KEITH ANDERSON/THE DAILY NEWS

JEREMIAH BISHOP (1038) chats with Amanda Carey (2008) of Idaho and Salt Lake City’s Matt Ohran (1040) as the Intermontane Challenge gets started Monday morning at TRU. Bishop is the leader heading into Day 2 of the five-day competition.

To Virginian Jeremiah Bishop, Canada is “the maple leaf, cold lakes and trout.”

But the decorated national U.S. team mountain bike racer, who leads after Day 1 of the Intermontane Challenge, could be forgiven if, in the fatigue from racing 85 kilometres in mid-30 degree temperatures, he thought he was somewhere else.

“I knew it was arid here, but not like the Outback of Austraila,” said Bishop, whose Monavie-Cannondale team dominated Monday.

“You could be hearing didgeridoos and seeing kangaroos.”

The Intermontane Challenge is the vision of local rider and entrepreneur Chuck Brennan, who has been working with a small crew for several years to pull off playing host to an international mountain bike stage race over five days

The Intermontane begins each morning from Thompson Rivers University. More than 100 riders, most of them everyday citizen riders each of whom paid $1,000 for the challenge, ride a different course in each of five days. Some complaints couid be heard among top professional riders about lack of proper course signage on the first day at Lac Du Bois.

“The signage needs to get better,” said Tinker Juarez, who wheeled into the finish line at the Singh Bowl only 18 seconds behind teammate Bishop.

Benjamin Sonntag, Juarez’s teammate, said he missed a turn when a course marshall “wasn’t there in time.”

“I lost a minute and a half because of that,” said Sonntag, who together with Chris Sheppard, Kamloops’ most successful homegrown racer, is five minutes behind Bishop and Juarez.

“At least I got my third place.”

But Sheppard, who lost time when his chain broke (he did a trailside repair), said there is some expectation on epic, multi-day races of occasional glitches in signage.

“It’s part of the adventure,” said Sheppard, who now lives in Bend, Ore. “Every day there will be challenges. It’s part of the learning curve.”

He is tied with Sonntag after the first day.

The first woman across the line was Sue Bishop, another Monavie-Cannondale racer.

“It was hot with a lot of climbing,” said Bishop, taking a turn cooling off in a cattle watering tub after the day’s finish. “But the heat didn’t bother me as much as I thought.”

Bishop said mechanical problems on the trail can change the race in minutes.

“You can’t bank on one good day of racing,” she said.

Other than Sheppard, sponsored by Santa Cruz cycles, the Monavie-Cannondale team is the class of the event. Sheppard rode with the three Monavie-Cannondale racers most of the first day until his mechanical trouble. He knows the conditions and the former Pan-American Games medalist is well respected in the pack.

“I’ve got my work cut out,” said Sheppard, who placed second a month ago in the B.C. Bike Race. In that race on the Coast and Vancouver Island, he finished more than a minute ahead of Sonntag.

“I’m behind and it’s up to me to do the attacking,” Sheppard said.

Riders tackle a different section of Lac Du Bois today, featuring less forest cover in what is expected to be blazing hot conditions.

Brennan pledged that signage will improve today, acknowledging it will be needed on the tighter course.

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