Come on out to the AGM, for our yearly update of Club activities, election of officers, and general discussion. Now is the time to speak up on any issues you have on your mind, and to ask us about the trails, and give us direction.
You don’t need to be a member to attend.
Also – this is the preferred time to signup for another year of membership. If you’ve signed up in the last three months, just show up and fill in a new form and we’ll extend your membership to the end of 2009.
I’m sure many of you have seen Brock’s work. Several of his films are available on Broadband Sports; he was kind enough to put together a short film focusing on FVMBA-oriented trails that was shown at our last movie premier. And more recently, he’s released his latest effort: Peatspeed & Marshmellows.
Well, this latest production has been noticed far and wide, and recently, he was contacted by the good people over at Huckmonkey. Way to go Brock!!
The trails on Bear and Red Mountains in Mission usually have a dump of snow on them at this time of the year but, as of yesterday, things were pretty decent. If you’re out on either of the two mountains, feel free to post up trail conditions using the comment boxes below this entry.
Red Mountain
There was a skim coat of snow at the base of the hill with about 10cm near the trailhead. We didn’t ride the xc course.
Arduum. The trail is in decent shape. There are a few mucky areas left over from the race, but lots of water mitigation work has been done since then. If you’re familiar with the trail, keep your eye out for a couple of new features — they’re definitely not something you’d want to hit without a preview!
Come on out to the AGM, for our yearly update of Club activities, election of officers, and general discussion. Now is the time to speak up on any issues you have on your mind, and to ask us about the trails, and give us direction.
You don’t need to be a member to attend.
Also – this is the preferred time to signup for another year of membership. If you’ve signed up in the last three months, just show up and fill in a new form and we’ll extend your membership to the end of 2008.
There’s a new DH race course on Red Mountain! Race the 2007 Arduum Challenge, 20-21 October!
arduum: steep place, the steep
challenge: something that by its nature or character serves as a call to battle, contest, special effort, etc.
The trail “Arduum” itself started out as two trails built “back in the day” We hiked these trails, looking for a good DH training course. When we realized that the combination of the two would give us everything we wanted (steep, techy, off-camber, rooty, and some flow) we built a connector and started reworking them. The finished product was this trail. We rode it a few times, had some friends ride it and we all agreed, we couldn’t keep it a secret, we had to share this one. We decided to host a race. Just like that??
Nope. The decision to do the race happened six weeks ago. Lots of hoops to jump through, things to look after, trail to perfect but we did it. The “Arduum Challenge” has come to life. Take this as your call to battle one another and “The Steep.”
The race weekend went off quite well. Almost 200 racers turned out on Sunday for some very fast racing. I believe we shattered the course record, due primarily to the excellent work the course builders put in, and of course the near-perfect conditions leading up to and on the day of the race.
Although there were a few areas for improvement, the race went off quite smoothly, with everyone getting to race on time, and in some cases, even early. There’s always room for improvement with the shuttling, but from reports, this was better than last year. If we run it again, we’ll try to improve where possible. One big lesson: If you want to practice come the day before. Some riders on Saturday got in 9 laps. And, posting results there was a hiccup, but our backup plan kicked in and while delayed we got the results posted.
There are too many people/organizations to mention them all, but a few thanks out to:
Wentings Cycle. If Bruce hadn’t gotten the ball rolling, I’m not sure the race this year would have gone. He eventually let FVMBA lead in the planning, but he was still a big supporter, but in providing ALL the cash prizes, some of the swag, and an injection of cash to the organizers to assist with expenses. Thanks Bruce!! (Next time, we’ll wear YOUR shirts).
Course Builders. Tireless fiends. Trail building geniuses. Mosquito-bait.
Racers. Tree-hitting, jump-casing, rock-smacking, sweaty fools. Without you, there’d be no race.
Race-weekend volunteers. Thanks, Thanks, Thanks. And a special hello to Paul, who manned the gate alone for WAY too many hours.
St John Ambulance. Luckily, these guys / gals didntt have to work too hard.
CyclingBC race officals. These guys knew what they were doing.
CyclingBC as a whole. Tremendous support, and financial assistance. Tanya ‘Wow’ work a work-horse.
RCMP: For not having a car there to catch the couple of instances where drivers could have been heavily fined for no-seatbelts on riders in the back of the trucks. (Don’t do that!)
Huckwagon. Ah shuttling in luxury. Nice. Those poor CV joints, though. I’m not sure Martin was expecting that road to be as rough.
Sponsors. Too many to mention, but please look them over below. They all contributed greatly.
