Although it was stated that not too much happens in Downieville, we were mistaken…this weekend for sure. It so happens that the Downieville Classic mountain bike race is this weekend aka the all mountain world championships. There are two races: the cross country which is a 27 mile point to point which climbs 4500 ft and descends about 6000 ft (mostly on the downhill course), and the all mountain category in which racers must race the cross country on Saturday and the 20 mile downhill course, Sunday, with the combined time being the winner. The catch is that in order to compete in the all mountain category one must use the same bike in both races (tires, wheels, everything must be identical…should make things interesting). The all mountain category sold out online in 3 minutes, while the cross country took about a day. A total of 800 racers will take the trails in a town whose population is around 500. Tyler and I were talking this afternoon and were both saying that this is the first race in a long time that we would be really keen to try, as it is a true test of fitness and of mountain bike handling skill.





This town is alive with bikers we ran into our second world champion this afternoon, Brian Lopes on the trail yesterday and had lunch next to 15 year world cup veteran and Swiss mountain bike legend Tomas Frischknecht. There are team trailers from Sram, Scott, and Santa Cruz just to name a few. This weekend sound like it will be quite the “time”, the party starts Friday night with the xc, river jump (massif jump into the river), pixie cross (an obstacle course around town on 12” kids bikes), and steet party on Saturday with the downhill on Sunday to cap things off. We should have tons of pictures to show you all the happenings.





Anyway, you are all probably wondering how we are doing? Moral is high with between 20 to 40 miles, 90% downhill, being covered a day. A few flats and crashes (no injuries, just a few scrapes all around), and very sore wrists! Although out wallets are being hit equally hard with multiple shuttle runs and deli sandwiches (Maclainer you know what I’m talking about). Here are some pictures to show and a video should appear over the next few days.