North Shore Fest

BC Marathon Series # 2

This was one of the races I was excited about for this year. It’s the only one where the race is in the trails that are out my back door that I know very well and has some great fun technical riding!!

After days and days of rain – the weather gods were looking out for us and brought in some great sunshine just for this one day! We all gathered at the start line. I saw a couple of girls I had not seen before, all decked out in Trek gear with bikes I never knew could come as light as they were!

The start proved a surprise for everyone where we had to drop our bikes and run in the other direction. About a 400m run back to the bikes, then straight onto the newly built bmx track for some fun on the burms and jumps to a tough little climb – the pack was getting spread out already and heart rate was up to 181 already!

We went into Richard Juryne Trail for a tough climb. A trail that can be mostly ridable on a fresh day on your own. But with a line up of riders, made it tough, so it was mostly a hike a bike. This race was going to prove to be no time for recoveries. We moved into Circuit 8 trail and dropped down to the river over to Bridle. Was a clean good start and the pack spread out really well. Worked hard through bridle and the new trail and over to old buck 20min climb to Severed. My back was killing me and didn’t climb so well.

Severed downhill was in a pretty wet and tough state but managed to have a clean run down and was stoked with how I was going. This lead into a tough hike-a-bike. I felt like I needed an extra lung!! Heart Rate still over 178. I was coming into bottle top, knowing Richard was going to be waiting at the bottom for me to come out. Another clean run. I hit fishermans trail, and found out I was in third with the 2 girls ahead being the Trek Girls, with one only 30 secs ahead. Richard climbs homestead with me – a tough steep climb. I was hurting but could see her ahead. I pushed hard knowing the finish was almost here. She saw me coming and was pushing hard too. At the top of the climb we both took off, she enters the last trail still in sight. I work hard back up Richard Juryn trail, for the last decent ….. 12 seconds behind her in the finish line with a time of 2hr 25mins …. So close!!

The girl that won, was 6 mins ahead, to find out she came 2^nd at the last Canada Cup and is on the Canadian National Team! So was all good with that …. Lol! Was impressed with both of their technical riding considering they were not locals and probably not familiar with these trails. I was happy with my 3^rd place finish.

2 weeks until Test of Metal – the next big one.

Top 3 Results:

Mical Dyck 02:22:04 (Trek Canada) Victoria
Joanna Harrinaton 02:28:24 Whistler
Megan Rose 02:28:36 (John Henry Bikes) North Vancouver

Nimby Fifty

This event came on the radar only about a month ago. A new event in a new location that I heard has some great trails - Pemberton.

Drove up on Saturday morning - pouring rain the whole drive up! It managed to calm down to light rain by the start. There were about 250 riders lined up at the start in the middle of grass field, and I was super excited to ride the trails that I had heard about over the last few weeks.

The start was actually for once great! Threw a couple of mud puddles just to get us all dirty from the start and a flat start for about the first 5mins then into a 10min climb that I actually felt stronger then normal. The field spread out pretty well by the first single track. About 30mins into the race we start the single track climb - I heard about this 1hr+ single track climb with 101 switchbacks! Was loving it but it was tough. Tight switchbacks, technical sections, where you could look up and see a line of riders on all the switchbacks ahead of you. I could see a couple of girls in sight and that was my aim now - to either keep them in sight or catch them by the top of the climb. I was closing in slowly. I passed and few about 15mins we kept swapping positions depending on who would dab and get caught off balance on the climb.



They managed to both be in front on the start of the the descent, much to my disappointment, but Joele went down and the other girl past. She was ripping it, so I just tried to hang on to her wheel on what was some amazing downhill trails, so much fun. Trying to put a gap between us and Joele. We were all fighting for 3rd place. I managed to gap the other girl on the next climb, it was tough and steep and then we went into the last loop before heading to the finish. At the time I wasn't sure how far there was too go. This loop included some sharp painful hike a bikes, that was crushing me into the ground!

I caught and past Wendy Sims, she was having some mechanicals, but with no effort she took back off ahead. So I am now working to hold my 3rd place finish. We go into the last descent, wow what a bunch of fun!

I cross the finish line 25mins behind Catherine Pendral (the current world cup leader) and 2 mins behind Wendy Sims. What a great race.



We were covered head to toe in mud - no hose, creek or water to be found. We wipe ourselves down with a towel, change, put our disgusting muddy bikes on our car and head to the beer and band. We hung around for the evening and party of a fire, some hay bails, a band and some great company to camp there the night.



We headed back to Vancouver in the morning after breakfast at the wildwood and stopping in at Whistler to get a few runs in on the Whistler Bike Park - what a great weekend!!

Top 10 Results:

1 Pendrel , Catharine 02:29:31 Kamloops
2 Simms , Wendy 02:52:32 Nanaimo
3 Rose , Megan 02:54:15 North Vancouver
4 Guynup , Joele 02:57:46 Victoria
5 Heisterman , Brandi 02:58:03 Brackendale
6 Paquette , Fanny 03:02:36 Whistler
7 Short , Katherine 03:05:34 Halfmoon Bay
8 Robichaud , Linda 03:07:02 Victoria
9 Allen , Sylvie 03:13:29 Pemberton
10 Bell, Page 03:17:31 Pemberton