I’m never racing a LeMans start, dusty singletrack Super D again. Or at least until I can run properly, which will be never. Other than that Nationals went pretty darn well for the Giant Team. We were all a bit tuckered out after the week of shredding in Downeiville and subsequent travel to Colorado for the biggest one-day Mountain Bike races of the year (or maybe the month, as World Champs are coming up…) but everyone came around and was feeling decent by the weekend. Sunny skies and warm temps at Sol Vista Bike Park complimented our comfortable rental house perfectly to keep team morale up. Although we could’ve used some Saturday night rain for that 8am Super D…
Carl and I got bikes set up and rolled out to check on the XC course Friday morning as usual. After picking us up at the airport in Denver, Kelli had given a less than glowing review of the track so we were curious to see what was in store. Turns out it was better than nothing. Sol Vista is a bike park catering to the gravity set with a few XC trails off the backside. Unfortunately, a Pro XC Olympic course is supposed to be pretty short, around 20 minutes per lap. So, they machine cut in some false flat climbs a few weeks before the race around the base area, stuck some jumps in a wooded descent, ran us up the old climb (which was perfect) then back down next to a work road and to the finish. Not especially inspiring to ride and definitely a great course for the Anthem X full-suspension. That said, it was still a bike race and the best rider would still win. That rider was Todd Wells. Despite some mechanical issues with a brand-new bike he rode convincingly away from 2009 champ JHK over the course of six laps to win his first proper Cross Country National title. I know this because most of the course was out in the open and I got to watch it play out while riding around in 4th place. I could also keep tabs on Ryan Trebron, who was exactly 42 seconds ahead of me for the first four laps. I knew that if his aggressive, out of the saddle riding style hadn’t tired him out by then it wouldn’t so I turned my focus behind me where Carl had been riding in a group of three earlier in the race. He was no longer there, replaced by fellow Northwesterner Spencer Paxson, who was dangling in seventh behind Bishop and Jay Henry. Turns out Jay was actually another guy in a Tokyo Joe’s kit, pro roadie Peter Stetina. Stetina would take the battle for the final podium spot and I would keep a comfortable gap over them while not spending too much energy on the same position. Energy is a bit low these days and I’ve got two World Cups coming right up…
Putting the finishing touches on the warmup during call-up… Cool Arctic Heat Ice vest, eh?
Sunday morning dawned cool and crisp, giving Carl, Ethan and I a pleasant climb to the top of Sol Vista for a pre-lift opening run on the Super D track. It was a pretty darn fun hacked out singletrack through the aspens for the first half, then a short traversing climb, then some rocky berms and ski-slope bombing to the finish. Pretty sweet Super D track for a ski hill with only 1000 feet of vertical. Good trail-riding fun. Unfortunately, we had to join 57 other dudes for our race down it, each running 150m or so to our bikes before all hell broke loose. Somebody undoubtedly got the holeshot with some hard-earned mosh-pit techniques but I certainly couldn’t see them, or the 30 guys behind them. I could only see the 20 guys in front of me, the one immediately in front was last years Super D champ, Aaron Bradford. Oops. The guy in front of him was all fired up “On your left, COME ON!” “Let’s GO!” until Aaron and I pointed out to him that we had nowhere to go, other than down one of the other trails. We stuck to the course though, riding slower than I would with my mom, for the next fifteen or so minutes of choking on dust. Super cool. Maybe a Time Trial format would be good? Or maybe I just suck at punching and should take up a new hobby, like knitting. Good thing Kelli had less competitors to deal with and took the win… It was at least worth her while to get up at 5. I suppose it was the beginning of me getting on “European Time”… yeah, super beneficial.
Fortunately, we had a few hours to watch videos on The Internet and sleep to get ready for the afternoon Short Track. I was really feeling the pressure to defend my title from last year and a serious percentage of the crowd was making sure I knew it. Pretty solid heckling going on out there. Unfortunately, I was called up first, which gave me the line off the start and I turned that into second place immediately. Not the way I start a winning short track. I need to be outside the top 10 at the very best to stand a chance at winning. Instead Todd Wells accelerated around leader Sam Schultz on lap two and was never seen again. I again rode around in fourth, feeling pretty good and keeping tabs on the Subaru/Trek duo ahead of me while making sure Carl stayed 5 seconds behind since we’re on different teams now. Eventually one of the hecklers informed me that Sam was “BONKED” and I started to reel him in. Mostly on the downhill. On the final lap he rode the lemming line in the only corner and I nipped him with the old outside-inside trick, figuring that would sort him out. Instead of giving up he held on up the climb, forcing us to both ride at least as hard as we’ll need to ride up the start climb in Champerey next weekend. So, thanks, Sam, for the good top-end workout, and third place… Carl got 5th. Good job, Carl.
