2008 Team Bigfoot Schedule

Team Bigfoot has announced their 2008 Endurance (6 / 8/ 24 hour) and MTB schedule. The schedule is similar to year's past, with the glaring exception of the Bigfoot Classic (It appears that the rumors on it's demise were true). On the plus side, it looks like there might be a new six hour endurance race.

MOUNTAIN BIKE EVENTS

• 03/29/08: Pre-Otter CANCELLED - Short-Track XC (Arcata, CA)
• 05/25/08: Gravity Day - Super-D, Downhill (Weaverville, CA)
• 09/19/08 09/27/08: Whiskeytown Classic - Short-Track XC, Super-D, Cross-Country (Whiskeytown Lake, CA)
• 10/17/08: LaGrange Fall Classic - Super-D, Cross-Country, Short-Track XC, Downhill (Weaverville, CA)

MOUNTAIN BIKE ENDURANCE EVENTS

• 05/24/08: 12 Hours of Weaverville (Weaverville, CA)
• 08/09/08 08/16/08: 12 Hours of Humboldt (Arcata, CA)
• 08/09/08: 24 Hours of Humboldt * (Arcata, CA)
• 09/06/08: Clikapudi Six to Midnight (Shasta Lake, CA)
• 10/06/08: Whiskeytown Nine to Five (Whiskeytown Lake, CA)
• 10/06/08: 24 Hours of Whiskeytown * (Whiskeytown Lake, CA)

* These events are tentative pending sponsorship & city approval

Bigfoot Classic Results

I'm a little late on these, but this year's Bigfoot Classic XC, DH and SuperD results have been posted. Photos are available at http://picasaweb.google.com/mtbfatty/BigfootClassic. I am not going to comment on the Unicycle results in the DH race :>

Congratulations to the following winners:
XC MEN
Beginner Senior 25-29 Casaurang Danny
Beginner Master 30-34 Wells Keith
Beginner Master 40-44 Morrison Troy
Beginner Master 45-49 Payne Robert
Beginner Master 50-54 Clemente Ron
Beginner Clydesdale 34- Rose Steve
Sport Senior 19-24 Camper Eddie
Sport Senior 25-29 Brashear Rocky
Sport Master 30-34 Torres Carlos
Sport Master 35-39 Kelly Steve
Sport Master 40-44 Thomason Scott
Sport Master 45-49 Jacinto Richard
Sport Master 55-59 Kluck Larry
Sport Master 60-64 Minton Charles
Sport Master 65+ Robinson Russ
Sport Clydesdale 34- New Jesse
Expert Senior 19-24 Graves Justin
Expert Senior 25-29 Ellis Seth
Expert Master 30-34 McNaughton Danny
Expert Master 35-39 Surges Bill
Expert Master 40-44 Rouch Alexander
Expert Master 45-49 Simpson Mike
Expert Master 50-54 Wykle Tim
Semi-Pro 1-99 Brown Chris
Pro 1-99 Astell Brian

XC WOMEN
Beginner Master 40-49 Ashley Lena
Sport Senior 19-29 Monroe Michelle
Sport Master 30-39 Leon Rita
Sport Master 40-49 Martel Melissa
Sport Master 50-99 Hodgson Daphne
Expert Senior 19-29 Worldpeace Emma
Expert Singlespeed Wilder Dez
Sport Singlespeed Beaver Ben


DH
Pro/Semi-Pro Men Olson Nick 9
Expert Men Jr. 18 & Under Adams Taylor
Expert Men Senior 19-29 Weidenkeller Erich
Expert Men Veteran 30-39 Delong Jared
Expert Men Master 40-49 Frame David 1
Sport Men Jr. 18 & Under Rossow Nick
Sport Men Senior 19-29 Graves Joel 104
Sport Men Veteran 30-39 Wilson Paul
Beginner Men Jr. 18 & Under Hoeft Austin
Beginner Men Senior 18-29 Briseno Joel
Beginner Men Master 40-49 Williams Ray
Expert Women Senior 19-29 Hairston Nova
Expert Women Veteran 30-39 Ross Sandra
Sport Women Veteran 30-39 Vitale Deborah
Unicycle Men Kennedy Chris 300

