Downieville Classic

[Otis Lyons]

The best weekend of the year started off with a few bumps. Arriving Thursday night, it wasn't until the following morning, just before the pre-ride of the descent, that I would put in new brake pads for both the front and rear.

After pre-riding, that night we realized something was up with my brakes, and, after tracking down seemingly everyone in the town, ended up being saved by a Shimano rep and a worker at the local bike shop.

Unbelievably, at about 7 or 8 the night before the race, my brake was being bled, an inch away from not being able to race the following morning.

Problems aside, I took the start line with the million expert racers, just 11 of which were juniors. We began up the road climb, me and four others with the advantage on the rest of the junior field as we got the all mountain priority start.

I made my way through the pack on the road, passing all other juniors to take the lead. I was about 10th in the whole expert category, and two or so miles in, when Dylan Fryer (Bear Dev) caught me.

Dylan and I both hail from Drake.  We have been training partners for the good part of two years, so we decided to make our way through the pack, taking turns on the front.

As he caught me, he said, 'Otis, I think Tate's out.'

He was referring to pre-race favorite and Bear Dev teammate Tate Meintjes. We would later find out that Tate had broken his chain, requiring a third Bear teammate Noah Hayes, who by the way was just riding through the race as he had a broken finger, to assist him with an extra chain link.

Dylan and I worked harmoniously until the steep loose part about 3 miles up, where I tried to pass a rider and slipped out. Dylan got some distance, and kept a 5 to 10 second lead.

I knew that Dylan was a year older, in superior shape, and an overall stronger rider than I was going into the race, so I thought that the fact that he had distanced me was a good thing. Hanging on to his wheel for a whole 8 mile slog up the climb might make me implode later on.

Instead, I kept him within sight all the way up the climb, cresting the climb maybe 20 seconds behind and with a shot of catching him.

It was a clean descent, but unfortunately I couldn't find the time back on Dylan. I finished a minute and a half back, luckily not getting caught by an oncoming Tate Meintjes, who fixed his chain problem and finished just a minute behind me. He was followed by Max McFadden, a strong NorCal high school racer, and Tydeman Newman, who as a freshman finished on the JV D2 podium at states.

The next day, I raced the all mountain, and finished with a time of 54:12, which was good enough for 3rd place on the day and 2nd overall behind Caleb O'Hare, who caught and passed me 10 minutes in to the descent.

It was a fun weekend, as it always is, packed with excitement, nerves, fun festivities and an outrageous amount of prizes. It was fun to wear the ACME kit at this race, and can't wait to finish off my season next week at Dunnigan Hills!