The start line in Fernie (Pic: Spectrum Imaging)

Stage 1: Fernie to Sparwood

Stage one of the 2005 TransRockies Challenge featured an all-new layout. It may only have been 50km long, but 40km of that was dusty, technical singletrack and there was 1,150m of climbing to reach the finish in Sparwood.

In the Open Men category, all eyes were on last year’s winner Andreas Hestler (Rocky Mountain Business Objects) and new partner Marty Lazarski. They were the team to chase, with 2004 runners-up Troy Misseghers and Neil Grover (Race Face Mountain Men) leading the hunt. Neither team had an easy time in Stage 1 – Misseghers suffered a ripped tyre which cost them a lot of time, but they managed to work their way back up to second in the stage, nine minutes behind Hestler/Lazarski.

Trish Stevenson and Karen Masson (Team Cane Creek) won stage one in the Women’s category, six and a half minutes ahead of Hillary Harrison and Nikki Cassell (Team Momentun Training). In Mixed, Ireland’s Robin Seymour and Tarja Owens (Rodge and Podge) took the first stage in a time which was good enough for seventh overall. They came in nearly ten minutes ahead of Tom Zidek and Samantha Phillips.

The Hartley Pass descent had many riders resorting to walking (Pic: Spectrum Imaging)

Tom Zidek’s partner Samantha Phillips fell on Hartley pass, so he carried her bike the rest of the way (Pic: Rachel Boekel)

Stage 2: Sparwood to Elkford

Stage two was a completely different animal – rather than a fairly short but singletrack-heavy stage, the route from Sparwood to Elkford was 123km of dirt roads and doubletrack, covering 2,100m of climbing. The different character of the stage allowed different teams to come to the fore in several categories, but it’s still early days…

Sever short climbs opened the day, but the main events were a 500m climb at 40km and the Harley Pass right near the end of the stage – 1,000m of climbing topping out at 2,100m and followed by 900 vertical metres of scree and loose rocks. Fairly challenging for teams near the front, but treacherous for those near the back thanks to rain and hailstorms later in the day.

None of it troubled Hestler/Lazarski or Grover/Misseghers, who rode together until Grover/Misseghers flatted again on the first major descent of the day. That let Hestler/Lazarski take another six minutes out of them. It was a close finish on the Women’s category, with Cassell/Harrison (Momentum Training) riding alone for much of the stage before Stage One winners Stevenson and Masson (Cane Creek) caught them on the descent of Harley Pass. Cassell/Harrison attacked on the final run to the finish to take the stage by six seconds, but that didn’t make much of a dent in Cane Creek’s overall lead.

It was a three-way battle in Mixed, with Blair Saunders and Marg Fednya (Adidas Roll-Up), Seymour/Owens (Rodge and Podge) and Zidek and Phillips dicing all day. Saunders/Fednya dropped the competition on the final climb, leaving Seymour/Owens to take second place. It was race over for Zidek and Philips, though – Samantha Phillips crashed in the loose rocks, cutting major ligaments in her knee. Zidek piggybacked her back up the hill to where a helicopter could get to here, and then rode to the finish with her bike on his back…

Open Mixed leaders Blair Saunders and Marg Fednya (Pic: Spectrum Imaging)

Trish Stevenson and Karen Masson led after stage one, but are now in second place in the Women’s category (Pic: Rachel Boekel)

Stage 3: Elkford to Etherington Creek

At 135km, Stage 3 is the longest day of the TransRockies Challenge, and with 2,100m of climbing it was always going to be tough. But overnight rain promised to make it even harder. Oh, and the biting headwind over the last 40km…

Disaster nearly struck the leading teams in the Men’s category, with a crash on the opening fireroad section taking down four riders, three of them from the top three teams. Marty Lazarski wrecked his rear wheel in the crash, but fortunately Tom Zidek, no longer racing but filming helmetcam footage, was on hand to lend him a wheel.

From there on, it was the Race Face Mountain Men Neil Grover and Troy Misseghers who drove the pace. Only Hestler and Lazarski could stay with them, but the Mountain Men took the stage win by just one second. Both Peter Paelinck and Domenic Sacrz of Belgian team Reevax.be came off in the early crash, but they stuck it out for a second consecutive third place finish.

There were new overall leaders in the Women’s and Mixed categories, with Kassell and Harrison (Team Momentum Training) taking 23 minutes out of leaders Cane Creek, putting them into the overall lead with a 17 minute cushion. In Mixed, Robin Seymour and Tarja Owens lost the overall lead to Blair Saunders and Marg Fedyna, but the gap is only five and a half minutes.

The next three days feature over 150km of technical Rocky Mountain singletrack across Kananaskis Country, Alberta – just being strong won’t be enough, look out for the technically-able teams taking the top spots…

Our boys

We haven’t heard directly from Team 59 Commando (Mark Banham and Pete Sutton) – which is understandable, they’ve probably got more on their minds than finding a computer and an internet connection – but they’re doing very nicely. They’ve been 48th, 43rd and 42nd in the stages so far, putting them in 41st place in the Men’s category overall. They’re nearly six hours behind Hestler and Lazarski, but there’s a lot of teams just ahead of them…

And a quick mention for Steve Worland, editor of What Mountain Bike magazine – he’s racing with Keith Bontrager in the 100+ Men category, in which they’re running third. If we call Keith an honorary Brit, they’re the leading UK team too, although strictly speaking the British front-runners are Ewan Thorburn and James Sanford of Fat Tread Bikes/CRUK.

More details and full results at www.transrockies.com.