RACE REPORT: 2006 Downieville Classic

Due to massive mechanical difficulties (broken swingarm retaining bolt), I wasn't able to race Downieville this weekend. Suprisingly, they held it anyway. Congratulations to the following Pro winners:

• Jason Moeschler (All Mountain Men: XC + DH)
• Rachel Lloyd (All Mountain Women: XC + DH)
• Tim Olson (XC Men)
• Katerina Nash (XC Women)
• Rachel Lloyd (DH Women)
• Mark Weir (DH Men)

Full results are here: XC, DH and All Mountain Pro.

So I don't have any firsthand accounts, but I'll post any links that I can find:

• jorgemonkey's Downieville Pics thread at MTBR
• Downieville's official race results page
• Anthony Medaglia's DH and XC race results at Motionbased
• Team Motionbased checked in with their Downieville race report (nice pictures and some GPS links)
• John Ruth's Downieville Downhill photo album
• Merlin's DH & XC race report
• SFist race report
  

I'll continue to update this as I see more information.

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.

Floyd Redux

We still believe Floyd. And here is one of the reasons why. And another.

2006 Downieville Classic Primer

So you've decided to head up to Downieville this weekend for the annual Downieville Classic. As this is one of the largest races here in the foothills, we here at NorCal MTB Racing have rounded up some resources to get you prepared:

Registration: If you haven't already registered for the downhill, you are out of luck. DH registeration filled up in about a week after being opened. However, it looks like you can still register for the cross country point to point race.

Schedule: Downieville runs over four days, but all the racing is Saturday and Sunday. Here's the abbreviated agenda:

Thursday

• Trail Pre-ride Shuttles (9 AM, 12 noon, 3 PM): Shuttle service to Packer Saddle for those riders wanting a sample of Downieville’s finest singletrack descents. Both the cross country and downhill race courses will be flagged for pre-rides. Cost is $15.00 per shuttle.

Friday

• Trail Pre-ride Shuttle (9 AM, 12 noon, 3 PM)

Saturday

• Downieville Downhill Race (Packer Saddle at 9:30am)
• Trail Shuttle (after DH: 1 PM, 3 PM)
• Bicycle Expo / Street Fair
• Ron's House O' Big Air River Jump
• Live Music by The SaddleTramps (Downieville Fire House at 8:00pm)

Sunday

• Point to Point Race - Sierra City at 9:30am
• Bicycle Expo / Street Fair

More information is available here.

Courses:

• Downhill: Plunging 4,700' in 15 miles from Packers Saddle, you hurdle into Downieville. Here is the course description and a map. You can also measure yourself up against last years' winner (and current record holder) Mark Weir over at Motionbased.
• Cross country (XC) point to point: Starting from Sierra City, you will have a massive climb then descend for miles back into Downieville. Here is the course description and a map. You can also check out Mark Weir's XC 2005 ride over at Motionbased.
  On this map, you can see last year's DH route in yellow and the XC route in red (click to enlarge):
  

Times: If you are contesting this year's race, you check out last year's winning times here (Myself, I am just trying to finish).

Social: Here's the MTBR roll call of people attending. Some good tips and information.

I'll post more information to this as I get it.

RACE REPORT: Tamarancho

After seeing today's high temperature and reading a few of the race reports on MTBR, I am kinda glad I didn't make it out for the Friends of Tamarancho race. I haven't seen any results yet, but there are some photos posted.

UPDATE (07/25/06): The good people over at Team Motionbased have posted their race report , GPS plots and pro results. Olivier Bock won the Pro class with a 1:21 time for three laps.

UPDATE (08/09/06): Some results have been posted.

2007 Amgen Tour of California Route Announced

So this isn't MTB related but the 2007 Amgen Tour of California route has been announced. Starting in Santa Rosa, CA, it snakes through NorCal until heading south through San Luis Obispo to Los Angeles. To be held from February 18 - 25, 2007, the tour will cover 7 stages including a time trial and criterium.

• Prologue: Sunday, Feb. 18 - San Francisco
• Stage 1: Monday, Feb. 19 - Sausalito to Santa Rosa
• Stage 2: Tuesday, Feb. 20 - Santa Rosa to Sacramento
• Stage 3: Wednesday, Feb. 21 - Stockton to San Jose
• Stage 4: Thursday, Feb. 22 - Seaside to San Luis Obispo
• Stage 5: Friday, Feb. 23 - Solvang time trial
• Stage 6: Saturday, Feb. 24 - Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita
• Stage 7: Sunday, Feb. 25 - Long Beach circuit race

Full route information can be found here.

Riding Kirkwood

With the closure of Northstar at Tahoe this summer, a lot of people have been wondering if there are any other resort riding here in Northern California. The people over at dhRENO have taken upon themselves to scout out the other Tahoe option. Check out their photos and report on Kirkwood Ski Area's Bike Park.

Congratulations Floyd

photo courtesy of deadspin.

You can take the boy out of MTB races, but you just can't take the MTB racer out of the boy. Congrats on a well deserved Tour de France victory.

USA Cycling Names 2006 MTB Worlds Riders

USA Cycling has announced the full 60 person team for the 2006 UCI Mountain Bike World Championships that are scheduled for August 22-27 in Rotorua, New Zealand. The U.S. Team Roster is:

Elite Men’s Cross Country: *Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski (Boulder, Colo.), *Ryan Trebon (Ventura, Calif.), Adam Craig (Bend, Ore.), Jeremiah Bishop (Harrisonburg, Va.), Todd Wells (Durango, Colo.), Barry Wicks (Corvallis, Ore.), Michael Broderick (Chilmark, Mass.)

