Ancient Peaks Race Ride Report...

Preliminary report,
Rode with Bryguy,MintSauce,Bizobby,Mcmtb,DaveMatthews, Andys entourage which one local from San Bernadino who also took podium.

Great riding with other DH riders from Santa Cruz,San Fran,Napa,Fresno etc.

All looking for new dirt with a shuttle.

Practiced a lot on Saturday on the pro expert line most of got five runs in.

The shuttle is long for 30 min fir 4 min of riding.

Great trail except fir the ominous rock garden that spilled almost every rider very technical and choppy with a great drop, but the obstacle stops good flow
unless your Nate or Rich Lancaster who apparently bunny hop it.

I'll break down the trail from start to finish.
I did not wear a helmet cam so bare with me.

The start is fuckin fast prob topping 35mph plus than hard left into treeline, loose shale blown out (stay high), big flow drop you can roll as well which is better because landing is shale and blown out, some very quick left and right turn 25 ft decents in the trees, some good step downs, and the ladder drop looks bigger as you approach but more of a sender than deep, landing is soft and great opp to change gears the berms are awesome, the triple is long not too many of us cleared the whole thing but all ye Pirates for shore cleared the double, the approach to the Rock drop comes off a right turn the rock garden is best approached from left to right to left than left for the step down some really fast tight lines similar to lower skids with two more natural step downs.

Great vision in the construction of and irrigation of the trail. The owner is stoked about building on his property and the potential is limitless.

The 4 min runs are worthy for the 30 min shuttle on a stake bed truck.

For locals this is paradise, for us down here, more worthy to do along with other SLO trails, or on your way to Santa Cruz.

Thanks to Adam and Bobby girlfriends for watching my boy while I practiced and on the sidelines. I really do appreciate it.

My son is getting more and more exposed to the dh community at these races so alot was accomplished.

I hope all the riders made it of make it home safe.

My time by the way was 4:30 in sport.

Great times GP alot of great DH riders all willing and spotting each other on the tech parts even total strangers helping each other it was a great site.

The local beer is great and it was free at the bottom.

Big turn out overall,lots of locals.

Elevation loss is 2100 feet..

Most imprtorantly DaveMatthews took podium in 3rd at Beginner and he was handing out free beer.

Awesome! That was one race I had planned on making. Oh well. Sounds like no disasters...and free beer. Nice combo.

Thanks for the rr mike, would have liked to be there but had a rare weekend chillin' at home. Is this trail open to ride outside of race runs?

It will be soon 30$ all day shuttle and box lunch!!!

Results are posted

http://www.ancientpeaksclassic.com/results.php

Sounds like a great time 2g. Now to find the photos and vids.

Bobby had his helmet cam and there was alot of photographers for the race and practice.

Most if us were blinded by the flash if a camera on an obstacle or two.

On my first run I crashed in the rock garden and could not get balanced so I walked the line and this guy kept taking pics I had to tell him STOP!

This video below is a 4min run I finished at 4:30, it's a fast fun course, all of us were hitting that ladder at high speed which was a blast.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ix1iJDo1nlA&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Just so everyone knows, this race was freakin sweet.

raced DH, and the course was quite gnarly, and totally deserving of riding a big bike on.

the very top is a wide-open firebreak. mike said 30ish MPH, but some of the faster experts and pros were leaning on 45MPH down that part. the next part is steep, loose, and has lots of tight, kinda bermed out
corners. think of skiing on a DH bike, except its over rocks. there's a
couple good drops tucked in here and there as well. the jumps in the
middle are great too. the step-down to huge berm is fantastic, and you
can easily fly a good 30+ feet off of it into 2 of the sweetest berms
ever. then its a double/stepdown, and a really big step-up triple.

then theres a good bit of fast, flat or off-camber sweepers that are
super fun and drifty, a few dialed berms (with some trees thrown in for
good measure). some more loose turns, a small step down, and you end up
at the rock garden. beg/sport take a mellow low line. pro/ex take the
gnar gnar line. chunky rocks garden, pedal grabber slot you've got to
ride through, then there's a blown out 3' drop onto a kinda blown
singletrack. sketch for sure, but nuts when you get it down. this is
followed by a solid pinballer rock garden. then there's a few more
crazy loose turns, one pretty sweet jump, and a bunch of sweepers to the
finish.

fantastic course though, Nate really did a great job with it. everyone
was talking about the gnarliness, but everyone was super stoked about it
at the same time.

So yea, when this rolls around next year, I suggest making the trip.
its definitely a good race. very well organized, you get a bunch of
swag (t-shirts, etc), sick courses (I hear the XC was quite good), and
just a good weekend. I also hear that they did well enough this year
that they will be planning a bunch of improvements for next year (like
firming up some corners on the DH, and possibly adding a slalom course).

and as for me, I had a kinda blah run, got 17th in expert (3:29 on the day), but I didnt
die, so I'm good. I had 2 pretty big mistakes that probably knocked about 15 seconds off my time, so it's okay. poison oak is a different matter (bring technu!)

unfortunately, unless you know people, the trails are going to be closed to riding until the next race. even if you do know people, you likely aren't getting out there to ride, and you'd better be carrying a shovel and a bunch of water if you do.

oh, and for photos, check out Ian's (downhillnews) stuff, he does a good job of making slow people like myself look faster...

http://downhillnews.smugmug.com/Sports/Downhill-Racing

Yep, was a really fun course, as everyone described. Seems like pretty much everyone went down or OTB at least a few times over the weekend, there were a few really soft corners where line choice is critical. The organizers were really cool about taking suggestions on the course and the race in general, you could tell as later Saturday they stared getting water on some of the soft spots and building up the turns.

I imagine next year it will be even better. Free beer at the end was pretty nice.

Here is my race run, felt pretty good even after two crashes :)

Friggen schweet! Course looks fast and loose.

Very fast and very loose it was. At least all of downhill riders enjoyed each others misery.

On our first run at approximately 40 min after the shuttles started there was bodies all along the trail.

We all as a DH community on that trail became progressively better.

You guys better enjoy this pic, just dropped 14 bucks for it lol

The shadow is cool. That's a fun part of the trail. The distance covered in air is awesome off that drop is awesome, it looks bigger than it until you land 20 ft or so beyond it!!

Good Job Bobby!!!

Sweet pic Bobby!!! Good thing you are not as tall as Bryan or you'd have been knocked out or at least off.

HazzMattLewin wrote:Sweet pic Bobby!!! Good thing you are not as tall as Bryan or you'd have been knocked out or at least off.

Haha seriously. I didn't realize how close my head got to the tree. Didn't even notice it honestly.

damn...I dont even want to know how close my head came to that tree then. it never looked that low to me. maybe its just the angle. sweet pic though!

all of the jumps on that course were super sick though. that one, the big step down into the berms (which put you into warp drive somehow), the big step up, all nuts...

still trying to decide whether I wanna drop some coin to get this lovely shot: http://downhillnews.smugmug.com/Sports/Downhill-Racing/2011-Ancient-Peaks-Downhill/18208439_J3VL53#1399575944_jx4rvtT