What's old is new again at the 2013 Gearjammer.
The race's original director, Curtis Roberts, is back at the helm and said he's excited to again take the reins at the 11th annual 45-kilometre mountain bike spectacular.
"When Joanne [Sykes] decided she couldn't do it this year, I got dragged back in," Roberts joked.
Roberts founded and ran the race for its first five years before Sykes took over the next five. He said he still remembers coming up with the concept for the race.
"Cliff Miller and I walked out of a Cycling BC meeting and started wandering down Broadway [street in Vancouver] and he asked me if I was going to do a point-to-point race what would I do," he said. "I started listing off all of my favourite trails and really the race came together just because we could."
He said the process to finalize the details on the race was difficult, but worth it in the end.
"It was literally a list of my favourite trails and then over the next few months a bunch of people were involved in trying to figure out how the hell we can link all these trails together it wasn't so easy," he said.
He said Sykes did a great job with the race in her five year run.
"She's awesome," he said. "She kept the vision of the race going and anyone who is willing to volunteer to do that amount of work and take that kind of stress is great. This race has always been about having fun and she did a good job holding onto that idea."
Roberts said the Gearjammer is designed to be a fun ride, but noted he thinks it's probably the most challenging local race.
"It's a very difficult course," he said. "People often find it surprising how difficult it is. It's shorter than the Test of Metal and lots of people think therefore it must be easier, but it's not. It takes a lot more energy to complete this race than the Test."
He said this year's race has a few minor changes, and the finish features more single track downhill, as opposed to what was a bit of an uphill section last year.
Another new addition this year is there are no time limits to the race. Roberts vowed there is no cut off for the race and he will wait at the finish line until every racer completes the course.
"If they're stubborn enough to still be on the course after six hours I'm stubborn enough to wait for them," he said. "I will be waiting there with a timing device no matter how late they are."
He said he's not sure if last year's winner Neal Kindree will be participating in 2013, but did confirm Squamish's Miranda Miller had thrown in her hat for this year's race. He said registration is still ongoing, but the event is tracking well ahead from last year.
Roberts also said the event is still looking for volunteers and all those interested can contact him at [email protected] for more information.
This year's race goes down on Saturday (July 20) with a kick-off time of 11 a.m. at Alice Lake. For more details on the event, visit www.testofmetal.com/pages/gearjammer.php.
