Six riders took on Downieville on the Sunday before their annual big
race. There were lots of (fast) bikers there! We were:
Corbin Dunn
Louise Woolen
Bevan Gerber-Siff
Matt Chapman
Steve ---
John Foss
Matt and Steve were new to us. One is from Tahoe City and the other from
Reno. Lloyd Johnson was going to join us but came down with a stomach
flu.
So we had to pay for the shuttle, and rode up in an absolutely full van
(15 passengers + driver) and bikes and unicycles stuck all over it!
Front rack, rear rack and big top rack!
It was too hot yesterday to ride Downieville. We were really, really
beat at about the halfway point (green bridge). Drinking water &
Gatorade didn't seem to change this. Definitely choose a cooler day. We
figure it got up to around 95 while we were out on the trail. This is
way above normal. The high for Sacramento was 105 yesterday!
Downieville, which was part of the 2003 MUni Weekend, is an awesome ride
with 4000' of descent in either 14 o 17 miles. And there's plenty of
technical riding along the way, to the point of being relentless in some
areas. It just keeps going down, with bump after bump after bump!
Equipment notes:
- You want a brake. You can do the ride, of course, without one, but
you'll be sore for days unless you're a highly trained downhill
monster.
- You want a beefy, burly wheel. Read on to see what happened to me on
my spindly 29er.
- If it's as hot as yesterday, ride elsewhere. Otherwise, bring plenty
of water, plus food. We were on the trail for six hours!
- Use a KH seat. I was barely starting to be sore in the crotch at the
end of the ride. That was far better than any ride I've ever done of
similar distance!
- It's always good to bring a spare tube. Based on my experience, a
significant proportion of trail flats cannot be patched. Tire failures
on trails tend to be catastrophic!
- Along with your tube, make sure you have all the necessary tools to do
the actual repair.
I rode my 29er, which has a skinny rim and a tire I've hardly ridden.
The previous tire was destroyed in a massive blowout when I was riding
it last winter. I had to walk out of that one. I thought the 29er would
be great for the long miles of this trail, though I knew it wouldn't be
as fun on the technical parts, because I'd have to ride lightly.
WRONG! Every time I do this ride (now 4), I realize it's more technical
than the last time. This trail is fairly technical for at least 2/3 of
its distance! Though the 29er was very nice on the smoother parts, it
was no fun on the millions of rocks and little drops. My tire was always
trying to fold over and pop off the rim.
Until it finally did. WHOP! Uh oh. Remember that scene in Universe 2
where Jacinto's Trials tire pops out of the rim to huge proportions?
Mine did that. I scrambled to let some air out of the presta valve. It
didn't pop! After I'd let a bunch of air out, I stopped to take a
picture of this amazing phenomenon. There was this super-fat zig-zag of
tube popping out the side of my tire.
Big mistake. I should have kept letting air out. Before the camera could
turn on, POP! A 6" rent in my tube. Lucky for me, Steve had a whole 26"
tube in his pack. My savior! We weren't sure if it was going to fit, but
I'm sure it went on easier than a 29" tube on a Coker. Without that
lifesaving new tube, I would have been facing a walk of up to 10 miles.
It would have been the worst walk ever!
So I was able to continue riding, but now even more paranoid about
popping my tire off the rim again. At one point I did a little "flat"
drop off a root, and somehow landed wrong, felt the tire pop way out to
the side, and toss me to the ground. I rolled over on my Camelbak,
ending up covered in the moondust dirt the trail is coated in. My
Camelbak probably saved my camera, which was in my butt-bag below it.
Fortunately the tire had popped back into place.
I had a leak, and had to stop and pump up the tire four times on the
remainder of the ride. I was so tired the last time that I was almost
willing to just walk instead. But there was another 2 miles or so to the
car, so I'm glad I pumped.
Steve and Matt are hardcore mountain bikers, so they have conditioning
and skills from that sport. Credit Lloyd Johnson with helping them get
into unicycling. This was probably their first epic ride, and they did
great.
Except for the part where Matt had to deal with a very dangerous
cliffside retrieval. Right after dismounting on a cliff area above some
rapids, where his uni surely would have gone into the drink, we were
back on safe ground and I was thinking how lucky he was. Then he fell on
some tiny little bump, and the unicycle slid over the edge! It was
super-steep leafy, junky dirt, going about 120' or so down to the
swift-moving Downie River. The first tree didn't stop the uni, but the
second one did, about halfway down. We really could have used rope for
that one, but Matt managed to figure out how to get down there, and
worked out a route back up!
At the midpoint of the ride we stopped to dip ourselves into the river,
and wash off. Ice cold water! I put my feet in for a few minutes and
then they were numb. It felt great! Matt, Corbin and Louise went
swimming. Brrr! I thought about it, but that water was way too cold. I
know how good it would have felt to get out though, and to lower that
core body temp.
All in all it was another great ride, with great people, on one of the
greatest hard trails anywhere.
Postscript:
The first time I rode Downieville, I was sore for a whole week. I
couldn't walk down stairs. I had trouble sitting down in a chair! I
wanted to get some rides to work in this week, before leaving for NAUCC.
Normally my legs would be too messed up for this. So I decided to ride
to work this morning, before I got too sore. Now I'm here, and my legs
are much more sore and stiff than they were this morning. I think they
would have felt about the same with or without the ride.
The question is, should I ride home or bum a ride? It's supposed to be
106 this afternoon...
--
johnfoss - More Moab Fun
John Foss, the Uni-Cyclone
"jfoss" at "unicycling.com" -- www.unicycling.com
"Read the rules!" -- 'IUF Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/iuf/rulebook/) -- 'USA Rulebook'
(http://www.unicycling.org/usa/competition/)
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