatever it is, adventure but this is something that can pull you forward instead of you trying to push yourself to ride your bike more just cause.
I’ll just add to it’s a little bit back to the financial piece and again, if it’s a, if you’re a bucket lister and not, uh, what was the first category with the racer type you’re racing it yeah, just the committed racers, the racers. You don’t have to get caught up in getting a brand new bike and just, ride what you have.
Can I bring flat pedals? Yes. Often people have a. I’m not sure if they have a bike what they have, and if they come back, they say I might want to get a faster bike and do better. But for just completing, make sure it’s tuned up and it’s, modern, don’t get caught up in having to have the fastest and the latest and greatest.
Just have a good solid bike underneath you. It’s a good way to go, and you can share a tent with people. That’s another good way, and traveling with a buddy also saves some costs. And just contact just contact Manara. We have just various programs groups and youth. We have different programs, so if you’re just not sure, Manara is your info at bcbikerace and Manara.
We’ll also just say Manara is taking the leap, as we already mentioned, Manara is racing this year, so she’s going to be colleagues with you she’ll share in your pain and your investment, yes, and she had to jump off because she’s literally flying out today to South Africa, so she had to go.
Go catch her ride. But yeah, if you read, I think it was our rule. Actually, I haven’t posted it on our blog, but our last email out on Sunday our mountain bike inspiration post, it’s Manera because she’s, it’s she’s had her journey from being someone who just wasn’t at all involved in sports as a kid.
And she’s embraced it as an adult. She started mountain biking at age 45. And loves it. And yeah, she’s made a lot of choices in order to support that thing that she loves. Yeah, sadly she had to hop off. So she, we can’t ask her but yeah so if BC bike race is something that you really want to do this year.
We have a little something for you 200 off a race entry that’s going to be valid until the 3rd of February, Midnight Pacific on the 3rd of February. And I will just put that coupon code in there. There we go. Okay. I do remember what it was. So the coupon is DOIT2025.
And that’ll, like I said, that’ll give you 200 off your race entry. Yeah, so I don’t know if anybody has any other questions. I’m happy to answer them and we really genuinely hope that you’ll join us on the on the start line. And like I said, there’s no benefit to me personally of having you come, but I really hope that you do because I just, I think everybody who mountain bikes should do this event.
Is that a goodbye? Are we? That’s my, that’s all I got. So if anybody has any questions, oh, Chris, got one. I didn’t put in the chat. So I, my daughter races XC and we have a full race schedule plan for the year and she’s hoping to go to nationals in Virginia for us. So I got to balance that with cost and time.
When does the race usually fill up? And I don’t know if you have an exact time, but is there like a cutoff or is there a time where it usually. That ends, do you know? To be very honest, Chris, since the pandemic it’s been, it hasn’t reached capacity. So we’re, we’ve got room for the foreseeable future.
Okay. That’s like I said, I got to balance all of it. And a busy schedule, but it sounds like fun. Yeah. Yes. How old is your she’s, she just turned 13. I was going to say, a little young to have her come up to the bike race. Yeah, a little bit. Probably a couple of years she’ll probably be ready.
She’s doing a big training camp in next month where she’s going to be riding about almost 40 miles, seven days in a row. So that’s a bit for a 13 year old. The future is bright. Proud dad. All right. Thanks. Amazing. Thanks Carmel for walking us through this. That was awesome. You’re welcome. I hope it wasn’t too, I hope it wasn’t too much of a fire hose for everybody and I hope you got some value out of it, that you have a better understanding.
At the end of the day, I just want everybody to feel like you know that it’s a yes or you know that it’s a no. The worst thing is sitting on the fence thinking maybe. Until the decision is actually made for you because, you run out of time to train or the race has filled up or whatever, those kind of those default choices.
Although I do marketing on here, I’m actually, part of my career is I’m a life coach as well. My goal is always for people to really take the reins and consciously choose. How they’re going to live each day, each moment, each year, whatever it is. So I just hate to see people having those decisions made for them instead of choosing and directing what your life is going to look like.
Maybe that’s a little hefty. But I do appreciate everybody who’s come. If you have any other questions, feel free to stay on. Otherwise, have an absolutely amazing day, week, and year. And hopefully we’ll see you on the start line.