On Sunday 31 cyclists and 20 supporters made the trip to Peter Island for the annual BVI Mountain Bike Club’s race.
Despite the early departure, everyone was in good spirits including the 11 cadet riders aged between 6 to 10 years old.
The main race along with the fun/novice category set off first. The main race followed a two-lap hilly course with mixed terrain of concrete paved roads, dirt trails and some soft sandy sections along the south coast of Peter Island past the windmills and around the Sunset Loop for13 miles.
The fun/novice course followed a shorter two-lap course of about five miles.
Gareth Thomas and Orano Andrews took an early lead while Chris Ghiorse followed close behind.
Mike Ellis was a frontrunner, but unfortunately took a wrong turn separating him from the leaders by a few more minutes.
Junior Shaquil Samuel was in fine form after his six-weeks training in Cuba and road a strong race. Mark Bailey, Alastair Abrehart and Mark Vanterpool chased the leaders with Hank Vergeer Jr. right behind having better luck than his father Mr. Vergeer Sr., who had a few tumbles on the soft sand and retired after the first lap.
Barney Nockolds also decided to retire after one lap after a suffering a grazed knee. Adrian Dale and Colen Corea, both lacking practice still rode respectable races with Jim Cullimore and John Shirley brought up the rear.
Philomena Robertson, who has only missed one race this season, rode the two laps despite an accident on the first lap. Carolina Pettigrew and Sally Blackmore went head to head in the Women’s Division, but a broken chain forced Ms. Blackmore out of the race giving Ms. Pettigrew the win crossing the finish line hand in hand with husband Dave. Ms. Robertson took second place.
On the second lap, Mr. Andrews who had been alongside Mr. Thomas from the start, decided to make a break and Mr. Thomas was unable to chase resulting in Mr. Andrews, sponsored by BSAFE, winning in 56 minutes and 26 seconds. Mr. Thomas crossed the line four minutes later for second, while veteran rider Mr. Ghiorse took third overall in one hour and four minutes.
The five riders of the fun/novice race had a few direction issues with two of the ladies taking a wrong turn and one of the men taking the longer full course route. However, they all managed to finish in the end with Michael Fay taking the win just a few seconds ahead of Clare-Louise Wiley. Newcomer Hilary Sutton in her first race came third ahead of Rachel Munro and first-time racer Nelson Samuel came fifth.
The young cadet riders anxiously awaited the return of the adult racers so they could start their two-lap course along the beach road to the spa and back for one mile. Eleven young cyclists took off along the road with William Adams taking an early lead on his borrowed BSAFE BMX bike. The lack of gears did not seem to deter him along the mostly flat course, John Cullimore was in pursuit and the Pettigrew brothers chased along with James Dawson. Tai Thomas, 6, the youngest cadet, was first over the line in his category. William Richards held on to his lead and won the two-lap race in a time of 7 minutes and 11 seconds almost two minutes ahead of John Cullimore in second. Derek Pettigrew took third overall just ahead of his brother John. James, the first of the Dawson brothers, took fifth with Lily Pierce, the first girl and 6th overall. George Dawson and Noah Pierce took seventh and eighth, respectively, while Nicole Munro placed ninth overall. Dominic Munro’s chain slipped off but he was able to jump off and fix it and return to the race to finish in 10th place overall.
After the racing, the cyclists and supporters were treated to a breakfast buffet hosted by the resort.
The next race is the “East West Coast Trek” a road race on mountain bikes on Sept. 11th.