Rock the Ridge capped a fall return to bunch cycle racing on Sunday in Maple Ridge, after the sport had been hibernating for months.
Local Ride Racing, and organizer Barry Lyster, brought the annual race to the dikes and roads of Maple Ridge and Pitt Meadows.
Participants raced a circuit that took them along Neaves Road, around Swaneset Bay golf course and in another loop along the dike system. It is a marathon event with multiple classes. The elite men did the Rock the Ridge course three times for a 100 kilometer race.
It was a beautiful, sunny day, and many people out for a walk on the dikes stepped to the side and watched a bunch of cyclists whip past them.
The week before, Local Ride hosted it’s annual Jeremy’s Roubaix, which was the first bunch race since the COVID-19 pandemic began eight months earlier. Like most sports, cycling has been shut down by the virus.
READ ALSO: After long break due to pandemic, bike racing returns to BC
The Roubaix is a nod to the famous Paris-Roubaix in northern France, which is one of cycling’s classic races, but substituting cobblestone roads for gravel bike paths. There were close to 80 riders taking part in that event, said Lyster.
Results when they become available.
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