July 9, 2011 – Whistler, BC Heading into day six in Squamish, Rocky Mountain’s Chris Sheppard had a seemingly insurmountable 20 minute lead on local boy Neal Kindree and Utah’s Jason Sager. However, at BC Bike Race with it long stages over technical terrain, anything can happen and no lead is safe. Sheppard, who was familiar with the Squamish trails from racing the Test Of Metal and prior BC Bike Race editions, would find himself under attack by Kindree and Sager and also France’s Thomas Dietsch who was loving his borrowed full suspension bike. Mid race, while Sheppard was duking it out at the front, he sliced a tire sidewall and was forced to stop. His first fix did not work and he had to pull over a second time to fix it again. His biggest concern wasn’t losing time in the singletrack, but rather the wide open fire road sections where the frontrunners would be able to work together in the wind. In the end, Sheppard lost six minutes to the leaders, but still maintained a 14 minute lead in the overall classification. In the men’s pairs event, it was more of the same situation that we saw in the first five stages. Kris Sneddon and Barry Wicks took the win, coming across with solo men’s winner Jason Sager with Marty Lazarski and Ricky Federau finishing few minutes back in second. Rocky Mountain’s Colin Kerr and Greg Day finished third, further solidifying their third place overall standing in the general classification. Day seven, the final day of BCBR began in sunny Whistler, BC. It was Whistler at its finest – there had been rain the day before, so the trails were tacky and the Crankworx crowds had not yet arrived. Everyone was happy to be in Whistler and almost finished the race, but also a bit sad it was all over soon. With extra tools, tubes, and C02 in his pocket, Chris Sheppard just had to hold on win his second solo BC Bike Race title in as many years. With a short and intense race ahead of them, everyone wanted to come across first on the final day. Sheppard, Kindree, Sager, and Brian Lopes assembled at the front and took turns launching attacks. Kindree managed to gap the chasers and shortly thereafter Sheppard took a wrong turn losing almost two minutes before he got back on track. Kindree came across first with Lopes using his sprinting experience to nip Sheppard at the line for second. The 2011 overall win marks the second solo win in a row for Sheppard and his fourth ever, having won twice in the men’s pairs category prior to that. Colin Kerr and Greg Day also just had to hold on to keep their third overall, but it appeared for a while that they might move up to second when Ricky Federau fell ill with food poisoning on the morning of the last stage. Ricky and his partner Marty Lazarski started the stage, with Marty pushing Ricky at some points. They soldiered in well off the leaders, but held onto second overall. Greg Day commented, “It would have been cool to get second overall, but not that way. It was really impressive to see Ricky ride as sick as he was and they definitely deserve second overall.” Rocky Mountain Portugal rider Joao Marinho took 10th place overall, an especially impressive result given his lack of experience on technical terrain. 20 year old Rocky Mountain Factory team rider Kevin Kane, who found out about coming to BCBR with three days notice, placed 19th overall. The Rocky Mountain Brazil women’s pair team of Luciana Cox and Adriana Boccia placed third overall. .