Where to start road racing in Vancouver

Many cities with a decent number of road racers end up with a weeknight 'training' race of some form. These are a chance for racers to get out and do what we love, generally with somewhat less pressure than in some of the larger weekend races.

The Lower Mainland is blessed with 3 such series. Escape Velocity runs the World Tuesday Night Championships. Phoenix Velo has a Wednesday night race out at the Mission Raceway. Finally, the Coastal Race Club runs a the CRC Challenge series on Thursdays.

This is pretty awesome.

I mostly race the Thursday nighters.

The circuit in South Richmond is in an industrial park. This means the road is wide and the turns are sweeping so you can take the corners at virtually any speed safely. There is only one part of the circuit where there is consistently a bit of a squeeze, a gentle left-right chicane on the backstretch and while the ideal line is maybe 2 bikes wide, a bunched field can go through this fairly safely.

It's also pancake flat. This is a really nice feature for a weekly series for me as I don't go uphill well. It's also a nice feature as if I'm going out to a training race, I'm mostly interested in practicing racing. I'm not interested in hill repeats, I can do that by myself.

For these reasons, this is the best place to start racing bicycles on the road in the Lower Mainland.