Carl Rallying a berm on the STXC descent. Gully did a good job with the track…
Anyway, that’s about it from Nationals, we finished off the Kozy Shack on the porch and watched the sunset before another 5am wakeup call for the drive to Denver Airport. Totally worth it as we’ll be back in Bend at Noon and both have plenty of stuff to do. I’m working on buying a house with a “backyard” and “view” in between packing for Europe and lifting weights. Carl has some new Ohlins suspension for the Rally Car and an appointment at the tuning shop Tuesday in Portland to turn E85 Ethanol blend into enough power to be competitive at the X Games in two weeks.
Thanks for reading, we’ll try to keep good news coming…
AC
Oh, here’s Carl’s account of Downieville last week. It was lots of fun, and kind of scary.
Downieville California is an eight hour drive from Bend Oregon. A drive I’d only done once, when I carpooled with “Crazy Mike” to the Singlespeed World Championships there in 2002. Mike’s old Range Rover had a “Follow Me To Certain Death” bumper-sticker. And Mike had plenty of time on the drive to explain his rationale for not having insurance, nor a driver’s license, for the prior eight years. After 8 hours of swaying with the winds at 90mph across the desert, with increasing numbers of fingers, and eventually toes crossed and wondering if a trip to Downieville was worth dying for, we drove into that sleepy little town. As soon as we had arrived, I knew Downieville was worth a little risk.
Last week, I was lucky enough to return to Downieville. This time for the Downieville Classic: a two day stage race consisting of a 2 hour XC loop and a 45 minute downhill run to the same finish line in downtown D-ville. The Classic is limited to 800 XC racers and 200 “All Mountain World Championship” riders who do both stages for a combined time. The races sell out in minutes, and for good reason: Downieville has at least a mile of raucous singletrack and two good swimming holes for every man, woman and child who call it home. Adam, Kelli, and Joe had such a good time last year that they convinced Giant to sponsor the event, and bring the whole family along.
In addition to our entire XC and DH teams and staff, we also had five magazine editors along to ride Giants that were equipped with Shimano’s new Dynasis 10-speed drivetrains. These guys, all fine riders who were right at home on the Classic’s burly trails, would be part of the team for the weekend. It was fun having some new blood with us at the breakfast table, and practicing on the trails. After 3 days of D-ville acclimatizing and hundreds of miles of combined practice runs on some of the fastest, rowdiest, and potentially most dangerous trails around, our group of 12+ racers were all in surprisingly race-ready condition. There were some cuts and bruises and quite a few tires that had died for the cause, but the bikes were standing up to the extreme punishment (did I mention the 30’x2’ river crossing? Did I mention the rocky 50mph Cliffside trails? ) And nobody had landed on their faces. Not hard enough to go to the hospital, anyway… success! It was time to race.
Last week, I was lucky enough to return to Downieville. This time for the Downieville Classic: a two day stage race consisting of a 2 hour XC loop and a 45 minute downhill run to the same finish line in downtown D-ville. The Classic is limited to 800 XC racers and 200 “All Mountain World Championship” riders who do both stages for a combined time. The races sell out in minutes, and for good reason: Downieville has at least a mile of raucous singletrack and two good swimming holes for every man, woman and child who call it home. Adam, Kelli, and Joe had such a good time last year that they convinced Giant to sponsor the event, and bring the whole family along.
In addition to our entire XC and DH teams and staff, we also had five magazine editors along to ride Giants that were equipped with Shimano’s new Dynasis 10-speed drivetrains. These guys, all fine riders who were right at home on the Classic’s burly trails, would be part of the team for the weekend. It was fun having some new blood with us at the breakfast table, and practicing on the trails. After 3 days of D-ville acclimatizing and hundreds of miles of combined practice runs on some of the fastest, rowdiest, and potentially most dangerous trails around, our group of 12+ racers were all in surprisingly race-ready condition. There were some cuts and bruises and quite a few tires that had died for the cause, but the bikes were standing up to the extreme punishment (did I mention the 30’x2’ river crossing? Did I mention the rocky 50mph Cliffside trails? ) And nobody had landed on their faces. Not hard enough to go to the hospital, anyway… success! It was time to race.