Elite Women’s Cross Country: *Mary McConneloug (Chilmark, Mass.), *Georgia Gould (Ketchum, Idaho), Shonny Vanlandingham (Durango, Colo.), Willow Koerber (Horseshoe, N.C.), Heather Irmiger (Boulder, Colo.), Sue Haywood (Davis, W. Va.), Dara Marks-Marino (Flagstaff, Ariz.)

Elite Men’s Downhill: *Duncan Riffle (Santa Barbara, Calif.), *Justin Havukainen (Castro Valley, Calif.), Cody Warren (Alpine, Calif.), Curtis Keene (Fremont, Calif.), Cole Bangert (Twin Lakes, Colo.), Christopher Herndon (Etowah, N.C.), Luke Strobel (Renton, Wash.)

Elite Women’s Downhill: *Tara Llanes (Los Alamitos, Calif.), *Jackie Harmony (Tucson, Ariz.), Melissa Buhl (Chandler, Ariz.)

Elite Men’s 4-Cross: *Brian Lopes (San Clemente, Calif.), *Chris Powell (San Diego, Calif.), *Rich Houseman (Temecula, Calif.), *Eric Carter (Winchester, Calif.), Cody Warren (Alpine, Calif.), Make Haderer (Concord, Calif.), Lars Sternberg (Vashon, Wash.)

Elite Women’s 4-Cross: *Jill Kintner (Seattle, Wash.), *Tara Llanes (Los Alamitos, Calif.), *Melissa Buhl (Chandler, Ariz.), *Jessica Vogt (Boulder, Colo.), Leanna Gerrard (Lake Tapps, Wash.)

*Denotes Automatic Selection

Congratulations to all and if you are thinking about attending the UCI Worlds and have never been to New Zealand, I heartily recommend it. I used to work there and it is a spectacular country.

NorCal Racing This Weekend: June 21 - 23, 2006

It's a quiet but interesting weekend of racing before next week's Downieville extravaganza. With the cancellation of the Dreamcatcher downhill race, the only racing on tap is the Friends of Tamarancho XC at the 2nd Annual Fairfax Fat Tire Festival in Fairfax, CA. Details are still a little sketchy, but it looks like it's a 4.5 mile course (with varying laps depending on skill). A running thread over at MTBR has some more details along with maps.

RACE RESULTS: 12 Hours of Humboldt

Team Bigfoot has posted the results from their 12 Hours of Humboldt marathon race. The race was held last weekend in Arcata, CA.

Tour De Fat (San Francisco)

This weekend (Saturday actually) is the San Francisco stop for New Belgium Beer's Tour de Fat. Held on Saturday, July 22nd in Golden Gate Park (Speedway Meadow) starting at 11am. The Tour de Fat is New Belgium's touring cycling circus of riding, music and folly that raises money for local charities (San Franciscisco Bicycle Coalition and Bay Area Ridge Trail Council).

The Tour de Fat rolls into Truckee (near Lake Tahoe) on July 29th.

PRODUCT REVIEW: Candy SL Update

As an update to my earlier review of the Crank Brother's Candy SL pedals, here are some follow-on comments about their usage after three months:

First, the good. They are noticably lighter than my older Shimano 540s. They engage better, release better and don't need any adjustments. They've worn well. I haven't even got a chance to see how much better they shed mud. Quite simply, they were a drop in upgrade that took weight of my ride and work better.

The bad. I broke the stainless steel spring in the left pedal about two weeks after installing them. Okay, not broke, but "bent real bad." While I am hazy about exactly how I did this, I am pretty sure that I "curb checked" a large rock at about 25 MPH on the Dyke 8 trail. This isn't really a mark against the Candies, as I have beaten my SPDs up even worse (there is probably an element of user error also).
While accidents like this certainly happen, the real test is how the company supports you. And Crank Brothers came through like champs. After feeding them a completely ridiculous story, they asked me to ship them the pedals. In one week, UPS delivered my pedals with a new spring installed. All companies should be this easy to deal with.

Overall, the Candies have been very good pedals, but this story: Crank Brothers introduces new pedals (BIKEmagic Gear News) makes me think that I might be wanting a pair of mid-platforms when they arrive here in the U.S.

Dreamcatcher Cancelled

Sad news that the Trinity River Pirates' Dreamcatcher Downhill race has been cancelled . . .

We apologize for the shortcoming on our last race, the Magic Mushroom DH and for cancelling the current 7/22/06 Dreamcatcher DH.

The TRP core group has dwindled to two individuals and it has become virtually impossible to plan, prepare for and host races.

We do not know at this time for sure whether or not we will even be able to host the August Annual Race as we do not have the support of the Tribal Sovereign Days Planning Committee and don't know when we will be able to recruit the help necessary to once again host races in a professional manner.

We will make an official decision and announcement on the August race soon.

We hope they can pull off their annual "Where The Trails Return" event.

CCCX To Host Fall DH Series ?

So I am not sure what to make of this announcement on the CCCX site, but it sounds very cool:

Downhill races in Northern California coming soon. Dates in August, Sept, Oct, Nov, and Dec.

Time Trial races to challenge Nor Cal DH racers. The trails will be fun riding and will include single track, fire roads, and some sections to check your fitness!

I wont have everything finalised until Aug. 1st and then......

August 1st will be the date for series info to be finished and complete with permits and what not.

I'll have all the details when they are posted.