The Downieville Pre-Ride
My "A" race for the year was the Downieville Classic Downhill Mountain Bike race. The gf - who had some excellent XC racing finishes since picking up mountain biking late last year - heard good things about it and wanted to race it with me, so we pre-rode the course three weeks ago - a week before the event. A solid cyclist, she knocked out the 8 mile, 3000 foot climb up to the 7100 foot summit like a champ, but the challenging, technical descent was still a bit much for her.
With a conscience full of guilt, I did my best to help by carrying her bike down several portions of the loose, rocky, 17 mile, 4000 foot descent. I thought the poor girl might be traumatized enough to sell her bike and never speak to me again - fortunately she decided to stick with it (and me) afterwards.
A day of downhill mountain biking at Northstar, an epic adventure ride at Downieville, and camping at a hot springs place that turned out to be a nudist resort - it's always an adventure in these parts :)
Photos by Marco Soldano - http://picasaweb.google.com/marco.soldano/DownievillePreRide
With a conscience full of guilt, I did my best to help by carrying her bike down several portions of the loose, rocky, 17 mile, 4000 foot descent. I thought the poor girl might be traumatized enough to sell her bike and never speak to me again - fortunately she decided to stick with it (and me) afterwards.
A day of downhill mountain biking at Northstar, an epic adventure ride at Downieville, and camping at a hot springs place that turned out to be a nudist resort - it's always an adventure in these parts :)
Photos by Marco Soldano - http://picasaweb.google.com/marco.soldano/DownievillePreRide