InFocus Magazine

While out and about on the roads and trails around the Comox Valley, you might want to take special note of some of the two-wheeled blurs that flash past—there just might be some champions in that pack of cyclists.

And some of those blurs may very well be members of the Comox Valley Cycle Club (CVCC).  “The Comox Valley Cycle Club is excited to be able to offer programs and support to the cyclists of the Comox Valley,” says CVCC Time Trials Coordinator Andrew Brown, “but we are especially excited about a few of our junior members who are already showing amazing promise.”

“Although Amanda Wakeling, Jordan Duncan and Nigel Ellsay have only been racing for a year, all are regularly competing at the provincial level and winning.  Amanda and Jordan are both are currently the Provincial Time Trial Champions in their age group.”

The Comox Valley Cycle Club is active in road racing and recreation, holding regular group rides, time trials, and an annual series of road races.  Road races are for riders of all ages—the current membership ranges from 10 to 70.  Formal time trials are conducted weekly.  The club also hosts the BC Masters Cycling Association, regional play-downs for the BC Seniors Games, and special events for province-wide junior racers.

Former and current club members include provincial, national and world champions, regular competitors on the international circuit, and Olympians.

The club has been involved formally in competitive cycling since 1986.  “The CVCC has a long history of supporting cycling and bike racing in the Comox Valley,” says Brown.  “Olympians and former National Champions Kiara Bisaro and Geoff Kabush are both past members.”

One of the long standing senior members of the Club, John Bernard, describes the success of the junior training program.  “A couple of years ago John van der Vliet started organizing a training program for juniors—mainly because his son wanted to learn how to race, and his son had some friends who wanted to learn to race.  Amanda Wakeling,  Jordan Duncan and Nigel Ellsay are involved in that—all are about the same age. Altogether there are about six junior riders.”

While the young cyclists are relatively modest about their achievements to date, Bernard says, “John took them to some provincial level races last year, specifically the time trials, and they walked all over everybody else!  They were really impressive.”

Junior members have always been a focus of CVCC, says Bernard, depending on who is organizing the riders, and last year was a particularly good year.  “We did have talent, but not just that—the talent that started it out encouraged other talent to come along too!  And it built on itself.  It was attracting other people, other kids into it.

“We have about 50 members,” adds Bernard, who is also in charge of membership for the CVCC.  “At one point we had more—when we were involved in mountain biking as well, which was a success at that time mainly because we had the parents involved and the grade schools involved.  But when the kids grow older and drop out, the parents drop out, and without the parents it’s extremely difficult to keep going.  Our club is not strictly involved in mountain biking any more—it has started up again under a different organization in Cumberland—though a lot of our riders do mountain biking.”

The CVCC, he says, is basically a road racing club.  “This year we’re doing four race weekends locally—three of those are one-day events, and one is a two-day event with three races in it. The first one is mid-May, then one a month after that ending up in August.”

Bernard considers himself a recreational cyclist.  “I don’t race!” he says, “I can’t keep up with them! Their speed averages in the low 30s I think, for 1-1/2 to 2 hrs.  Right now they are doing a group ride Sundays, and eventually probably three or four organized group rides every week, depending on how keen people are.  They don’t care what the weather is like—they’ll even go out in snow!  Those are basically training rides.”

Most racing in the Valley is on Sunday mornings when the roads are fairly quiet.  “Routes are chosen partly because the traffic is light.  We try to be as careful as we can about the way people race.”

They also offer a “good time trial series,” once a week starting in August. “We have a course that starts at Piercy and Condensory, goes up to the highway, up the highway to Dove Creek Road and back,” says Bernard.  “They do that once or twice around—that’s very popular.”  Bernard notes that some improvements such as road shoulders or smoother pavement would be welcomed by the cycling community.

That community includes the junior members and their families.  “I’ve always liked to ride a bike,” says 15-year-old Jordan Duncan, whose father Kent is vice president of the CVCC.  “But when I first met John van der Vliet, he really got me into cycling as more of a sport rather than just something fun to do.  I was in Grade 6 at the time, about four years ago.  John is the dad of one of my best friends from elementary school, Jake. Jake introduced me to his dad, who grew up here, moved to Australia and turned pro, then raced in Holland, moved back to Australia, married there and then moved back here to the Valley.”

Amanda Wakeling, also 15, got into cycling as a kid to keep up with her brother.  “We ride to school pretty much every morning with my dad,” she says.  “Then a few years ago I got a cyclo-cross bike from Jeff at Trail Bikes, and that just started me road cycling, which got me into the club meeting different people, and got me into racing more.”

Adds Duncan:  “She’s the mountain biker and I’m the road cyclist.”

“But we both do cyclo-cross,” says Wakeling.  “We do all three.”

Cyclo-cross, as a diversion from their other competitive racing, includes all trail surfaces such as pavement, wooded trails, and grass—but notably features steep hills and obstacles, requiring the rider to quickly dismount and carry the bike while navigating the obstruction, then quickly remount.

“Cyclo-cross is kind of crazy,” says Wakeling with a big grin.  “It’s kind of in-between mountain biking—you get up and run over barriers, run up stairs, crazy stuff!”

The bikes, adds Duncan, are similar to road bikes but with wider and more knobby tires for off-road riding.  “You can do it anywhere, that’s the coolest thing about it,” says Wakeling.  “It’s competitive—fast races, like a half hour or 45 minutes.”

Cyclo-cross is what they do when not competing from September to November.  “It’s kind of an off-season, fun thing to do,” says Duncan.  “Keep the fitness level up, but don’t get disappointed if you don’t do well.”