H does D'ville!

So, I never managed to compress the video for my last day in Tahoe way back when. Oh well. In between now and then, I did a fair amount of local riding. At least for a while. The last 6 weeks or so, school was absolutely kicking my ass....21 credits of graduate level Mech Eng courses will do that to you. But, last week I turned in my last final on Thursday Morning. I was determined to go somewhere cool to ride.

Ended up hanging around until H could get off work. I loaded put the camper on the truck and otherwise got ready. I think we left sometime around 7pm and rolled into a campsite near Downieville at about 1 am.

I had been wanting to get H to ride some neat trails with a bit more of a technical challenge than what we have been getting out at Fort Ord. Her fitness hasn't developed a whole lot, mostly due to her schedule over the summer limiting her to one ride a week a best. That and she isn't "addicted" to MTB yet (there is still hope though!). However, her confidence on the bike has taken great leaps and strides...mostly after building up the new bike for her. So, I figgured Downieville was a good option with plenty of technical challenges (all do-able) with not as much of a cardio challenge since you can shuttle the most popular runs there.

Day 1, we get up and drive to the top. There was some debate as to what the best approach was. That is, is it better to drive into town and try to get on a shuttle to the top, or just drive to the top (a hell of a lot closer to where we were camped) and hope we could catch a shuttle back to the top later on. Based on my previous experience there at the begining of the summer, I figured it shouldn't be too much of a problem for at least one of us to jump on a shuttle to go fetch the truck. So, we drove to the top with fingers crossed on catching a shuttle back up later on.

We hit the single track on Sunrise trail. I was encouraged to see H ride many features that I myself would have hesitated quite a bit just 5 years ago. She was doing really well! Then, we hit the OHV section of Butcher's Ranch. Mostly a fast paced jeep road. I looked back to see her catching little bits of air! She was having a good time! Then we hit the single track of Butcher's. I forgot how rocky it was. The rocks weren't so friendly to H. Despite being padded up with helmet, elbow/forearm pads, knee and shin pads...she managed to find enough spots of her body against the rocks on 3 separate occasions. Things weren't looking as good. But, after taking it slow and trying to talk her through some section, she got a little more confident and was soon back to having fun.

Here is a pic of H and the bike after she was having fun again:

We got down to the bottom to find that Yuba just ran their last shuttle for the day. Went to D'ville Outfitters were told they had only one shuttle left in a couple of hours and it was full, but come back by just before 3pm (the shuttle time) to see if anyone drops out. So, we grab sandwiches and I start to mentally prepare to do the 3-4000 foot climb back up to grab the truck. H talks to someone who says they are on the 2 pm shuttle with D.O. Hmmm they told us 3pm . So we go check it out and find 4 other folks looking to get in on a shuttle. D.O. guy says to check back with him after he gets back...and he *might* consider adding another run. We go to Yuba and if we sweeten the deal for the driver...we have a ride up. Sweet! I don't have to kill myself getting to the top! And we both get to go up together....


Day 2, she dropped me off at the top to get in a solo run. Plan was to meet her in town and catch a shuttle back up to the top together to get in another run together. I was having a blast sailing right down the mountain. Passed ALOT of folks on the way down. The Ventana was working well, brake issues finally behind me. Then, my rear hub started acting up. If I stopped pedaling, the cassette wanted to keep moving, slacking the upper portion of the chain. Well, the chain eventually blew up. I bent two links and flat out lost the power link. I had a spare power link with me and had to cobble the chain back up in the two spots where the links were bent. Made it into town and had the LBS look at the hub. Couldn't be fixed right away. Riding the Ventana for this trip was no longer going to happen.

However, H really wanted to get in that afternoon run and asked if I'd rent a bike so that we could do a run. Nice! After taking a beating the first day, she wanted to do it again! Unfortunately, they didn't have a Nomad or Bullit to rent...all they had left was a heckler, which is roughly comprable to the Ventana...running the same suspension setup I have on the Ventana.

So, we did the run, and apparently she had blast. Played tag with a group of 3 girls and 1 guy who were riding (2 of the girls were riding there for their first time, I think) and H made some cycling friends that added to the overall enjoyment of the run. Even better, she figured out on her own some of what caused her to go down the previous day and managed to finish her second run without going down.


Here is a pic while she shows how it is done on a bit of a drop:

And, the topping on the cake is that she wanted to ride again on Sunday! We didn't as I didn't feel like spending $100 for 1 run two days in a row (actually 75 for the bike rental and 22 for the shuttle).

Hopefully we will get to do more fun riding soon.....