August 2018 Blog Posts (5)

I felt pretty fresh as I blasted off from the start tent on my DH run Sunday morning.  I started 9th, with a ghost racer behind me and Ryan Gorman in front of me, so I didn't anticipate any company.  I had recovered from the vision problems of the day before and made it to the start line with glasses.

I pushed hard on Sunrise and came close to my fastest time, keeping it up down the fire road and across to the single track.  I had reduced the rebound damping on  my fork to 11 clicks…

My start time was 12:12:30. I decided to play it safe and run a heavy tube in my rear tire. I have only ridden the downhill course 4 times in the last 15 years and never with out stopping so I had no splits to meet. I did do Sunrise fast a few days before with Jim, so I had a goal of under 8 minutes to the fire road. We were leaving every 30 seconds and I had 2 teenage riders in front of me. I started my Garmin 30 seconds before my start so I could just focus on getting out as fast as I…

At the end of every season of mountain bike racing, there is the Downieville Classic All Mountain World Championship.

Though racing starts for me in March, I always try to tailor the last half of the season to have some fitness left for this NorCal testpiece.

This year found me in less than peak form, but eager to compete in the All Mountain category once again.  I had raced a Trek Fuel EX for a few years, with some good results, but this year I returned to a cross country race…

This is probably my favorite race of the year; and one of the best weekends of racing out there. I had missed the race last year through injury while doing a practice run the week before, and so was glad to be back in Downieville racing again, injury free, and feeling in good form.

The Downieville Classic consists of a cross country race on the Saturday, and a Downhill race on Sunday. Some racers choose to ride the XC event only, but racing the DH only is not an option. If you want to…

My 3 rd race here but my first All Mountain. I had this race as my most import of the year. I bought a TREK Fuel EX 9.8 with this race in mind. With a lot of help from Jim Hewett, I had the bike set up to weigh in at 27lbs. I ran Maxxis Minion  SS 2.3 tires front and rear. I swapped the FOX 34 Performance fork with a Fox 34 factory 130mm. The bike felt fast up hill and was a big improvement over my Top Fuel for the down hill. Jim and I got up Friday morning the day before the race and met up…