March 24, 2013 (Vancouver, BC ) – With four of eight days done in the annual Escape Velocity Spring Series one thing is apparent, the riders have been very lucky with the weather so far. Of the last three weekends there has only been one rainy day and even that could have been much much worse.

The racing started off with sunny skies at the Aldergrove course on March 3rd and the huge numbers of riders came out to spin the winter cobwebs out of their legs. In the A category the presence of three local pros put some fear that this was going to be a run away race for the “paid to race” and not the” paying to race” but a few poorly timed flats put that fear to rest or did it?

After a long solo attack by Greg Christian that looked like it would be the ride of the day, Zach Bell stopped to fix his bike then proceeded to ride through the pack and pull a chase group up to the leader. Out of that break-away group only Colin Daw was able to stick with Bell and out-sprint the Stage 4 Tour of Taiwan winner.

The B and C groups stayed mainly together on day one with only small attacks off the front. The B group was won by Escape’s own Bevan Moss with Jenny Lehman of Trek/Red Truck coming across the line for 5th while the C group was won by Craig Holden of Atomic.

The next weekend saw sunny skies on Saturday for the pancake flat River Road. Again big numbers showed up and the racing was aggressive in all three groups. Cid Martinez of Russ Hay’s Racing outsprinted podium hog Colin Daw and Jesse Reams in the A group while the B group saw another Russ Hay’s rider Luke Koolman outdistance Triple Crown Racing’s Ted Martin and Keiffer Livingston of the dEvo program. Musette Cafe’s Kevin Hay and Jason Cutbill of Glotman Simpson were the top riders from the C group.

As delightful a day as Saturday was, Sunday was a day of dread as cold rainy weather greeted the riders for the always painful Armstrong Road Race. Much smaller fields showed up to face the day but the racing was no less animated. Colin Daw again stole the A race with David Kessler and Dave Gerth finishing second and third. The B race had a very exciting finish when the early breakaway riders were caught the last time up the climb and Luke Koolman won his second race in as many days over young Jackson Pickell of Local Ride Racing and newly upgraded Craig Holden of Atomic. Keegan Rowe of Triple Crown Racing took the C race ahead of Richard Costello and Ben Ford of Atomic.

The fourth race in the series was held on Sunday, March 17th on the always hard Bradner circuit, an unrelenting course the has a few punchy climbs per lap. Geoff Kabush came out to play in the A group and showed the roadies what’s what by working hard in a seven-man break and outdistancing Jesse Reams and the man from California Colin Daw.

The B group saw two riders working hard out front for most of the day and rewarding themselves with a one-two finish at the end of it all, Michael Wegner of C4 finaly got it right and finished ahead of his compatriot Ted Martin while Richard Normand of Escape Velocity won the bunch sprint for third. Teammates Jon Bula, Matthew Von Nostrand, and Christian Frandsen of Fulgas rode away from all others and took top honours in the C group.

Within the three groups we are doing our best to highlight some of the women and juniors competing along side the men. The B Women’s group has had some great results with riders such as Claire Cameron and Sarah Coney finishing at the front end of the pack in some of the races and the C group has Jennifer Gerth and young Maggie Coles-Lyster tied on points.

Results HERE.