Downieville Classic Mountain Bike Race – 2013
Over the weekend I participated in The Downieville Classic cross country mountain bike race which is one of the last remaining point-to-point bicycle races in the United States. I rolled up solo as I couldn’t get any other teammates to buck up and go with me. I am hoping to recruit some newbies for next year as it’s by far my favorite race of the year. Maybe after reading this you’ll want to attend next year. For those unfamiliar with the course it is approx 29 miles long and follows a rugged “Gold Rush” era route that departs the mountain town of Sierra City (elevation 4,100′), and then climbs to the crest of the Sierra Nevada (elevation 7,100′). See the map attached below The blue trail is the climb to the top and the red is the downhill, with the exception of two, five min climbs. You can tell by the map how steep it is! Yes, it is that steep – Ouch.
In order to do a little recon I got up to D-Ville on Fri morning and took a shuttle bus to the top of Packer Saddle. The shuttle was supposed to be full (11) people but for what ever reason there were only 2 of us that showed up. From Downieville it takes about 50 min to reach Packer Saddle drop off point. As we neared the top my adrenaline started to rush. I knew that I was about to descend 5,200 feet and travel over 17 miles on some of the best single track on the planet. The other passenger on the bus and I quickly became friends and since he had never ridden the course we decided to stick together. It’s kinda of like scuba diving – always better to have a partner when your up in the remote Sierra Mnt’s- safety in numbers. We happened to be evenly matched descenders so we really enjoyed seeing each other off the front, what lines the other selected etc. As we descended we stopped at both bridge crossings to see the Yuba river flowing beneath. The scenery is second to none and we knew on race day all of the beautiful scenery would be a blur. Like Ewoks flying through the forest on a speeder bike.
After we successfully navigated back to Downieville we cleaned up our bikes and then registered and parted ways. I had a nice quite meal in Sierra City, chatted with some other riders and headed off to camp for bed.
For the past 5 years I have camped at a campground just north of the Sierra City race start loaction called Wild Plum. It’s a perfect spot as it’s located right on the Yuba River and allows me to ride rather than drive to the race start line in the morning.
The morning of the race was pretty chilly but I knew it would be blazing hot later in the day. I went with the most minimal gear and food possible. Weight is everything when ascending 4,000′ in the Sierra’s. The pro’s lined up first, followed by the expert class. This year I registered for the sport class as I wanted to duke it out and see about getting a good placement aginst others in my age class – 35+ . The gun goes off and we started to climb up the face of the Sierra Buttes, a metamorphic crown that stretches 8,600′ towards the wide-open sky. The legendary climb is known to many as the “Trail of Tears”. It starts with pavement, turns to dirt, and then gradually steepens and narrows to a loose, exposed, shaly doubletrack.
In years past I’ve seen racers go out with everything they have on the pavement, and by the time they hit the dirt they have nothing left and start walking as the mnt rare’s it’s ugly head. This year was no different and I knew better than try that tactic. I literally kept my own pace the entire race and only had to burn a few matches when having to overtake guys and gals who had better lines than me. As I climbed up the Buttes I could see other riders snaked out on the vistas above. I thought to myself how would I ever catch they guys wayyyyy up there? Well, those were the same guys who killed themselves on the pavement…I was slowy but surely picking off 2 – 3 riders at time…Some had to stop completely, some fell over mid pedal stroke, while others would have to dismount and walk the steeper sections. As I crested the mnt at mile marker 7 I figured I had caught and passed at least 30-35 riders. I really had no ideal where that placed me, but figured I wanted 10-15 more.
Once I got a little bit of decent in me, I really opened up and felt like I was in my element. If you’ve ever ridden mnt bikes with me, you know that I am a better descender than climber. It was like taking candy from babies, I was just killing it on the flats. I kept my momentum going over the rollers that I had pre-ridden the day before. Where others did not know they could pin it and roll up the other side, I was cresting over the hills at full speed and leaving them in my dust. Soo fun to know the course and know when you could do stuff like that without red lining it.
The route followed a rolling jeep road to the east rim of Gold Valley and the top of “Baby Heads” – a fast, loose, rocky descent that is responsible for numerous flat tires, get-offs and lead changes. At the bottom of this anarchy awaits Gold Valley and the Pauley Creek crossing. This 30′ wide crossing can be as deep as 4′ during the race, often making it difficult to navigate across at high-speed. This year it was about 3′ deep and required riders to lean back and hope for the best. I made it out without any problems but the guy in front of me had to dismount about 3/4 of the way through…I went around and kept on counting off riders. It’s much harder to pass on the downhills, as most of the riders are very skilled at descending in this type of terrain. Plus it’s dangerous as you know what. I had to put myself in check a time or two when things got a little squirrely (sp).
