Fans lining Second Street in downtown Fernie, British Columbia, greeted Roddi Lega and Tim Heemskerk with makeshift signs and cheers as the two rolled across the line to take their sixth win of the seven-stage 2007 TransRockies Challenge.

With the victory, the duo, racing under the sponsorship of United Cycles, solidified their GC win over Costa Ricans Federico Ramirez and Ivan Amador of the La Ruta de los Conquistadores team, and Rocky Mountain Bicycle’s third-place team of Matt Hadley and Matt Green.

“I think the biggest advantage we had was our recovery — we got a massage and rest and good food every day,” Hemmskert said. The duo traveled from stage to stage in a plush tour bus, while most teams either stayed in smaller recreational vehicles or camped in tents provided by the race. “And we have experience in racing,” Heemskerk added. “Both Roddi and I have been racers for a long time.”

Indeed Heemskerk and Lega came into the seven-day, 600km journey toting long histories as decorated cross-country racers. Heemskerk, who is Dutch but lives in Edmonton, raced as a pro road cyclist in Holland before switching to the dirt. He represented the Netherlands at the 2002 world mountain-bike championships in Kaprun, Austria. Lega, 28, is a former Canada Cup series winner and Canadian cyclo-cross national champion.

For both men, the victory came as a welcomed return to winning. Heemskerk, runner-up at the 2006 TransRockies, spent much of the summer racing off-road in Europe in an attempt to qualify for the Netherlands’s national team for the 2007 world mountain-bike championships in Fort William, Scotland.

“I did not make it — but this race was always on my schedule,” he said.

Lega has struggled through the last two seasons. After winning the Canada Cup in 2004, Lega looked to be on track to ride alongside countrymen Geoff Kabush, Seamus McGrath and Andreas Hestler on the NORBA and World Cup scene. But lackluster 2005 and ’06 seasons saw the talented Canadian succumb to overtraining.

And a well-deserved beer to celebrate

Photo: Fred Dreier

“I just totally fell off — I wasn’t even competitive anymore,” Lega said. “I had a good bonus program set up with Norco, which would have earned me pretty good money, but I couldn’t race.”

The two came into the 2007 TransRockies as favorites alongside the Ticos, the Rocky Mountain Bicycles team and the Rocky Mountain-Haywood squad of defending champ Hestler and newcomer Kevin Calhoun.

Despite never having raced together before, Heemskerk and Lega wasted little time in showing their fitness — they took the opening stage, a short, 33km run from Panorama mountain resort to Invermere. But the course was anything but easy — it included 1302 meters of climbing, most of it while pushing the bike.

“Roddi had a really hard time that first day — he tried to keep me in sight on the climb,” Heemskerk said. “But he is much better on descents. Roddi would always catch up on the downhills.”

It was their skill on the descents and technical sections that gave the United Cycles duo an advantage over the Ticos, who became their primary rivals after Hestler lost his teammate to a crash, and Green and Hadley lost pace. The Costa Rican duo and Heemskerk would lead on the climbs with Lega a short ways behind, and then the United Cycles team would drop the Ticos on the technical descents.

“That first day we caught up to the Costa Ricans in no time — it was a 35-minute descent and we caught them in five minutes,” Lega said. “It was very noticeable — in true mountain-biking sections, with technical stuff, they just didn’t have it.”

That didn’t stop the Ticos from trying — they grabbed the stage-4 victory into Whiteswan Lake in a sprint with the United Cycles boys. But on the stage-5 slog from Whiteswan Lake to Elkford, Lega and Heemskerk gapped the Ticos by nearly five minutes on the final 10km rock-garden descent. The statement had been made — Lega and Heemskerk were undeniably the strongest riders.

Both riders say they hope to return to the TransRockies challenge in 2008. However, a scheduling conflict with the Canadian rounds of the World Cup could keep Heemskerk racing shorter events. As for Lega, he said he will take his first year off from full-time racing in 12 years to work construction.

“Bike racing is all I’ve ever done,” Lega said. “People say I shouldn’t even race cross-country and do more long races, but that’s what I was good at originally. I want to try cross-country again.”

2007 TransRockies Challenge
August 12-18
British Columbia, Canada
Final overall
Men open
1. United Cycles (Roddi Lega, Tim Heemskerk), 24:39:31
2. La Ruta de los Conquistadores (Ivan Amador, Federico Ramirez), at 0:26:17
3. Rocky Mountain Bicycles (Matt Green, Matt Hadley), at 1:26:29
4. Frentic-Volvo (Danilo Mathez, Pierre Berberat) at 1:52:11
5. Scheffer Andrew ltd. (Trev Williams, Charlie Cooper), at 1:54:40

Women open
1. Trek-Volkswagen/Giant (Susan Haywood, Hillary Harrison), 32:26:35
2. Canwi Girls (Jenny Hillman, Jo Turnbull, at 0:45:20
3. Minx-Extreme Endurance (Fi Spotswood, Meggie Bichard), at 2:50:07
4. Team Hilly Hell (Hilary Bloor, Helen Lambert), at 8:04:52
5. Guidi-up (Amy Guidinger, Josee Hull), at 8:59:48

Mixed open
1. Frontrunners-Kona (Normon Thibault, Wendy Simms), 28:06:20
2. Shoair-rockandroad (Eric Warkentin, Louise Kobin), at 1:57:20
3. Ergall (Paola Albertoni, Luca Ruffa), at 2:20:23
4. Fearless Beavers (Cyd Fraser, Leighton Poidevin), at 3:02:55
5. Schmoe Racing Too (Elsa Dahle, Brian Carson), at 3:30:01