BC Superweek starts Friday

Friday marks the beginning of BC Superweek, a series of independent races in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland from July 5 to 14. BC Superweek starts and finishes with three-day stages races with plenty of criterium action in between.

The Tour de Delta kicks off the Superweek on Friday with the North Delta Criterium, forty to fifty laps around a 1.3 kilometre circuit. The next day in the nearby historical fishing town of Ladner, there’s the Brenco Criterium ,and the TdD finishes on Sunday, July 7 with the White Spot Delta Road Race.

The racing transfers over to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver on July 9 for another criterium known as the UBC Grand Prix presented by Mahoney and Sons Public House. There’s a kid’s race, a Corporate Challenge and a race for the Cat. 4/5’s before the pros come out to play on the one kilometre loop. The women will race for 40 laps and the men 50 circuits.

The historical centrepiece of the BC Superweek is July 10th’s Global Relay Grand Prix, previously known as the Tour de Gastown. Recently resurrected, this criterium on the cobblestone streets of Gastown started in 1973 and has seen the likes of Lance Armstrong and Canadian cycling legends Alex Stieda and Alison Sydor.

More crit excitement takes place the next day at the Giro di Burnaby, with a 1.3-kilometre circuit on offer.

Finally, BC Superweek is capped off with the Tour de White Rock which begins on July 12 with the challenging Homelife Realty Hill Climb, a 700 metre ascent to warm up the legs. On Saturday the 13th, the Choices Markets Criterium runs a short circuit around the White Rock Elementary School. On the last day of the ten day racing celebration, the Peace Arch News Road Race features a 130-kilometre course with Semiahmoo Bay and Mount Baker as backdrops.