Rundle Mountain Cycling Club veteran Simon Dove won the solo 40-plus men’s category, while Matt Hadley finished seventh overall in the open men’s division, as several Bow Valley riders followed the SingleTrack 6 race to the Okanagan.
Dove won four stages and was second in the penultimate stage race to take the six-day stage race in 12:18:22 for a decisive win.
Racing the best single track trails in Salmon Arm, Silver Star, Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton, Dove staked out an early lead and never looked back, winning the division by 15 minutes over Geir Ottar Kvernstuen of Norway and Bernhard Meister of Austria. Canmore’s Darren Anderson finished fourth (12:46:31) and Sean Colonello, also of Canmore, was 17th (16:15:24).
Hadley finished seventh overall in the open men’s division with a time of 11:40:19. The RMCC coach had his best day on stage 3 in Vernon, and fought for minutes the entire race. Jasper’s Cory Wallace, a frequent winner of 24 Hours of Adrenalin in Canmore, won the men’s race in 10:55:47, finishing ahead of Tristan Uhl of Austin, Texas and Swiss cyclist Severin Nowak. Our Lady of the Snows principal Phil Puurunen finished 25th overall (14:26:14)
Canmore residents also had several teams competing in in the week-long event. Nadine and Herbert Mueller finished sixth in the open mixed race, while Cornelius Bouius and Ryan Rattray also finished sixth in the open men’s team race.
SingleTrack 6 is in its second year and will return to the West Kootenays next year. It was designed to replace the famous TransRockies race, which ran from Fernie to Canmore. This year’s race averaged 40 km of racing a day, with elevation gains of 1,200 metres. Most of the race was run on singletrack, as organizers scouted the best trails in the Okanagan for the event.
While the TransRockies saw cyclists camp out every night, SingleTrack 6 is decidedly more upscale, as riders can sleep in hotels every night if they choose.
