Veteran Pro Sayers includes BC Superweek on farewell tour

It's fitting that the last year in a long, successful career of professional cycling will include a trip to Canada for BC Superweek, because for American rider Mike Sayers it almost ended long before it started after an unplanned encounter with a beaver.

Sayers career nearly came to a crashing halt two years ago after a wandering beaver interrupted a training session near his hometown of Sacramento, California. Sayers feared a broken pelvis, but survived that crash – and a few more in an accident-prone 2007 season – before deciding that 2008 would be the last of a 14-year career.

That one of the elder statesmen of the pro peloton in North America is including BC Superweek in his farewell tour says something about the events growing popularity.

"Since this is my last year I decided to hit as many of my favourite races because it's my last opportunity, and B.C. is such a beautiful place and Superweek is always a great venue," said Sayers, a former member of the U.S. World Championship Road Team.

BC Superweek is actually a handful of great venues. Canada's biggest 10 days of cycling features eight races, $70,000 in prize money, and a field filled with past, present and future Olympians as well as top professionals from all over North America.

It all gets started with the three-stage Tour de Delta from July 11 to 13, and continues at the crowd-pleasing Gastown Criterium on Wednesday, July 16, and the Giro di Burnaby Criterium the next night, before wrapping up with another challenging three-event weekend at the historic Tour de White Rock, from July 18 through 20.

As for Sayers, he may not be cycling's biggest name, but he has helped many of them to podiums over a career that includes all the biggest races in North America, and many in Europe. He is a "domestique," a French word that translates literally as "servant" and has long been used to describe riders who pedal in support of team leaders, whether putting themselves in, or chasing down breakaways, or providing team mates a draft.

"Everything I've ever gotten out of cycling I've gotten because I was kind of a worker bee, or a helper, or made myself invaluable to the program I was riding from but not from a results standpoint, from other standpoints," said Sayers. "Basically I did the dirty work."

Now 38, Sayers has carved a great career out of getting team mates across the finish line first, often at his own expense, a list that includes Canadian legend Gord Fraser, a three-time Olympian and winner of over 200 races, who first brought Sayers to BC Superweek as part of the Health Net team.

This time, however, Sayers is coming alone, leaving behind the powerful BMC Cycling Team he now mentors for a rare shot at personal success. He'll have his work out for him against a field that includes the powerful local Symmetrics Pro Cycling, which includes Canadian Olympians Svein Tuft (Langley) and Zach Bell (Burnaby), as well as defending National Road Champion Cam Evans (Tsawwassen). Sayer's old team, Health Net is coming back, as is Jittery Joes, another top North American Pro team.

"It's funny because I actually think I'm pretty good rider when I am kind of on my own and racing to be The Guy, which isn't very often," said Sayers, who has 16 race and stage wins of his own since 2000. "I actually enjoy occasionally going to race for myself. It makes me think about things in a little more tactical way from a selfish perspective, and, for lack of a better term, sharpens my spider senses, so when I go back to team racing I look at things with a better perspective. And it's fun, I don't get to race for myself very often so when I do I try to make the most of it, I really do."

As for that usual role supporting others, Sayers has no problem sharing the spotlight, saying he's happy to have made a long career out of the role, something more common in Europe, but few, if any, have managed on the North American pro cycling circuits.

"Of course no pro athlete would be a pro athlete without wanting to have individual success, there's no doubt about that, but I would not have the career that I've had if I hadn't embraced that role," he said. "I just never counted myself as a really talented guy, and I figured out really early that I had to work really hard to get even the littlest bit of success. And I never had a problem with that. I learned very quickly that I was lucky in that I was surrounded by some of the best riders that have come out of North America from the very first part of my career. I've had a good run."

Naturally, Sayer's lists of career highlights don't include individual wins, but building some of North America's biggest teams, including being the longest serving member of the famous Mercury Cycling Team before moving on to Health Net, and now BMC.

"Essentially helping start three teams that went from small to the most dominant in the country," said Sayers. "All things I am very proud of."

For more BC Superweek information visit our website at www.bcsuperweek.ca, or arrange for photos of, and interviews with, the past and present Canadian Olympians and top professional cyclists as BC Superweek approaches, please contact Kevin Woodley, Media Relations Coordinator, at 604-828-5842.