BC Bike Race Experience: Stage 5 - Sechelt to Langdale

Stage 5 - Sechelt to Langdale

Stage 5 was the second point-to-point stage. It was 36 km with 1,400m of ascending, which was shorter than stage 4 but still a good amount of climbing. This stage turned out to be the most trying stage for me.

The stage started with some undulating double track before a fairly long gravel road climb. From there we entered a freshly cut singletrack trail. This trail was tough. It wasn't all that steep, but it was super loamy, wet, and had a good amount of tree roots. Shortly into the singletrack section I noticed my seat was dropping. Crap! My initial thought was the cable needed to be adjusted after the bike mechanic fixed my seat post lever the night before. I started cursing. This was not an easy trail to be making adjustments while riding and I was in a train of about 40 riders. Additionally, I was just starting to get warmed up for the day and my legs were really starting to push without too much pain. After fiddling with the cable tension to no avail, I decided to just try to ride. Then the seat would drop. This happened about 10 times before I finally pulled over to try to completely disconnect the cable.
I completely disconnected the cable and the problem was still there. Over 5 minutes had passed and many slower riders were now ahead of me. My dropper seat post was officially toast. With over 25 km to go, I didn't have much choice but to ride with it broken. It was like riding a pogo stick. The seat would drop with every bump on the trail. This zapped a ton of energy out of me. Thankfully, some of the climbing was on smoother gravel roads where it would stay up for the most part.

After 27 km, it was all downhill to the ferry port. Riding these descents with my seat post up would be good training for the last two stages. There were two Enduro stages thrown in for good fun.

When I crossed the finish line I knew my time for the stage was not good. In hindsight, I wasn't aggressive enough in getting around the slower riders that passed me while I was fiddling with my seat post. This caused me be to behind many slower riders on the long descent into the ferry port. In the end, I finished in 36th place for the day; my worst finish. I was not happy, but after passing one of the top riders running down the trail with a broken frame, I was thankful it wasn't worse.

That night I hitched a ride into Squamish to buy a fixed seat post for $25. I carefully took the measurements of the position of the broken post and installed the new post. After a quick test ride, I was ready for the stage 6.