2007 Bigfoot Classic

This weekend is the latest race in the NorCal State Championships series, the 2007 Bigfoot Classic. The Bigfoot Classic is a multi-event race running from Friday through Sunday (July 20th - 22nd):

• SUPER-D (Friday afternoon): Start at the top of Bald Mountain down a few sections of the XC course. Last year's winning times were well over 20 minutes! Each rider gets one run.
• CROSS COUNTRY (Saturday morning): The cross-county course is a 60% / 40% mix of singletrack and fireroad with lotsa singletrack. The course is about 15 miles (we added some more singletrack). Beginners do one full lap, Sports go one and a half laps (they don't go out to the lake on lap 2) and expert/pros go two full laps.
• DOWNHILL (Sunday afternoon): The downhill course has been called "world cup worthy." It has high speed stuff, a little bit of slower technical stuff and all the jumps and drops that the experts love, but with safe & sane outs for the beginners and sports. Best two of three format. Course will be open for practice on Saturday after the Super-D (probably 3pm or so) On race day we'll run shuttles with two trucks & trailers, and you're welcome to run your own shuttle too.
• SHORT TRACK (Sunday morning): One mile all singletrack course. A half-mile climb to the top, then a twisty-turny roller-coaster ride back down to the pits & start/finish area. 8 laps for Pro/Experts, 4 laps for Beginner/Sports. $50 cash prize & a pair of Kenda tires for Pro/Expert winner, a pair of Kenda tires to the Beginner/Sport winner.

The Bigfoot Classic is held outside Arcata, CA near a small town on HWY 299 called Blue Lake (turnoff map, race site map). Make sure and take a map if you are coming up -- the turnoff is tricky and the race site is situated well back from the highway.

I raced XC last year and can attest that this race is one of the more enjoyable course around. Check out my race report and the rest of the coverage from last year.

Event: Bigfoot Classic
Dates: July 20 - 22, 2007
Location: Blue Lake, CA (just east of Arcata on 299) [ MAP ]
Competition: XC, SD, DH, STXC
Cost: $30/SuperD, $35/DH, $35/XC, $25/STXC (discounts for Jr and multi-events)
URL: http://www.teambigfoot.net/
Registration: onsite or active.com
License: ? (last year didn't require a USA Cycling license)

If everything goes well this week, I'll be rolling up north on Friday for this. Anyone up for beers in Arcata on Friday night ?

NorCal MTB Racing Photo Gallery

Since Google gave me an invite to their new Picasa Web Albums service (aka Flickr killer), I decided to suck up their storage space and post a lot of the photos that I've taken so far this year. So far, I've posted photos from:

• 2006 US MTB Nationals
• 2006 Bigfoot Classic
• Misc Course Maps

The entire public gallery is available here and a RSS feed is also available. If anyone wants a high resolution copy of any photo, just contact us at the email on the left hand side of this page. I'll be adding more photo albums as I get time and storage space.

RACE RESULTS: 2006 Bigfoot Classic

The results for the 2006 Bigfoot Classic have been posted:

• Bigfoot Classic '06 Results

Scroll down past the XC for the DH results. Congrats to Rick Goldrup, who unofficially won the DH with a 3:12 best two of three runs time, and Tim Olson, who won the Pro XC event. I think that this is Tim Olson finishing in the picture on the right. No word on the Super D results yet.

For more on the race, see my XC race report and this MTBR thread for pictures. There is also a race report on the downhill at MSDHW.com.

RACE REPORT: 2006 Bigfoot Classic (Day 2 XC)

Got up in the early morning fog of Eureka to grab a cup of coffee and make my way up the mountain for the Bigfoot Classic XC race. The conditions at the top of the mountain near the race site were perfect and it looked like a huge amount of people turned out. Someone later told me that we had 165 racers (about twice past years). Whatever the final count, we had a large field and a crowded pit: lots of pro riders, sports and a few beginners.


