On the afternoon of Sunday, July 8, 300 tents will pop up on Powell River's Willingdon Beach, signally the impending arrival of 600 mountain bikers from around the world who will compete in the gruelling BC Bike Race (BCBR).
Of all eight stages of the race, including Cowichan Valley, Cumberland, Earls Cove to Sechelt, Sechelt to Langdale, North Vancouver, and Squamish and Whistler, Powell River stands out.
“The first thing out of people's mouths when they talk about the race is the tent city,” said Powell River course director Wayne Brewer. “They love it. That visual of all the tents, it blows them away. I hear that all the time.”
With their beach accommodation ready, racers will disembark from BC Ferries later that day to the welcoming cheers of hundreds of people at Westview Terminal.
The next morning they will don their spandex, a right among these riders, not a privilege, and race.
Powell River is celebrated as one of the riders’ favourites, according to Brewer, who is now in his ninth year as course director and was instrumental in getting BCBR to Powell River in 2009.
“Every year, BC Bike Race surveys the mountain bikers,” said Brewer. “They let us know what the racers have to say about it.”
They have great things to say about Powell River, added Brewer, including favourite venue, food and notorious single-track trails. All are fitting for BCBR, which bills itself as the ultimate single-track experience.
“Willingdon Beach, how could that not be the favourite?” said Brewer. “Food catering here is the number one choice every year. Best race course, best race trails, we’re number two after Squamish. I’m thrilled with that because how can you compete with Squamish?”
While Brewer and a handful of volunteers spend hundreds of hours in the bush trail building, Squamish pays.
“They’ve had hundreds of thousands of dollars thrown at their trails in terms of paid trail builders and $100,000 to build one particular trail,” said Brewer.
Two visiting mountain bikers from Squamish, Martin and Shannon Goetsch, rode the trails recently and said if there ever were trails you could eat off of, they were in Powell River.
“They’ve never been raked like this,” said Brewer. “My wife, now that she’s retired, she wants to get out and be active and get some fresh air. She takes along a garden rake and she’s raking the trails. It’s never looked like that. It’s mind-blowing how clean the trail is.”
Having trails that clean will give Powell River another distinction.
“Other communities don’t have trails that look this nice,” said Brewer. “No one puts that effort into it.”
The big change for the course this year is the addition of more single track and new road sections along Manson and McGuffie avenues and Cassiar Street. Yukon and Timberlane avenues and Cranberry Street were cut from the course.
Brewer said a day will come when he cannot put the effort into the race as he has done for the last nine years.
“I’m 70 this month,” he said. “It’s time to pass it on.”
