Mountain bikers came out in droves to support the first annual Sullivan Shakedown last weekend in Kimberley, hitting the trails at the Kimberley Nature Park and Nordic Centre.
Split up into two days of riding, roughly 30 youths hit the 3 km and 6 km courses on Saturday, while the 60-plus adult participants competed in 22 km and 44 km distance courses on Sunday.
It’s been 13 years since Kimberley has had a mountain bike race and Cooper felt it was time to organize something close to home.
“I made a presentation to the City of Kimberley, the Nature Park society, the Trail Society, and had support, so I went ahead and started organizing the race in December (2012).”
While he achieved his main goal of attracting local riders, he also had competitors come in from the West Kootenay and Alberta. Numbers seemed a little low at first, but numbers picked up two weeks before raceday.
“It’d be nice to have a couple races in the region here so that people don’t have to go too far to ride their mountain bikes,” added Cooper.
22 KM distance - Overall
1 Reyno La Cock Male 1:32:36 Kimberley
2 Cherie Cooper Female 1:34:01 Kimberley
3 Tom Gibson Male 1:37:26 Kimberley
4 Karen Hache Female 1:43:28 Canmore
5 Brett Pighin Male 1:45:05 Kimberley
44 KM distance - Overall
1 Shane Keyser Male 2:42:00 Calgary
2 Craig Bartlett Male 2:56:38 Canmore
3 Patrick Humenny Male 3:02:17 Kimberley
4 Ryan Hamilton Male 3:02:21 Cranbrook
5 Mark Dyck Male 3:06:19 Invermere
3 KM distance - Youth
1 Zac Keyser 13:06 Calgary
2 Jasper D’Etecheverrey 14:01 Kimberley
3 Ewan Winn 14:07 Calgary
4 Viviane Charles 14:30 Calgary
5 Quinn Cooper 15:22 Kimberley
6 KM distance - Youth
1 Jordan Harris 16:07 Kimberley
2 Matt Swallow 16:09 Invermere
3 Morgan Lynn 18:35 Robson
4 Aspen Cooper 18:36 Cranbrook
5 Molly Miller 18:40 Kimberley
5 Sierra Cooper 18:40 Kimberley
Relay Teams
1 Franken-squirrell 3::43:07
2 The Flying Badgers 4:13:05
3 FWOC All Stars 4:23:12
4 Team Robison 5:03:59
5 The Cats Meow! 5:36:35