The course was one of the better ones that I have ridden: some long climbs, swooping downhills, technical singletrack and even a few hike-a-bikes. It measured out to 14 miles and about 2700 feet of climbing per lap. The pros did two laps, sport one and a half and beginners one. I didn't remember to turn on my GPS unit at the start, but here is most of the course:

Here's the elevation profile:
My race turned out pretty well. I climbed well during the first set of climbs, got a little bogged down during the hike-a-bikes then made up the time during the flat at the mid-point of the race. Unfortunately, no race of mine would be complete without an epic crash. And I certainly didn't disappoint. Just after the 1/2 way point on the divided singletrack, I pulled endo'd in some mud at about 25 miles per hour (it looks pretty cool on the GPS readout). At first, I thought I had broken a rib as the bike had pummelled me in the chest during my crash, but after I pulled my bike out of the nearby tree (!) I was back racing. I pulled it together to finish with a respectable time and won my category.


I didn't get a chance to stick around for the awards ceremony, but the unofficial pro results were:

• Tim Olson (2:14:05)
• Aren Timmel (2:15:37)
• Michael Lee (2:16:40)
• Nigel Hill (2:23:08)
  

Overall, the race was a great experience. My hat off to Vic (in the picture above posting results) and the rest of Team Bigfoot. It was well worth the six hour drive for the race. I posted some more photos from the race over on this thread at MTBR.

RACE REPORT: 2006 Bigfoot Classic (Day 1)

As I shared earlier, I made the drive up to Arcata, CA to race the 2006 Bigfoot Classic today. The actual XC race isn't until tomorrow, but I wanted to come up and watch the Super D race this afternoon.

Unfortunately, it's a six hour drive up to Arcata from the Sierra foothills so I only made it there for the very tail end of the race. However, judging from the crowd it appeared that about 25 racers participated. The course is set waaaayyyy out in the wilderness and most people that I spoke with said the course was excellent. I'll see if I can't scare up the result sometime tomorrow morning for posting.

The XC course looks pretty promising and the race officials said about 125 racers are registered. I'll try to get some more action photos for that tomorrow.
As I said, it's a little hard to find the site. Here are GPS coordinates and maps for the both the highway turnoff [ MAP ] and actual race site [ MAP ]. Hope to see people up here.

Bigfoot Classic DH Course Preview

In preparation for next week's Bigfoot Classic, Pirate DH has posted a video (in Windows Media Player) and some pictures from the DH course in 2003 and 2004. Worth a look.

Bigfoot Classic (Cal State Championship)

This year's Team Bigfoot Classic will be held on Bald Mountain just outside Arcata, CA [ MAP ] from June 29 - July 2, 2006. The Bigfoot Classic will have the following events:

• HILLCLIMB (Thursday 6/29 @ 5pm): "It's free! It's tough! It's all about bragging rights. It's a 1-mile lung-searing leg-burning chug to the top of Bald Mountain. A $20 bill is tacked to a post at the top, first one there grabs it."
• SUPER D (Friday 6/30 @ 5:00 pm): "We start at the top of Bald Mountain and send you down some of the XC course, some of the DH course and finish down in creek canyon. It's almost all downhill with one short level section and one very short climb."
• CROSS-COUNTRY (Saturday 7/1 @ 10am): "a 60% / 40% mix of singletrack and fireroad with lotsa singletrack. Beginners will do about 14 miles, sports will do about 21, experts & pros will do 28 miles."
• SHORT TRACK XC (Sunday 7/2 @ 10: 00 am): The short-track is held on a 1-mile all-single-track loop.
• DOWNHILL (Sun. 7/2 @ 1pm): "has been called "world cup worthy." It has high speed stuff, a little bit of slower technical stuff and all the jumps and drops that the experts love, but with safe & sane outs for the beginners and sports. Best two of three format."

Registration is available over at active.com and this race doesn't require a NORBA license.

UPDATE (7/3/06): There's a race report for the XC competition here.
UPDATE (7/4/06): Race results have been posted.

