Hell Ride

This didn't look like Hell.

Just a cute little town alongside the Yuba River in the Sierra Foothills. A gas station, a grocery store, a pizza joint, and three saloons. The sidewalks are wooden, and mining claims are still honored. In a whole county where there is only one stop light.

And, yet Downieville has three bike shops.

A couple of weeks ago I was in town for the Downieville Classic, and this past weekend I found myself in town once again. This time for Santa Cruz Bicycles’ “Hell Ride”.

The Hell Ride was a national internet contest in which the two winners, a guy and a girl, would try to keep up with Mark Weir and myself for the chance to win a Santa Cruz Nomad. But, Eddie, the winner from Atlanta, and Rae, a 32 year old veterinarian from Pittsburg would really have to do some riding. If they couldn’t finish the ride, no Nomad. Maybe just a tee shirt and a long flight home.

Twelve hours of inferno heat, 14,000 feet of climbing, and not nearly enough water all for a “free” bike? With Mark Weir setting the tempo?

Going on any ride with Weir can be Hellish. Weir is not human. He doesn’t care if he is on a single speed, a DH bike, a 24-hour or even a free ride, Weir has as much compassion for his riding partners as he would for a crushed bug. This guy’s a larger than life morale crusher and smack-talker and everyone loves him.

As it turns out I was also as cruel to Rae. Unintentionally, though, because I missed the ‘map meeting’. Rae and I, and some other friends, blazed our way up and down the mountains from 8:30am until it got dark. No one told me that the ride map would be penciled out for the first time on a Topo during the Map Meeting that I decided to sleep through. No one told me that I, who possesses less than the normal sense of direction, was supposed to be the ride ‘leader’ for our group. That I would fill and empty my 100-oz hydration pack six times and still run out of water for the last two hours. That it would be so hot bugs couldn’t even generate enough aerodynamic lift to fly. That in order to stay cool I’d have to jump in the river every hour or so which meant that I’d be pedaling all day in soaking wet chamois which would turn my butt into the mother of all monkey-butts.


Marla and Rae at one of the more relaxing moments of their ride...

I only survived the Hell Ride because I was on a Nomad. It pedals like nothing else. I was climbing technical stuff where I normally would be pushing. That Nomad made the descents fun hours after they should no longer have been. I wouldn’t have found the feeble glow of Downieville’s neon beer signs on any other bike.

Rae really deserved to win her Nomad. She was a real trooper. And though I didn’t intend to, I was as cruel to her as Weir was to Eddie. Packing up my things in the hotel we were sharing I accidently swiped her L’Oreal skin creme. Oops. At least she gets to keep her Nomad.