Innovators attract imitators. Just ask organizers of the TransRockies Mountain Bike Race.
Twelve years ago, TransRockies was the only big stage race on the mountain bike scene, attracting riders from around the world with the opportunity to ride from Fernie to Canmore. Those first few years were grueling: 600 kilometres of fire road, cow fields, some single track, isolation, cold, blood and tears.
By 2013, the course is unrecognizable from those first days. The Kananaskis stages are entirely on single track, the distance has dropped to 350 kilometres and the bike technology is able to handle tougher and tougher terrain.
Several other competitors have sprung up and the battle for mountain bike race entry fees is fierce. In Canmore alone, a handful of race organizers struggle for weekend space.
Watching the race situation morph, organizers decided to drop the final curtain on the seven-day stage race and replace it with SingleTrack Six – a brand new race that shifts destinations every year.
“It was a combination of us watching the trends and making adjustments and feeling like we needed to make a big change,” said TransRockies president Aaron McConnell. “We’re looking at where the sport is going and we’ve been transforming over the past few years, more focused on single track riding and less focus on long distance point to point stages. We felt it was time to change the brand and give it its new identity and focus on community-based single track riding.”
Losing the original TransRockies concept is tough, McConnell admits, but it was necessary. No longer will the race finish on Main Street Canmore, however, new communities will be incorporated into SingleTrack Six.
“Back in the day, when it was a full point to point Fernie to Canmore race, it was a pretty special achievement. It was really a bucket list to -do event,” McConnell said. “The distance has dropped from 600 km down to 350 km. The TransRockies 3 in Kananaskis has gone to all single track. Thirty kilometres of single track is equivalent to about 70 kilometres of other trail.”
Mountain bikers want to ride even more single track trails on their new bikes, which has changed the sport again.
“The technology is evolving. Bikes today have more travel, better brakes, better gears. They’re better suited for single track. These are bikes people buy to ride for fun, and these are the trails they want to ride on their five-inch travel bikes.”
Mountain bikers are also getting older and McConnell knows they have to accommodate different needs. No longer is the race won by young riders roughing it in the woods. The new race series means mountain bikers could essentially sleep in a hotel and eat in a restaurant every night.
“Our clientele gradually has been changing. As mountain biking ages, our demographic ages along with it. It’s been 12 years we’ve been doing this and our average age has crept up four or five years.”
The Singletrack Six race next year will have stages in Kananaskis, Nipika, B.C., Radium, Golden and Revelstoke. McConnell said the race will reward communities that invest in trail infrastructure and support the sport.
“One of the things we’ve seen is these mountain towns have made an investment in trails. It’s great for people in town to have trails to ride on and the return on investment is high, compared to arenas, golf courses. They’re becoming an important fabric of the community,” McConnell said.
“We sent out invitations over the course of the winter. We’re not able to go to all the communities who wanted us, but we’re already starting to think about what 2015 will look like, what communities are embracing mountain biking and trails.”
That means more expansion into the United States isn’t out of the question. TransRockies runs 12 events a year at this point in a lucrative, but competitive market. They’ll have more than 350 riders in the final TransRockies Mountain Bike race, but expect 500 for next year’s SingleTrack Six.
Flooding in Kananaskis means some trails will be rerouted, but this will be the last time the iconic TransRockies race finishes in Canmore.
“My favourite memory, is it’s always special to finish on Main Street on Canmore,” he said.
