Races
Downieville was good this year. Not as hot and NO smoke, which was much nicer. I took the XC super easy, but running a single 36t up front means you are still going to work just to make it up the climb. I wanted to try and save some legs for the DH, which we all know is basically a short XC race with 1000ft of climbing. I would sum it up as 20min of true downhilling and 25min of pedaling (flats & climbs), so being XC fit is much more beneficial than having the DH skills of Steve Peat. Anyway, I had a smooth DH run, suffered at the half way mark up the main climb, but felt better on all the pedaling than last year. Happy with my time of 45min59sec, 1min 25sec faster than my time last year, but still ended up in 5th, though I think there was a bit more competition this year.
Adam Craig killed it in the XC along with Sid Taberly, but in the DH Jason Moeschler & Ross Schnell finished 2nd & 3rd, not too far off the pace of Adam who took that win as well. Jason was 21sec back and Ross was another 10 or so seconds behind Jason.
Next up for me is the Enduro Des Nations in France where I am teaming up with Mark Weir and Jason Moeschler. I think we have a pretty good team, very diverse in skills, so looking forward to a new event that will require different strategy.
Posted by Brian on July 15, 2009 9:45 AM