Coast Mountain Bus Company (CMBC) held its 33rd annual bus roadeo last Sunday morning!

The bus roadeo is where CMBC employees pit their driving and maintenance skills against one other. Maintenance employees compete to diagnose and treat buses with problems. For the drivers, the big test is an obstacle course with many precision driving challenges, like trying not to knock over barrels outlining a narrowing course, or maneuver without crushing several tennis balls laid out nearby.

For some fun, Coast Mountain also invited the media out to give driving a bus a try.

So here’s the reports from Carmen Chai at the the Province, and Dave White from News 1130. The general conclusions seem to be that bus driving is much harder than it looks!

The top two from the driving competition and a team of three from the maintenance division will be off to Cleveland in 2010, to compete at the American Public Transportation Association (APTA) Roadeo.

I didn’t manage to make it out on Sunday, but David Lam and Chris Cassidy did, and they have photos to share! Check out their galleries here:

• Chris Cassidy’s photos
• David Lam’s photos

Thanks guys, and congrats to the roadeo winners — good luck in the finals!