Neve Abraham found some precious metal at the BC Enduro Series race on July 30, blasting through the 15-and-under men's division for his second victory of the season.
Abraham has been vacationing and doing some riding this summer, and got the chance to test out the trails in the eastern part of the province leading up to the race, discovering they were ones that were just like home.
"I pre-rode some of the trails on Friday and Saturday," he said. "The trails were pretty loose and dusty, so it was kind of like Pemberton in the summertime, so it kind of felt like my home trails.
"It was dusty and steep and it also had some flat sections that I could go hard on."
Abraham noted he went a little off-line in the first stage after one of the trails he thought was included was not part of the route and he ended up overshooting the turn. Still, he was only five seconds back at the stage's end, and he wrested the lead from Johnathan Helly in the second stage, and cruised from there, taking the win by 99 seconds in the end.
Abraham particularly impressed on Stage 4, winning it by a minute and 11 seconds (1:11) to put the race out of reach barring a disaster.
"It was long and probably the hardest stage I've ever done because it took about 12 minutes, but it was exactly like steep Pemby riding," he said.
Abraham hasn't raced as much as he'd like this season because of injury, but has been happy with how he's done when he has been on the bike, winning at the BC Enduro stop in Kamloops for the second consecutive year back in June.
While he's too young for the SRAM Canadian Open Enduro at Crankworx, Abraham will compete in two other downhill races at the festival, the Fox Air DH and the Canadian Open DH.
Long helps B.C. to bronze
Julia Long will come home with at least one medal from the Canada Summer Games in Winnipeg.
The local cross-country rider teamed up with Gibsons' Lucy Schick and Revelstoke's Emily Unterberger to secure bronze in the team relay on Aug. 1.
Long took the opening leg for the British Columbians, completing the course in a time of 18 minutes and 18 seconds (18:18) as the squad ended up posting a total time of 54:09. Quebec won with a time of 51:05, edging Ontario by 21 seconds.
The boys team of Sean Fincham, Holden Jones and Rhys Verner, all of Squamish, captured gold.
In the cross-country race on July 30, Long placed 10th, with a time of one hour, 41 minutes and 11 seconds, placing 10:10 behind winner Anne-Julie Tremblay of Quebec.
The 17-year-old will wrap up her Games competition on Aug. 3 with the sprint.
