Ride Report Downieville Gathering 2008

danngg one more year of missing this shiiatt!! maybe next year I can sneak away w/u monkeys!! :?:#-o great pics guys!! wish I was theer too!!:beer:

 

What an awesome place to ride!!! I truly hated to leave but after not having a shower for three days it was time to get home and scrub off all the built up dirt, sunblock, and bug spray:lol:. I seriously had to take two showers to get clean!

Great partying with Nam, Neil, the two Daves, Jared, Noel, Kurt, and everyone else that came to our camp. Oh, and if the opportunity ever arises do not bet against Chongoblanco to do anything, the guy is friggen NUTS!!!

I'll put up the few pics I got before my camera took a dump later tonight.

Here they are :



The climb up to Sunrise trail from camp



Jared enjoying the climb



Jared not enjoying the climb





Nam, Sleazy D, and Noel



Diamond Dave



Nam and Neil



my ride





Hanzo catching some Z's

 

^^^ what he said #-o

 

I am so jealous. I have quite the female erection right now.

 

Looks like a new signature is up for grabs for one of the women weekend warriors now!

 

ride report

Ride report

Ok, first of all this event was the bomb! If you were not there then you missed out an a fun event filled with great friends, great trails and good times.

Art23rockpile and I left on thurs at 5am and arrived 10 hours later at 3pm. We picked a sweet campsite and set up. We then chatted with steve (Kanja) and then we all went for a started ride up a semi techical singletrack climb up to Deer Lake. It was a tuff little 3 mile climb since my lungs had not adjusted to the altitude. We then came down the same route, very nice. Steve is a good rider, I tried to pick up whatever i could from him as far as skills go. Went back to the campsite and ate. Later some Nor Cal cool dudes set up at our camp site( sup Michigan Mat)

Friday got up early 7am and took our first run (17 miles) from packer saddle thru sunrise trail, to bucher ranch to 3rd divide to 1st divide.

Later did another run with Dean Art, Scott, Liz, jfsh and lynn. This run included 2nd divide. jfsh is a balsy rider, he rode crazy stuff like waterfall rock drops, logs etc. this night ended with late night hanging with good friends and good beer.

Saterday rode Big Boulder with a good rider named Sam and 2 Santa Cruz riders. This ride took 4-5 hours and included a bitch of a climb to high alltittude. The single track that followed the peak of big boulder was some of the best single track experience I have ever had, very secluded and sort of mystical. We then finished this ride thru some more singletrack then to 1st divide to Downieville.

Saterday evening was fun with a cool swag raffle that was donated by sponsors. Funny drinking games made the night very entertaining. The finally game called "Bike Sumo" pitted to bike gladiators riding 16inch kids bikes in a stable that resembled a cage. I voluntered with 5 other campers to compete in this by first having to drink a beer as fast as possible then smash the plastic cup on our heads. The first 2 got to fight it out in the cage with the winner being the person that knocked the other 2 out of 3 times. People where yelling, screamin directions and lauging uncontollably. It was some fun to try to pedddle this little bike and knock the other guy without using hands. After a hard fought battle, I ended winning a fork and ended up buzzed (doh!)

Sunday art, sam and i did once last run. I rode a Bionicon demo 6.5 big hit bike, these bikes rock, i ran so much faster and it was funner than my Trancex1 trail bike. I went over the bars out of plain stupidity ( i rode with my left hand on the bars and the right was off since I used it to take a pic). I went over thw bars again on 2nd divide my hitting a tree stump, damn it.

All in all, a fantastic weekend. My upper neck hurts, lower back, wrist, and legs are dead tired.

Meeting, riding and hanging with cool people like, jfsh (jeff), scott, lynn, liz, dean, art, michigan mat, mark, Kanga, Paul (bionicon) Ariel and Abbie (Yeti) and many many others made this a trip to remember.

By the way, any one see an extra Downieville drinking glass, mine was misssing:?:

Can't wait till next year

 

D Ville was fun, the trails are fun, beer is fun, good bro's to share it with....priceless!
I personally want to thank Tim, Noel, Jared, Sleazy D, Dirty D, Kurt and Nam for knocking this one out of the park! We rode hard, ate like sh#t and drank way too much but it was a "vacation" after all:beer: and I had a reputation to keep up so these poor guys were stuck with me:clap:!

I just about destroyed my Mamasita on Thursday's ride: Sunrise to Butcher to 3rd divide to 1st divide on my trusty 2.1's and 80mm's of travel was a bit rough in spots but I still held some good speed in spots:lol:!

