BCBR 2010 - Stage #4
June 30, 2010

Route: Earls Cove - Sechelt
Distance: approx. 60km

Day 4 is usually a really hard day at the BCBR - hump day as its known - and today would be no different. It was a 4.5hr slugfest. A big core of riders got lost which explained why some of the faster A category riders were passing me three quarters of the way through the race.

Most of the day I felt like I was just on a solo Saturday ride, just spinning along and feeling good. My knee felt ok but the pain has now settled in my ankle. I'm hoping that I'll be able to figure out how to be pain free for a stage - maybe Whistler the final day. In my head I referred to today's stage as a "face slap day" as you'd finish one climb off and then "bang" another one reared its head. It was a day for lightweight climbers for sure.

I ended up sprinting with some other riders to the finish Cavendish-style (minus the road rash) to finish a maddening 27th! A big huge thanks to Rod Campasano and the City of Sechelt for the great day of riding. I will definitely come back and do more riding here. And I'm looking forward to some fun days ahead, like the 17km downhill to the Langdale ferry on Stage 5. Today was a very rushed stage with no rest time so it will be a very short report tonight as I need to see the doc and they're about to kick us out of the Rec. centre.

The only GC change was Team Hardcore/ Terrascape's Kate Aardel and Alana Heise took over the lead from Northland Medical in the Open Women's Team category. But the hot race is the Open Masters Men with Simon Pulffrey and Ted Russo, first and second respectively and only separated by five seconds. It will be a great to watch that rivalry unfold -- see you tomorrow from the BCBR