Squamish will again be home to mountain bike racing.
Organizers have announced a new race, the Spakwus 50 Marathon Mountain Bike Race and BC Provincial XCM Championships, to be held next June in the trails around Garibaldi Highlands.
The event will take place at the same time of year as the flagship race for the former Test of Metal series of races.
The name Spakwus was chosen to honour the traditional heritage of the community, according to a news release from race organizers.
“Spakwus means bald eagle in the Squamish Nation language, Swxwú7mesh, and symbolizes the wildly majestic beauty of the Squamish Valley,” the release states. “This valley has been the fertile hunting grounds of the bald eagle for hundreds of years and now has become a destination for cyclists to hunt down and find world class mountain bike trails. These lands provide life to the bald eagle but to the mountain biker, these lands provide meaning.”
The race will take place June 17 over a 55-kilometre course that includes 2,400 metres of climbing through trails around Garibaldi Highlands. Some will be familiar from previous races, but there are expected to be some new features included on the course.
“It’s definitely a trail race,” said Dwayne Kress, the new race’s main organizer.
Kress was co-director for Just Another Bike Race, the fourth and final race in the Test of Metal series. The Test series announced in early 2016 that the year’s series would be the last, as many of the longtime organizers decided it was time to step down.
Kress said discussions started in the summer among some of the previous organizers of Test races about starting about a new race to help fill the gap. “There was some ideas building,” he adds.
The group has now set up as a non-profit group, the Squamish Mountain Bike Festival Society.
The new race be will be preceded by a couple of smaller events in April and May, both fundraisers in conjunction with the Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association (SORCA). They will occur around the same time as OreCrusher and GearJammer, the first two races on the Test circuit.
“Those weekends we’ll still keep mountain bike events going,” Kress said.
“They’re going to be fundraisers for the trails.”
The first two events will be shorter, and Kress hopes they will attract people interested in trying mountain biking but who might have been intimidated by the longer races in Test of Metal.
Kress said he has a strong team already and is anticipating he will be racing in the event next June because he is confident in the team around him.
“I’ve gotten better over the years at delegating,” he said.
More details about the race and a new website will be announced in the near future. Kress is also looking at the possibility of establishing a two-stage event over a weekend for 2018, though this idea is still in the preliminary stages.
For now, mountain bikers and those curious to try out the sport will once again have an opportunity to race the local trails.
“Certainly the Test of Metal spirit is very strong within the community,” Kress said. “I’ve encountered absolutely zero resistance.”
He also said the group is already thinking about how to set up so there will be people trained to take over the event when the time comes in the future today’s organizers to move on.
“As we’re moving forward, we’re building a succession plan,” he added.