Saturday dawned sunny and warm, and our caravan of Giant riders rolled into the XC start in Sierra City with a mixture of excitement and mildly veiled dread. The Classic’s XC course has something for everybody to worry about. If you’re a gravity guy on a 6” bike, it’s the initial climb of 3000 feet at a nice, steady 6%-18% grade with no shade. If you’re really into lettuce and powermeters, or if your bike lacks anything that might be referred to as a “pivot”, the big descent will give you nightmares and possibly a sphincter muscle capable of cutting medium- sized rebar. The beauty and tragedy of Downieville is the All Mountain bike rule: the bike you ride on Saturday cannot change before the downhill on Sunday. Bikes are weighed. Pictures are taken. Tires are marked. Compromises are made, strategies are hatched, the plot thickens.
For the Giant contingent, the Trance X was the bike of choice, and though it was a good one, I decided to take a chance and run what I was most used to; the Anthem X TwentyNine Prototype. Though it was short on travel and long on, uh, length, I figured I’d make up what I lost on the rodeo-ing through baby-heads parts on the kinder, gentler parts of the course. Bottom line: I’d probably need 3minutes on AC to hold off his charge on the long descent. Hmmm.
The gun cracked, 800 people clipped their second cleats into their pedals, and 50 minutes later, I had a 4 minute gap at the feed zone. I did not know this, however, so I pedaled real hard and gave the occasional frightened glance over my shoulder. When the descent came, I was riding better than I had all week. I was jumping and drifting and sprinting and still looking over my shoulder. When I crossed the line, I had nearly 6 minutes on AC and a new course record (1:50:50) for my troubles. I guess a 29er can be competitive at D-ville… AC was second, Jason M. was third, a couple minutes back. Kelli won the ladies race convincingly as well, with a 3 minute margin. None of the downhillers on the team melted on the climb (Riffle was fast!) and none of the magazine guys crashed their brains out or had their bikes stolen by sasquatch. Success!
Sunday’s downhill was a time trial, led out by last years champion, downhill record holder, no.“1” plate, and co-driver extraordinaire, Adam Craig. After AC had chased the deer off the course, we all had our go, at one-minute intervals. Here, start position is granted not by XC placing, but by last year’s downhill results, so I was starting 37th, and hopefully wouldn’t have too many dawdlers to pass on my way into town.
After a good warm-up, I was on course and riding pretty fast. Another 20 minutes and I had made no mistakes and had caught exactly zero people. Where were all the dawdlers? AC had passed something like 6 people to win this event last year, so I was unimpressed with myself. Then came a big bridge to cross to my salvation: the biggest climb on the course, maybe 4 minutes long. I accelerated across the bridge, swung wide for maximum exit speed into the ascent, and, well, kinda ate colossal shit. Guess I swung a little too wide the bridge and my wheel went off the boards. I landed on the rock that, coincidentally, a day earlier was the roost for a 6’ chicken with an airhorn during the XC. Turns out, my bike was still rideable, and after some wimpering and sniveling and pedaling with one leg for a while, I was okay too. So I finished a couple minutes down from the pointy end, where Weir had given the business to Ross and AC by 9 and 18 seconds. But I’d kept my All Mountain lead, and so had Kelli (just!) over a charging Katerina Nash. Success! (last time. Promise.) Two All Mountain World Championships for the Giant family.
Great races in a great place with heaps of fun people. I think this one goes on my short list for “best weekend of the year.” If you have the chance to go to Downieville and race your bike or just eat a blue-cheese burger and sit in the river, I’d say do it! But please, don’t let Crazy Mike drive.
Great races in a great place with heaps of fun people. I think this one goes on my short list for “best weekend of the year.” If you have the chance to go to Downieville and race your bike or just eat a blue-cheese burger and sit in the river, I’d say do it! But please, don’t let Crazy Mike drive.
Thanks for coming along for the ride,
Cd
