The second season of the Victoria Segment Challenge is complete, and I’m thrilled to be able to share some of the highlights!

Running from June 19th – August 20th, 2023, 9 weeks of segments were taken on, the weather was fantastic (although record-breaking warms), and many QOMs and KOMs were claimed!

Some quick stats:

• Number signed up: nearly 100
• Number in the Strava group: nearly 170
• Number who rode at least one segment: 70 (exact same as Season 1!)
• Male:female split: 48:22
• Number of pots charred due to distracted event organizing: 2

Special Recognition

We had 8 riders (two more than S1) who made it out every single week, and I’d be remiss not to recognize K :), Adam W, Travis O, Tyler V, Kathy M, Suzy S, Kit SJ & Tyler G for this achievement! (I also made it out each week, but not sure if I should count! 😉)

The Series

For the series there were 2 timed segments posted each week, with one rest week (not timed), and those 18 segments took us all over the CRD, from my favourite are of Granville & Hastings up to Central Saanich, over to View Royal, and out into Mechosin! We also hit Royal Roads and Davies (behind Munn), and had everything from short climbs to steep climbs to flat sprints, and even a portion of Neild.  You can review the full archive of segments here.

A big thank you and congrats to ALL our riders, but we have to focus on the top of the leaderboards, and here’s our season end breakdown!

The A’s

Beginning with the female side, Katja aka K 🙂 started off taking it easy, but then started claiming QOMs, until Laura aka The Squaremeat, got going, and the two had many close times over the season! Laura seemed to do better on the shorter, steeper hills, and Kat had an edge on some of the faster segments, but often one of the two posted some of the fastest times (of anyone!). Lindsay, Mikayla and Samantha were out en force too, and finally Jennifer Ward, winner of the previous KOMpetition series got in the action, and gave our top two a run for the money!

In the end, the final podium is:

1. K 🙂 (885pts)
2. The Squaremeat (719pts)
3. Jennifer Ward (293pts)

Over on the Open side, numbers were a bit lower, but this season Julian Cameron put on a fantastic show, lodging the fastest times many weeks, and claiming more KOMs as well, and rode all segments but the final week! Chapeau!! Great seeing Chad, Dan, Elijah, Louis and Stephane out, and keeping Julian honest.

That means our Open A podium is:

1. Julian Cameron (816pts)
2. Stéphane Tran (207pts)
3. Louis FL (190pts)

The B’s

Our Female B field was a bit smaller this time around, with a few moving up to A, but we still saw some great competition! Shannon B and Jennifer R opened their accounts on the first week, and Jennifer took the early lead, but eventually Laura B started sweeping up the points, and took the overall for the second season running!

Our final Female B podium is:

1. Laura Brown (644pts)
2. Shannon Baerg (386pts)
3. Jennifer R (233pts)

The Open B field was once again our largest, with 31 riders, and we saw many names atop the leaderboard this season! Glennon, Travis O, Alex LJ, Ryan T and newcomers Dave B and Colin D all put in great times over the season, but in the end Travis F (our Season 1 victor) and Adam W took the two lower steps, and incredibly Tyler V and myself ended up TIED for 1st!! Tyler had lead for much of the latter part of the season, but the final segments suited me quite well (a longer, faster one), and somehow got me just enough points to catch up!! So many great battles though, and we’ll be seeing more of this in future seasons I’m sure!

Here are those top results:

1. Tyler Venn & Vegan Dave Shishkoff (tied, each with 803pts)
2. Adam Wadden (759pts)
3. Travis Field (738pts)

The C’s

Our Female category grew significantly this season, with 11 riders, so great to see that!! Newcomer Suzy S started off hot but Kathy M was there to respond, and over the season we saw Wendy T, Rani W, Tijana F, Heidi M and Lani all stole points from those top two, with lots of close times, but in the end the results were very close, but our podium was clear. Looking forward to what the future holds with this field!!

1. Suzy Sylvester (865pts)
2. Kathy M (848pts)
3. Heidi Mierau (654pts)

On the side of the guys, Kit (3rd overall from S1) took the lead fairly early on, and held it to the end! Mikael, Mike H, Rafael, David B and Todd R all put in excellent efforts, but in the end Juan and Tyler G had the points for the podium.

Out of 11 riders, here’s our Top 3:

1. Kit St. John (829pts)
2. Tyler Galts (750pts)
3. Juan C. Sanchez-Arias (672pts)

That completes our Season Podiums! Note in the scoring sheet the tabs at the bottom to flip between overall and individual weeks. If a PDF is preferred, simply click here! Here is the full link to the GoogleDoc. (You can view the Notes each week for the Bonus and Curse details, which doesn’t show up in the table below.)

Finishing Up!

If anyone wants to re-live Season 2, here’s an archive of all the segments, and here’s an archive of all the weekly reports:

Week #1 | Week #2 | Week #3 | Week #4 | Week #5
 Week #6 |  Week #7 | Week #8 | Week #9

Thanks again for joining us in this unique riding and ‘racing’ environment! It’s inspiring to see so many make the effort, and I’ll look forward to seeing you all in Season 3 and beyond!  =)

– Dave