Just got home a couple days ago from 5 days up north. My first stop was to check out Downieville since I have never been there and I am racing there in a couple months. I met Scot Nicol from Ibis, Mark Weir the DH Champion of D ville, Jason Moeschler the XC Champ of D ville, my old Mongoose teammate and friend Ira Vick and a handfull of others.
The first two days were spent on the DH course, but not shuttling, riding up as much as we could until the snow was just too much. We made it up about half way or maybe two thirds the most. The bottom half of the course had some fast fun sections, but it also has some serious pedaling. I can tell this will be a tough race & that is probably a good reason Weir does good here, because he is a tough bastard.
The third day I rode another trail about 5 miles out of town with Scot Nicol. It was a mixture of constant ups and downs. Pretty fun, but with the 90+ degree heat the snakes were out. The first rattle snake I heard in time to stop, getting my heart rate up. The second one I never even saw, but I heard it when I went by and according to Scot who was about 10 ft behind me, the thing must have been on the uphill side and struck at me. Scot thought it hit my back pack, but I have no idea. I just heard it and it scared the shit out of me.
After cleaning up, we went into town for a shake before hitting the road back to Santa Rosa where Scot lives.
Monday we met Weir for a road ride which could have been one of the best road rides I have ever done. 50 miles, 4800 ft of climbing and until we dropped onto HWY 1 we only saw about 5 cars.
Monday night I went out to dinner with Mark, his wife Suzie, and one of Mark's friends. Tues started off with us going to a friends 800 acre ranch for some moto riding, followed by lunch and a late session on the pump track.
I took off to meet an old friend for dinner and then started my drive home. Drove about 3 hours, slept at a rest stop, woke up and drove another 3 hours to MTB Action where they wanted to take some pictures of my bike for an "inside the pros" shoot. I got out of there before 1 and made it home without hitting traffic.
Good times were had and I can't wait to get back up to D ville for the race so I can check out the upper section and have some fun.