Friday and Saturday Paul from Bionicon was nice enough to loan me a Super Shuttle and it ripped the trails apart..what a perfect bike for D Ville!

I actually was one of the few who did not flat in our group, surprising with how fast I felt I went through some of those rock sections:lol:

Here are some pix for your viewing pleasure from my house to the trails, a killer time!!!




Don't ask, it was late at night in a strange town!




Tim and Noel




Sleazy D!


The Road climb out of the campground

View from the road up


Finally to the top


Tim blazing down Sunrise


Sleazy D ripping it


Regroup

Jared blowing thru the "rocks"

 

more pix...

a few more pix:

lunch at the stream between Butcher and the Divides

The bridge


chillin under the misters at Yuba


Tallboys in a bag courtesy of QuadBoobs


next morning, shuttle to the top this time!


Elvis has left Waterfall

Sleazy D rolling thru Butcher




Jared


Dirty D


Jared feeling the heat after 2nd Divide

A Team Mann and Liz sighting!


Don't ask, just know that we LUV Kurt!

Justin making Waterfall look oh so easy....I hate him:lol:


Allison showing the boyz how to git r dun!


Sweet Kurt getting the line


Day 3, the road to Pauley with Dirty D and Paul from Bionicon


The hike a bike that broke me#-o

 

this is it, i promise!

the last of the pix:







Sleazy D, the man who can sleep anywhere:lol:


The raffle, lots of folks got lots of cool stuff that night!

Good times as always!

 

Amazing pics Neil. I can't get over how clear they are. What kind of camera were you using?

 

It's a x-mas gift from me

Canon Powershot SD900

 

Well, that cuts it--I'm in for next year. Save me a seat, Neil (I'll remind you periodically, say, weekly? ).

Thanks for the great reports and pics., everyone. The Downieville Board of Tourism might as well close shop and simply link to this thread! Looks like an absolute blast was had by all.

Would that be a she-rection? :wave:

 

Nice photos Neil and RR's everyone. Looks like we missed out on a great time. Anyone get to ride the Slayer Slopestyle that Kurt's on? What were your thoughts on it?

 

I don't know about anyone else but all I can think of is when are we going back....

 

What a trip

What can I say that hasn't already been said. I was lucky enough to roll with Scott, Lynn, and Steppie. We got to camp Thursday afternoon. We checked out where Neil was camping. We knew he had a rep to protect so we set up as far away from him as we could. :lol:

Friday was double shuttle day. We did Butcher, Third, First. What a great trail. I was behind Scott on Third divide and we must have been breaking the speed limit.
Lynn on Sunrise


Scott on Butcher


My new friend Erwin on Butcher


Steppie!


The crew


We did second divide on the second run. We got split up from Scott when he thought he was behind us but was really ahead. We tried to catch up to him but it was no use. We did have enough time for a few log rides.


We got back to camp for much deserved beer and food. This was the view from our camp site.


Day 2 and 3 to come.

 

Day 2

We wanted to check out as much as we could so we decided to explore the lakes basin. We did a spectacular ride in high alpine terrain. We only went up to 7000' but it felt like 10,000' in the Southern Sierras. It was a tough but very satisfying day. I will let the pics do the talking.
Off for another adventure.


Grassy Lake


Cool waterfall


Climbing by a weathered tree.


Contemplating life?




The higher we got the more spectacular it became


Lynn and Scott almost at the top. Can you find them?


Just another alpine lake This is one of perhaps 20 we rode by.




The trail rocky in spots


Taking a break as thunderstorms begin to build.


The happy ending






Sunday morning we wanted to get one more ride in before leaving. We decided on Tammerack and it was off the chart.


After a little climbing we got to the goods.




Unbelievable!








Perhaps my favorite photo of the weekend.


I was stoked to make this trip. It was great to see many familiar faces and meet some new ones. Scott, Lynn, Dean, Liz, Steve, Paul, Nam, Justin, Allison, it is always a pleasure. Erwin, Art, Sam, Neil, Grandpa, Andy, hope to ride with you again soon. I hope I didn't forget anyone. To my crew, there is room for you in the Chevy anytime!!!!

 

Holy crap Jeff, beautiful pics! :clap::clap::clap:

Man, I gotta get up there soon!

 

damn jeff, i really missed out on this ride. Awesome pics

 

Did you mean Santa Cruz owners or factory riders (maybe scouting the hellride)? If the latter can you provide more details on the route?

 

Sorry I missed it. Looks a lot like Tahoe. I compare all riding to two places...Tahoe & Sedona, everything is rated against those two. Is this only for a weekend? Do people go up earlier?

Looks like it was a little on the cool side as most folks are wearing heavier clothes.