Meet the 10 Aussies Racing at British Columbia Bike Race (BCBR)

After completing the 2022 BCBR in the Okanagan region of British Columbia with my partner in MTB crime David Leckie and a JetBlack MTB Team member Graham Smith it was clear that another crack at one of the Worlds best singletrack races would need to happen at some stage. It did take a while to get over the 2022 race as this was a 22hr week race, riding over 240km & 10,000 vertical metre event. But let’s look at what happened since 2022 as we head into the 2024 BC Bike Race starting on July 1.

The Browny & Leckie BCBR channel (On Facebook) has been running since 2022 and has gained a lot of followers and a huge amount of content bringing awareness to the Ultimate Single Track Race. We have become great friends with the owners Dean Payne & Andreas Hestler or Dr Dre as we refer to him plus Moniera who looks after the racers relations once you come onboard and commit to this race. This organisation’s sole purpose of hosting BCBR is to bring people from all over the world to British Columbia to immerse themselves in BC Single Track.

Let’s look back in August 2023 after Leckie returned from BCBR 2023 on Vancouver Island. Sitting down over a meal and a few ales the story that Leckie had told of this famous location, well known for some of the best MTB trails in the world, a plan was hatched to take a large crew of Aussies over to come and soak up the treats and trails of British Columbia in 2024.

A group of 15 fellow MTB buddies were contacted to gauge interest and both Leckie and myself looked at each other and after the responses kept coming in with a resounding Hell Yeah, I’m in we had 10 people locked in for the 2024 BCBR race. Amongst the group heading over this year is Four World Champions from the recent WEMBO 24hr held in Armidale, NSW Australia in 2023.

The next step was to approach some businesses to come onboard for the ride and produce some amazing new race kits for BCBR 2024. Supavest got naming rights, Premium Select Finance, Toohey Associates all jumped at the opportunity to provide some funds to help the team get to the start line of BCBR 2024. A phone call to long time friend Andy Portress who owns Seight Custom clothing and with-in no time a kit design and logo’s come to life.

One of things that I must keep reminding myself is to get to the start line is a challenge. The long road ahead with training, staying fit and healthy, logistics of travelling plus arranging accommodation and transport and the most important thing avoiding crashes. The team who consists of the following:

• Browny – Former 2022 BCBR Rider
• Leckie – 3rd time at BCBR
• Smithy – Former 2022 BCBR Rider
• Kevlar (Multiple 24hr rider)
• Captain Kurt (All round MTB’er)
• Owen Gordon – Current Age World 24hr Champion (Nephew of famous 24hr World Champion Craig Gordon)
• Michelle Newstead – Current Age World 24hr Champion and Multiple discipline National Champion
• Grant Hodkins – Current Age World 24hr Champion
• Ethan – New to MTB racing but just completed an Australian Ironman
• Peter Selkrig – Mulitple discipline World Champion and current Category World 24hr Champion and Browny’s partner in the Plus 100 age pair BCBR.

With such a huge pool of talent the group is super keen to hit the trails and enjoy all that BCBR and Vancouver Island has to dish up to them. Race week will look like this for the 2024 crew:

Here is a brief rundown of the courses for the week – view here

Prologue – Victoria
8km
Stage 2 – Victoria
28.5km with 887M Vertical
Stage 3 – Cowichan Valley (Queen Stage)
47.8km with 1,376 Vertical
Stage 4 – Nanaimo
32.7km with 866 Vertical
Stage 5 – Cumberland
41.3km with 1,348 Vertical
Stage 6 – Campbell River
44.9km with 735 Vertical
Stage 7 & Final Stage – Cumberland
31.3km with 957 Vertical

One of the big highlights for all riders will be what BC Vancouver Island has to offer in terms of sweet singletrack. 2023 saw daily temperatures into the early 30’C which a lot of racers suffered with this heat. This year the temperature looks like it will be a beautiful mid 20’c race. Bring on the roots, the rocks and amazing BC trail networks for all involved. Finally a huge thanks to the riders who bought into our story and are coming on this crazy journey, the sponsors who have contributed and most importantly our families who support us in this sport of Mountain Biking.

Stay tuned for a post BCBR 2024 race wrap and check out the Browny & Leckie BCBR
channel here.