Wicks and Davison win penultimate BC Bike stage

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Stage 6 of the BC Bike Race in Squamish was a day for fireworks as the trails exploded with riders. It was also Industry Day for friends of the BCBR. Eighty-six riders from the cycling industry and friends of the race from across the province joined in the journey of the 600 racers on the course that is most often voted the riders' favorite.

It's a day where the fastest riders love the opportunity to test each other's climbing or descending abilities while the rest of the pack enjoys the reward of dropping into some of the most well maintained and crafted trails in the world.

Barry Wicks (Kona) took the opportunity to take a stage win while Lea Davison (Specialized) did the same but snagged the yellow jersey as a bonus.

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The Squamish trails combine technical features, fast chunky trails, flow trails and flat and bermed corners. The riding is faster on a wider variety of surfaces than any of the previous stages. It's easier to keep flow and roll with the terrain, but it also means obstacles come up quicker and braking reaction time is a little slower as the tires start to skid around a bit more.

Women

This year's race has been one of the most exciting women's races the BC Bike Race has ever had. Three different riders have won a stage with everyone having good days and bad. Today, Lea Davison (Specialized Bicycles) started by trailing Wendy Simms (Kona) by over five minutes and she needed a serious gap to put on the yellow jersey before Whistler. Sonya Looney (Topeak Ergon) and Kim Hurst (Mud Cycles) had each ebbed and flowed throughout the days, but had spent a lot of time on the podiums.

Davison attacked early as she has done every day and got a gap on the rest of the women going up the first climbs.

"About a third of the way in, going up the switchbacks I looked and saw the Luna Chix, Wendy, Kim, and Sonya and realized I didn't have that much of a gap," said Davison. She needed to punch it and when the Luna Chix, who were on their own mission, caught her, she fed off their energy and pace to start putting time into the field. She motored on her own after being dropped by the women's duo team and crossed the line with over nine minutes on Simms for the win and the leader's jersey.

"Lea had some serious USA power today on July 4th. I kept them all in sight for the first climbing section, but didn't have the legs today for the climbs," said Simms.

Looney bounced back from her lackluster stage 5 and crossed the line next only two minutes back. Hurst was another minute back to and scored a third place finish.

Men

Today was Barry Wicks' day to take a win after playing the faithful lieutenant to Kona Bicycles teammate Kris Sneddon.

"The Rocky Mountain guys went pretty early. I attacked going up to Half Nelson and got away from the other group and then I bridged to those guys by the end of Pseudo-Tsuga," said Wicks. "I jumped ahead of them going into Hoods and stayed ahead of them pretty much, then we got into Crumpet, and I was kinda waiting to go up the gnarly power lines we used to go up. But we didn't do it. So those guys caught me on the flats coming into the finish."

Tristan Uhl has been battling against the Kona trio all week and had a podium in sight before hitting the deck hard in the closing kilometers.

"Eventually it was just Spencer (Paxson), Kris (Sneddon) and me, and they were drilling it. With four or five kilometers to go, the front wheel must have hit a rock with some dust on top," said Uhl. "I got up quickly, but that was all they needed to get away. I battled back and got to about 10 seconds. I really wanted to get on the podium."

Sneddon and Paxson took second and third behind their teammate to dominate the podium for Kona once again.

Duo categories

It was a historic day for the duo teams in the open men and women's categories. Greg Day and Quinn Molberg of Rocky Mountain cycles and Catherine Pendrel with her Luna Chix teammate Maghalie Rochette. Both teams won not only their category but each beat the entire field of men and women.

Both teams had a stage overall win on their wish list.

"We certainly didn't hold anything back all week but we did have this stage in the back of our mind," said Molberg.

"I had to leave it to Maghalie to decide what we had. Two nights ago, she said I think we should go for the win tomorrow," said Pendrel. "We fought very hard and finished pretty close but didn't have enough. Today we were just tearing through the field. It was one of those times when we realized we were off the front and went okay, this is our day and we went for it."

The enduro portion of the BC Bike Race got off to a slow start this year after a reduction in the number of stages from 13 in 2013 to six for this year's event, and a timing chip defect caused unforeseen issues. Still, the enthusiasm for the category shined through.

Squamish Day 6 h264 from BC Bike Race on Vimeo.

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