Local Ride Racing was in action again this weekend in the third BC Cup Road Race hosted by Coastal Cycling.  The race was held on what seemed to be a gentle course in South Langley.  It was made difficult by a strong head wind on a long straight section, and by 2 short steep hills.

The support team was also out in force to help both Local Ride Racing and Team Giant/Whistler.  Big thanks to Dave, Ian, Marie, Liz, Anne and Connor for all their cheering and support.

The morning started with the the Cat 4/5 men’s race with Mike and Barry racing.  The beginning of the race saw some confusion when the majority of the field went the wrong way on the second turn.  Mike would have been off on a break with a few others if the race officials hadn’t stepped in to bring it all back together.  When will people learn to pre-ride???

The race finished  in a bunch sprint, with Mike providing the perfect lead-out at 500 meters to go.  Unfortunately Barry’s week in California  took some racing kick out of his legs because he had been dropped a few laps earlier.  With no team-mates Mike put his head down, sprinted for 500 meters and finished 18th.  Next time he’ll start his sprint a little later.

Next came the Cat 3 men, which was a race of firsts for Roy and Steve.  For Roy it was his first race on his new TCR Advance ISP frame.  He later described the bike as a “Rocket”.  For Steve, it was his first race in Category 3, which had him feeling a little nervous off the start.  Surprisingly enough for the course, a lone rider (Sebastian Salas) was able to solo away for 6 of 10 laps to win the race.  That left the peloton, which stayed mainly in tact, to sprint it out for second place.  Local Ride Racing showed good form placing Roy 3rd and Steve 4th in an elbows out 70 km per hour mad dash to the line, giving them 4th and 5th respectively. 

All in all it was a good race, and a nice tune up for The Provincial Road Race Championships coming up this weekend.

So the results are in for Race the Ridge ’08. I hope you all had a good time in Maple Ridge and will be back next year. If you have any comments, complaints or compliments (especially the latter) we’d love to here from you.

There was a photographer at the crit course that has posted pictures. The website is seanhagen.ca. These pictures were taken by an independent photographer who asked us to post his site.

Finally a couple notes on results; TT times (definitive time) were used as a tie break for points. If you finished outside the points, your road race place (feature race) was the deciding factor.

Results:

• Cat 1/2 men
• Cat 1/2 women
• Cat 3 men
• Cat 3/4 women
• Cat 4/5 men