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Uhl, Nash take overall wins at BC Bike Race

Locals Trudeau, Heisterman cruise to division title

The Texan heat helped prepare Tristan Uhl for the stifling seven days of this year's BC Bike Race.

Uhl, an Austin resident, completed the challenge on Saturday in a grand total of 16 hours, 29 minutes and 58 seconds (16:29:58), giving him a seven-and-a-half minute advantage over runner-up Spencer Paxson, placing second for the third straight year, and a nearly 15-minute lead on two-time defending champion Kris Sneddon.

On the women's side, Bay Area resident Katerina Nash, a 2012 Olympian originally from the Czech Republic, won the women's side by nearly an hour. Nash finished in a time of 19:18:41, besting Rebecca Hodgetts' 20:10:03 and Vicki Barclay's 20:15:47.

"I was mostly relieved to get the race done with with no mechanicals, no crashes," he said. "It's kind of stressful when you have the leader's jersey and everybody's gunning for you. I was relieved to get across that line and get it all done, but I'm a little sad that all the fun riding is over."

Uhl placed third last year, and said some extra familiarity with the course helped him cut those few precious minutes necessary to help make the leap.

On the women's side, Nash noted she didn't suffer any major setbacks like mechanicals or crashes over the course of the week and she could build an advantage.

She explained this was her first race of more than two days since she last took part in the BC Bike Race seven years ago.

"Pacing is really important and I recovered between each day. It's neat to watch because in your mind, it's 'Oh my God, how am I going to do seven days of this?'" she said. "I'm really happy to see that everyday I could keep pedalling and keep fighting.

"The last couple days weren't as fast as the first couple, but I definitely paced myself well so I had enough energy for the last day."

Sea to Sky residents Brandi Heisterman and Leah Trudeau powered their way to the open women's team win over Elie Yazdani and Amy Josefczyk, while Kevin Calhoun and Greg Day won the open men's event and Alex Hawkins and Sarah Kaufmann won the open women's side.

Dwayne Kress and Christine Shandro won the respective open solo masters divisions, as did Simon Callaghan and Ted Russo for the open solo veterans.

Lastly, Ibon Zugasti and Tomi Misser captured the veterans 80+ team title, and Tim and Troy Zimmerman did the same in the veterans 100+ division.

Full results are online at www.bcbikerace.com.

For more, see Thursday's edition of Pique.