NorCal Qualifers For MTB Championship

So with the changes in the NORBA and MTB National Championship schedule, I thought it might be good to go back over qualifying criteria and races. USA Cycling conducts National Championship races in cross country (XC), downhill (DH) and mountain cross (MTX). To compete in these championships, you need a top 10 finish in your category (ability category / age bracket) at a qualfying event, be a US Citizen and a NORBA member. USA Cycling recognizes these qualifying events:

Q: Where can riders find qualification races and/or series?
A: The qualification races for the 2006 USAC National MTB Championships are NORBA State and Regional Championships, American Mountain Bike Challenge (AMBC) events, Alison Dunlap Junior Olympic Mountain Bike (ADJOMTB) events for juniors, NORBA National Mountain Bike Series (NMBS) events, and the USA Cycling Junior Development Mountain Bike Camps.

You also qualify if you were in the top 10 of last year's Cougar Mountain Classic.

I am a little hazy about this language. It seems to say that only state / regional championship races qualify, but I see people on the qualfier list from series races. However, following these rules, I believe the only qualifying race left on the NorCal / NorNevada calendar are:

• Bigfoot Classic (June 29 - July 2, 2006 in Arcata, CA) for XC and DH
• Pinenut Cracker (May 20th in Garnerville, CA) for XC
• Peavine Challenge (June 4th, 2006 in TBD, Northern Nevada) for XC

I think there are a few other qualifying opportunities, that are a bit of a roadtrip:

• Deer Valley (NMBS #4 on July 8th & 9th in Park City, UT) for MTX, XC and DH
  
• Big Bear ShootOut #1 (May 21st in Big Bear Lake, CA) for XC
  
• Cal State DH Championship (Southridge, CA on June 4th, 2006) for DH

You can check the list of qualifiers at the NORBA National Championship Qualifiers Page. And if you race a lot, you should -- I found out this morning that I was qualified in MTX from last year's Cougar Mountain/Infineon Race.

I'm hoping that there are some more qualfiying opportunities so I'm checking with USA Cycling and will update this as necessary. The National Championship site is being updated and registration will be opening tomorrow at 5PM. Leave a comment if you have any information to add. Otherwise, I expect to see a lot of people in Arcata come late June.

Team Bigfoot Announces 2006 MTB Schedule

Following on the heels of their 2006 Endurance Schedule, Team Bigfoot has posted their 2006 MTB Schedule:

The Pre-Otter (March 26, 2006 in Arcata, CA) : Season kickoff before the Sea Otter Classic: "We're lengthening the course to about 1.5 miles by adding a new singletrack descent. 6 laps for beginners, 8 for sport, 10 for experts." This is a XC race.

Bigfoot Classic (Tentatively Confirmed for June 30-July 2 in Bald Mountain, about 20 miles from Arcata,CA): Hillclimb Friday, Cross Country & Super-D Saturday, Short-Track XC & Downhill Sunday. This one is legendary! Our cross-country course is challenging, fun and has too much singletrack! Last year a visiting SoCal racer said "This is the first mountain bike race of the year...I don't know what those other things were that we've done so far, but this is the first real mountain bike race!" The same can be said for the Super-D,fast, fun and furious. The Short-track is held on a 1-mile all-single-track loop. The downhill is World Cup worthy. Make the drive, you'll be glad that you did. This is hillclimb, XC, SD, ST and DH racing.

Whiskeytown Classic (Tentatively Changed to September 23, 2006 in Whiskeytown Lake, CA): This classic Cross-Country is held on some of the most fun singletrack trails you've ever seen. There's plenty of camping available just minutes from the start/finish line, and for post-race refreshment you've got an entire lake just waiting for you! This is a XC race.

Lagrange Fall Classic (October 20-22 in Weaverville, CA): Super-D Friday, Cross Country Saturday, Downhill Sunday. Held in the Weaver Basin Trail System. Friday's Super-D starts way up Weaver Bolly Mountain and then joins on to the some of the best parts of the XC. The Cross-country is mostly singletrack, experts and sports get to enjoy the challenge of the Lagrange Ditch trail. New trails are being worked on this season and we hope to have a new beginner course that'll also be mostly singletrack. The Downhill starts way up Weaver Bolly mountain and drops over 2500 feet in a 4-mile plunge to the singletrack finish near East Weaver Campground. This is SD, XC and DH races.

I will post more details (like pricing and licenses) when they become available.

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