EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the 10th in a series of weekly stories leading up to the May 25 Ski to Sea race that will give a behind-the scenes look into the largest annual community sporting event in Whatcom County. Each story will be written by a member of the Ski to Sea Race Committee. This week’s entry is written by mountain biking leg chairman John Burley, who has been a racer and volunteer for 24 years. For past columns, visit The- BellinghamHerald.com/skitosea.

The mountain biking leg was first part of Ski to Sea in 1990.

Before 1990 the canoeists went from Everson to the mouth of the Nooksack River on Bellingham Bay, where they handed off for athletes competing in Hobie Cats.

Today, the exchange is held at Hovander Park in Ferndale, where the canoeists hand off to the mountain bikers. Originally the mountain bikers took the exchange on the river’s edge and ran up the beach to their bike.

After eight years we started getting so many teams in the race that we did not have enough room on the riverbank for all the canoes. We decided to move the exchange area up into the grassy field just above the river. Now paddlers must get out of their canoes and run about 40 yards up the hill while carrying their canoes to the finish line where the exchange is made with the mountain biker.

This can be quite a challenge if the canoe is full of water, but the mountain biker may help carry the canoe to their finish line if needed.

This exchange is really exciting and fun to watch.

After the paddlers have been on the river for two hours or more their legs don’t always work. Canoeists can hardly walk or run and sometimes they just fall down in the river.

Sometimes it gets really busy for our volunteers when we get 12 canoes hitting the beach all at once.

It can get crazy with multiple teams getting out of the river at the same time and trying to run up the narrow path carrying their canoes. They are frequently crashing and bumping into each other.

We have loads of volunteers (thanks to Don Jenkins and crew) moving the canoes out of the way once the exchange has been made.

The handoff entails the mountain biker taking the timing chip from the paddlers and scanning it to establish a finish time of the canoe leg and the start time for the mountain biking leg.

The leg is approximately nine miles long. Mountain bikers go through Hovander Park and then onto the river dike.

The only problem we face on the dike are washouts from floods that bikers will need to go around.

While on the dike there are two dismount points that bikers must make to go under bridges.

Bikers will stay on the dike until they reach the Country Lane Road Bridge by Marietta, where they exit the dike to ride on Country Lane Road to Hoff Road and then Marine Drive.

When bikers are just past Bennett Dive they will take the trail down to Little Squalicum Beach and ride, run or walk their bikes above the kelp line to the Mount Baker Plywood area.

Then it’s back on Roeder and off to their finish line at Zuanich Park where they exchange the chips with the sea kayakers.

All the fun starts at Hovander Park at around 1 p.m., and there is plenty of free parking.

Come out to Hovander Park and help cheer on the teams.

For more race information, visit skitosea.com.