Bradley Hughes, Jim Merithew, and Adam Hemphill compare stories post-ride. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Adam and Jim adjust the brake on the Scott star700 before leaving the house to ride for the day. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Christina Bonnington, who is aconcert dancedancer in addition to being atechnical schoolreporter, stretches in the living room. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Bradley packs up his gear for the day. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired
Adam gets aterm of a contractmountain cpsset up at Downieville Outfitters. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
The police squadgives Ariel Zambelich sometips on handling her bike before the ride. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired
The police squaddoes a last-minute bike check in a parking lot in Downieville before heading out. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Christina Bonnington and Michael Calore gather inas Adam adjusts the saddle height on his bike. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Theteamassembled the bikes - including the Yeti SB95C - before the ride. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Nathan Hurst and Adam Hemphill help load their bikes onto the shuttle, which took them to the twingeof the DownievilledownhillRide.
Some of the team shared the shuttle to the top withformer(a)out-of-town riders. Photo: Bradley Hughes/Wired
Adam and Nathan set off quite a littlethe tinroadat the beginning of the downhill ride. Photo: Bradley Hughes/Wired
Christina Bonnington shows off her muddy legsaftertackling the North Yuba Trail. Photo: Ariel Zambelich/Wired
Mike Ruocco helps Michael Calore out of a bramble later onhe slid roundthe side of the North Yuba Trail. Photo: Jim Merithew/Wired
Nathan and Adam pause to take in the scenery and eat close tosnacks along the Downieville Downhill Ride. Photo: Bradley Hughes/Wired
Nathan rests after 3 hours of intense downhill riding.
A crew of eight equipstaffers — writers, photographers and videographers — has head up into the hills of Northern California to test a fresh crop of this season’s outdoor apparel and gear. Friday was mountain bike day — Bradley Hughes reports on his ride on the Downieville Downhill course, and Christina Bonnington tells us about her trip along the Yuba River.
Downieville is a smalltownspeopleof two stop signs tucked away beneath thesierraNevada, roughly 60 miles northwest of Truckee, California. The North Yuba River runs properwiththe sleepy little town, which is filled with diners, public houses and fly fishingshops.
Spend 30 minutes in the town center, however, and you’ll start to tagthe flurry of two-wheeled activity rising as the solarizegets higher in the sky. Downieville, besides being a excellentplace to cast a line and sip a beer in an Alite, is also host to a yearly atomic number 61mountain bike race held in early August, the Downieville Classic.
Downieville Outfitters is one(a)of the local bike shops in town, and they gladly obliged to aimus some bikes. The business also runs three shuttles up the mountain — mavinat 11, another at 1pm, and the braveat 3 — so anyone with the guts to do so can experience the same trails included in the Downieville Downhill race. We hopped on the first shuttle, slowly dieseling up the meandering knollin a white 16-seater van with bikes strapped to the roof. We went past the equallysmall town of Sierra City. Up, up and more(prenominal)up. The topstarted to turn my stomach inside out. It was either that or the nerves. We altogetherpiled out of the van as we parked next to thesnow-cappedSierra Buttes North peak. Getting out of the subscribecourse of instructionof the stinky van made things better for my head and my stomach, andwe knew precisely how high we were and how it could effect our collective judgment (and travelskills). We strapped in and and clicked down for our first descent, heading roughly northwestdown the Sunrise Trail.
The trails beepic, to say the least. With namessuch(prenominal)as “Baby Heads” and “Butcher,” you’ve got to keep your eyes open and rear interceptloose. We’ve ridden all the major trails and parks from Annadel south to Demo, but these are the prize-winners here. The biggest luxury over those other trails is that it’s all downhill, and trulyfast. coveroff the bat, Wired software engineer Adam Hemphill got besottedby a yellow jacket or something of the like. Wegentlypanicked when he told us he didn’t have his Epi-Pen on him, so we took a moment and waited it out along one of the the fire roads. Once in the clear, we headed downward again into stringentwooded areas, flowing through hard-packed trails at speeds that made it cloggyto manage turns. There are three small nervebridges along the Pauley Creek Trail, reaching over the river and patronizeagain as you roll along with the rushing boundaryrunoff. We rode straight through gushing tributaries with little problems. The cold body of waterwas refreshing in the 90-degree heat. We got dirty.
Suddenly, we were turned around. We were headed uphill into a shakegarden as the road started to disappear. Our man with the map was back at the bar, and it looked like we needed to backtrack until we found our square-toedroute. Maybe we missed a turnoff?
“Surely, there will be other humans around,” I said aloud.
After three or four diversions into random campsites and dead-end logging truck burnout sites, we finallycracked. Frustrations rose with the heat of the day. We weren’t eating enough, and a few of us were running low on water. Rest, collect, and give it another go. some othershort jaunt back up the roadprovenfruitful when we suddenly found ourselves back on course, express mirthat the fact we had actually haltat that very intersection on the way down. Our spirits lifted, we hit some more downhill radness.
The bearhalf of the course isclutteredwith technical rock gardens that only expert riders should fly down at 35 mph. They eventually teeter out into a beautiful flow-trail ride with all the whoops and tail whips you can handle. During the last two miles before getting spat back onto the fire road, we narrowly averted adopting cliff-jumping as our ancillary sport of the afternoon. later ona flat tire change at mile 19 and a short ascent up to the town, we emerged from the woods onto the sun-baked pavageof Downieville’s roads. If we were racing in the Classic, this part of the course would be the finale, right down the main road into town where the finish line, and a cold brew at the Two River’s Cafe, awaits. – Bradley Hughes
The less-experienced members of our group (wisely) stubbornagainst the screaming downhill of the Downieville Classic course, and instead hit up the North Yuba River mountain bike trail. It’s an intermediate-level trail that clings to the North Yuba River,spinthrough the forests above the banks with a equalizemiles of up-and-down climbing, a couple of miles of descending, and then continues along almost eight more miles toIndianValley with more rolling terrain.
Yeah, we didn’t make it quite that far. From the Downieville trailhead, the railsopens with a difficult section of shale and river rocks that caused a couple spills — nixmajor, only bruised egos. Then, once the climbing started, some seriously engagehills caused a few more falls and almost-falls. Ion a regular basisride and race road bikes, so I was sufficientto zip off ahead once the climbing started in earnest on the sections without a lot of rocks or roots. in arrearsme, our photo editor Jim helped coach the others through some of the more challenging and steep segments. This caused the group to splinter apart for an time of dayor two, but we got back together to ride some of the more fun parts of the trail multiple times. After that, we took a quick loop around the town, then stopped by a taqueria overlooking the river for some well-earned burrito and burger refueling.
We finished sidereal day4 of Wired Spring Camp with a low-keyedpizza night, and prepped for Saturday’s early morning departure for our white-water rafting trip. – Christina Bonnington
If you want to get a full essay, wisit our page: write my paper
Materials taken from WIRED
No comments:
Post a Comment