One day, he has a comfortable four-minute lead after spending three hours racing on his bike rolling to victory through the mountains, the terrain, and the mud.
Four days later, he finishes a race on Vancouver pavement, half the distance of Fernie, in 80 minutes, just four seconds behind the winner, and ends up 23rd and out of the prizes.
Such is the life of professional cyclist Aidan Oliphant of Vernon.
Oliphant, who turns 27 on Friday, July 25, won the 90 kilometre Men's Long Haul race at the Fernie Gravel Grind in the Kootenays on July 5. After a celebration, Oliphant packed up his mountain bike from Fernie, headed home to the BX, grabbed his racing bike, and drove to Vancouver for the legendary Gastown Grand Prix on July 9.
He placed 23rd in a field of 61, but was just four seconds from winning the historic race. It was his third consecutive appearance at Gastown. He was ninth overall in 2023, and middle-of-the-pack last year.
"I've been making this transition to more of the gravel and off-road racing. I'm much more suited to the mountains and climbs than getting around a 60-minute criterium (a bike race held on a closed circuit, usually in a city or town, with multiple laps around a short course)," said Oliphant, a part-time physiologist with Vernon's Progression Muscle, Bone, and Joint Clinic, but in the process of moving to Victoria to work on his master's degree in physiotherapy.
"It's not my specialty, but for an event as historic and epic as Gastown, it wasn't hard to get excited. I was happy with my result."
In downtown Vancouver, Oliphant completed the 49 km race (42 laps of a 1.17 km course) in 1 hour 20 minutes. The winner, Lucas Bourgoyne, crossed the finish line in 1:19:56, a mere one second ahead of Cade Bickmore.
Fellow Vernonite 鈥� and TaG Cycling Race Team teammate of Oliphant 鈥� Braden Kersey was 26th in 1:20:01.
Up in the mountains surrounding Fernie, Oliphant captured the 90 km Long Haul, which featured 1,600 metres of climbing, in 3:25:31, more than four minutes better than Finn Borstmayer, and more than 10 minutes faster than the third-place finisher, Colton Zabolotney.
"I definitely prefer mountains, and I really excelled in Fernie," said Oliphant. "I think it was maybe at 35 km, there was a long, climbing effort and that's were I excel. That's where I was able to get away from the others."
As a teenager, Oliphant dabbled in triathlon and mountain biking. When he was 13 or 14, he returned home from the B.C. Summer Games, where he competed in triathlon, and noticed a change in his energy levels.
It took some time before Oliphant was diagnosed with Crohn's Disease, an inflammatory bowel disease that can affect any segment of the gastrointestinal tract.
"I couldn't do anything for a long time, but with advancements in medication, I was able to get my health back and start doing athletics again," said Oliphant, who grew up in an active family. In winter, he would cross-country ski, and at W.L. Seaton Secondary, he helped organize a rock climbing club before graduating in 2016.
He started road cycling in 2019 and began using an app called Strava, where a person can track workouts and activities. Everyone who posts their rides, runs, hikes, lots of different activities, can create timed segments. When a GPS system goes through one of these segments, the app user get compared on a leaderboard, so a person who completes the same segment can see where they rank.
The app is also how Oliphant met his coach, Jordan Cheyne, who connected him to TaG Cycling Race Team founder Leslie Tomlinson, and Oliphant began riding for the team in 2022.
"I got chucked right in the deep end," he laughed. "I was doing road races in the United States, went over to Europe twice, and I've been doing it ever since."
He missed collecting a paycheque at Gastown, and won $400 for first place in Fernie. Money is not why Oliphant cycles.
"I really ride to try and push my limits in what I can do both in training and racing, and also with what I can do with my Crohn's and stuff," he said. "I know so many people with Crohn's who are not able to do anything physically, and they just really struggle with their health, and so the fact that I've been able to get to this level in sports and just health-wise, it's been huge. I hope other people with immune disorders can just put themselves out there and see what they can do."
Oliphant trains six days a week, between 12 to 20 hours per week, and his Crohn's is well in check. Prior to moving to the provincial capital, where he'll compete in some gravel series races for fun on the Island, Oliphant loved working out in his hometown.
"I live in the BX and a lot of people know me; they see me going up and down Silver Star Road on my bike," he laughed. "Vernon is a 91原创enal place for all types of cycling. With my transition to gravel, training on the Grey Canal network is incredible, and there's also the Okanagan Rail Trail.
"All the variety of mountain bike areas, and even the different types of roads, from the climb to SilverStar Resort, the rolling roads of Lumby and Armstrong...having such a variety of terrain keeps my love for cycling even when the racing gets hard.
"Being away racing, it's not like we're making a ton of money doing that, so it's the whole Vernon community that helps me out. If I need a last-minute repair before heading off, I can go to both Sun Country Cycle and Olympia Cycle and Ski, and they help me. It's 91原创enal."