Once across the creek, the route turns to singletrack on the Pauley Creek Trail, a 17 mile creekside plunge that blends flowing turns and rolling jumps with jagged rocks and slippery roots. After descending 2,000′ and crossing three foot-bridges, the trail climbs from the Pauley Creek Canyon to the Lavezzola Creek Canyon, and to the trailhead of the world famous Third Divide Trail. During the hairy decent I had a lot of close calls and near spills. The course is very very steep in parts, I saw many riders sidelined due to mechanicals and crashes. As I started on the second to last climb I could feel an ever so slight cramp in my right inside leg area. I knew I had to be very careful with the amount of pressure I placed on that side. I got out of saddle and alternated standing and sitting. I also drank two or three big gulps of EFS sport drink thinking it would help. I knew that once I made it to third divide I could bomb down at Star Wars like speeds, it’s by far the best part of the trail, a magic carpet ride with bermed corners and lofty airs. The stuff us mnt bikers dream about.
I hit it hard and caught up to one of the pro woman and a single speed guy. I was at about a 85% pace and I was kinda felling like I would have liked to get by. I called out to the guy in front of me “rider back” he then said to that gal in front “riders back”. I guess he was feeling the same. However she wouldn’t get over and as I mentioned there was no place to safely pass. My position stayed the same for the next 3-4 mins. I started to think about when and where I was going to get by. I knew there was a rock wall ahead that the day before I didn’t make without dismounting. I was pretty concerned about the riders in front of me as I knew they too were going to have difficultly making it over without dismounting. As we approached I gave a bit of space as it was my goal to hit to hard and make it over without dismounting. I knew it could be done, especially after becoming intimate with the line the day before. So the gal rider makes it up about 3/4 of the way and comes to a full stop/dismount, the single speeder thinks that the gal is going to clear it and he is in full charge mode. I’m biding my time, but need to start to ramp up if I’m going to make it. Well as it goes, I got to close and it was like a big train crash. The single speed guy goes flying up over his handle bars, his rear wheel comes flying up and gets tangled in my left handle bars. The gal clears out, and the guy in front of me is trying to pull away but his rear spokes are tangled in my handlebars. I dismount and get his bike un-stuck from mine. He takes off and just as I start to follow, my left calf gets a full on charlie horse. I fall down against the rock wall and my leg is paralyzed. The bummer about all this is I am at the top of that tricky rock wall climb. I know there are riders back there somewhere, and any min some guy is going to come flying over and surprise….Adrian and his bike are going to be right in his/her path. Sure enough riders started to trickle through, maybe 4-5 guys…They all asked if they could help, but really there was no helping me…I just needed to work it out. It took me approx 2 min to gather myself and get back on my bike. As you can imagine I was pretty p-oed seeing riders that I had worked so hard to pass, catching back up.
After a thrilling 3 miles of downhill the third Divide Trail dumps out onto Lavezzola Road, which descends to the upper First Divide trail, a 150 year-old water flume built to provide water to a nearby hydraulic mining site. This stretch of trail requires one last hard push uphill and then winds its way downstream through the Lavezzola Creek Canyon. It was here that I passed all 5 guys who had asked if I needed help. I don’t think they thought they would see me again, but I guess I had a little left after all. I kinda surprised myself on that one. At that point I knew exactly when to go full effort and I could literally taste the Fat Tire beer awaiting me at the finish line. Apparently the singe speed guy had passed the gal as he was out of my sight. As soon as I passed the 5 riders, I hit the long awaited paved streets of downtown Downieville for the finish.
Whew what a ride!
Fully beat down and heart pumping at 180 bpm, all digits, bike and teeth in tact. I ended up with a time of 2:45 and got 6th place out of 58 riders in my age class. I was pretty happy about that considering I’m not a climber and there was almost 4k worth. I’m even happier that I came back in one piece and lived to tell the tale.
Check out the short video that was made on Sat.
When I got home yesterday I took a close look over my bike. I saw that the back tire had a 2 inch slash in it, ie where you could see the little threads poking through. Yeah, glad I didn’t have to deal with those shenanigans trail side.
Filled Under : Travel