SIMBS First Annual Poker Run Recap

If you didn't come to the poker run last Sunday on the 14th of August, you missed a great day. Over 80 participants took part in the Poker Run helping to raise over $700 for SIMBS. Yes, it was a hot day and over $1600 in prizes was given out to participants.

Registration started at 9am with Willie's Bakery showing up to donate some coffee and their yummy muffins (just the right energy food for us mountain bikers). Along with the coffee, Oak Bay Bikes had set up a tent with a mechanic and a couple of people definitely took advantage of the free tune-ups.
The race began at 11am from the TTA with a mass start. The four points for the run was on Old Payoff (close to dirt falls), 2nd along Dave's line on the plateau (where riders could ride down either Hot Cherry, Birth Control or South ridge into Fun or Green ribbon), 3rd at Second Ave (by the rusted car) and the final point was Little Face and Inventive junction.
The first team to cross the finish line was at one hour ten minutes. There was also a prize for the last team to cross the finish line and they came in at just over 4 hours. Needless to say they got a little lost but they braved their way and found their way home again (we can all nod our heads to this team because we have all been lost at one time or other. I'm proud that they persevered and were able to find their way home, good job boys).
Most of the teams returned to the parking lot to collect their fifth and final card in about an hour and thirty minutes to an hour forty-five minutes. Plenty of food and water was waiting for them and it was all made possible by M&M Meats, Red Barn Market, Thrifty Foods and Old Victoria Water Company.

Winners of various categories were:

- Best hand won by Boozin' and Smokin' with four queens.

- 1st across the line was Succulent Chicken with a time of 1hour and ten minutes.

- Last across the line was The Purple's.

- Best team spirit was the Two Hippies.

- Dirtiest & Most battered team was Mint Sauce (by the way nice bruise).

- Found a joker was Wanna Bees.

- Found a joker was Smoke.

And then there were over 30 draw prizes to give out!

We definitely heard a couple of ohhs and ahhs in the crowd as we had lots of incredible prizes from our fantastic sponsors! To tell you the truth we wanted to be in the draw prizes but as race organizers we thought it wouldn't be a good idea(The whole conflict of interest thing, I suppose).
Thank you goes out to Johanna Ward of CH's Go Magazine and James Brown the president of SIMBS (aka the God Father of Soil) for giving out all these prizes. So all in all it was a great event and we were given great feed back. I think we may have even made the news Sunday night (after a long fun day, I was too tired to stay up and watch!). I want to take this time to thank all the people that helped out to make this event possible. See you all at next year's event!

Rene Godin
SIMBS Director at Large