|   Important Downieville Gathering UPDATE | Zonic Man
Mar 24, 2003 12:42 AM | | Monday, March 24, 2003 Update
Right now, the rides are looking like this:
Friday:
Straight Shuttle day, including, but not limited to the possibility of doing the Downieville XC course (if you do this and the other 2 full day rides, you're crazy) or other straight "shuttle" runs. There will not be "formal" guided rides this day, but Yuba Expeditions in town has great maps and all the trails basically go to on placedown.
I'll probably be doing a quick run down mid-morning in order to get back to camp to set up and meet and greet people so they don't get confused or not feel welcome.
Saturday: Big ride day.
Advanced/"A" group: Ride UP from Downieville to Packer Saddle via Gold Valley Road. Continue climb to Deer Lake Overlook. Down double track into Gold Valley.cross Pauley Creek and Climb up Big Boulder. Down Big Boulder to Third Divide. If you're f-ing nuts, choose Second Divide. First Divide into town.
I cannot stress enough the difficulty of this ride. On other gatherings I have gone to, many people who join the "advanced" ride would die on this ride (like more than 2/3 of them). This ride STARTS with a 15 mile climb, LITERALLY. Then you have probably 25 more miles after that. BE PREPARED.
Ride leaves at 9 a.m. at Pizza Joint in Downieville (only pizza place, and Downieville is VERY tiny.) Lots of parking at this time of the morning.
Advanced "miss the climb" group: Meet at Fiddle Creek Campground, where shuttle will pick us up. Limited to first 24 people on shuttles. Option of taking private transportation as well.. that's up to you. Yuba Expeditions reduced the shuttle ride fee to $12 for our group.
Shuttle leaves at 10 a.m. from the campsite/ private shuttles meet at Packer saddle at 11:30.
This ride is the same as the "A" group ride except for the climb from downtown Downieville to Pauley Creek. Still 3000' of climbing and 30 miles. Probably 7000' of descending, mostly on singletrack.
"B" ride: Shuttle leaves at 12:00 from the campsite. Limited to first 24 people on the shuttles. Meet at 1:30 at Packer Saddle for private shuttlers.
Ride consists of climb up to Deer Lake Overlook, down double track to Gold Valley, Gold Valley to Pauley Creek singletrack, Pauley Creek to lower Butcher Ranch singletrack, Butcher to Third Divide, Third to First Divide.
NOTE ON YUBA SHUTTLES: Greg at Yuba Expeditions has been good enough to give us a discount on the shuttles and on reserving straight shuttles for us. If you are interested in one or more shuttles, reservations will be announced at a later time.
20+ miles, 1500' of climbing, 5500' of descending.
"C" (or "easy") ride: Meet at Fiddle Creek Campsite at 10:00 a.m. Caravan the 25 miles or so to Bullard's Bar Reservoir trails, where Battman42 (Tim Battaglia) is leading a group of intrepid souls around the beautiful buffed singletrack skirting Bullard's Bar. This ride will be all singletrack, all low profile, and all fun. The climbing is minimal, and the views are beautiful. Ride length will vary according to ability of the group.
Sunday:
North Yuba to Hall's Ranch to Fiddle Creek.
This ride loop leaves and returns right to the campground on Highway 49, making it easily accessible to leave town at a decent hour. Maps will be provided and available at the Gathering events, and at Yuba Expeditions. The maps are free of charge.
If you are a beginner, you can be challenged by the North Yuba Trail, and then return back to the campsite via riding the road back along the scenic North Yuba River.
If you are more inclined, and you aren't too hung over and want to ride some more sweet singletrack, you can hop onto Hall's Ranch trail and continue the loop.
This loop is 27 miles total, and literally feels like 40. It's painful and long, but oh so sweet, with basically all of it singletrack, except for connecting North Yuba to Hall's Ranch via a 2 mile stretch of riding along Highway 49.
Guides:
This is where I need you peoples' help. Guides, as we found at AZSF, are VERY important. You need to be able to wait for people at intersections, actually be able to sweep and/or lead a group, and be willing to put up with problems that may or may not come up on the trail. (Hopefully NOT.)
Guides are looking like this:
Hammerhead Group Sat. A.M.:
Lead: Merlin (Nevada City, CA)
Sweep: Tiggerider (Fruita, CO)
"A" Group Ride Sat. A.M.:
Lead: Zonic Man (Sacramento, CA)/ Big Boulder (Auburn, CA)
Middle "cleanup" Position: Jilm (Sacramento, CA)
Sweep: JFR (Rancho Cordova, CA)/ Finch Platte (Stockton, CA)
"B" Group Ride Sat. A.M.:
Lead: pfft (Cool, CA)
Sweep: NEED A PERSON TO FILL IN SWEEP PLEASE
"C" Group Ride Sat.:
Lead: Battman42 (Cobb, CA)
Sweep: NEED A PERSON TO FILL IN SWEEP PLEASE
Sunday A.M:
UNDETERMINED, RIDE TO LEAVE AT 10(ish) FROM CAMPSITE. NEED RIDE LEADERS AND SWEEPERS FOR THIS DAY THAT KNOW THE TRAIL.
Lead "A": Cruizy (Sacramento, CA)
Sweep "A": Merlin (Nevada City, CA)
Lead "B": Zonic Man (Sacramento, CA)
Sweep "B": Big Boulder (Auburn, CA)
NOTE: If you know these trails well, and are willing to lead/sweep a ride, PLEASE email me back and let me know ASAP. It's a very important job, and I need help keeping it all together.
And now a note on SWAG.
Everyone likes Swag. It's good. We found out at AZSF how cool it could be to get great stuff. But I got a lot of REALLY nice stuff to give away, and a TON of little stuff (like pint glasses, lube, t-shirts, stickers, blah blah blah.)
Because it's not about the swag, but about us coming together, Cruizy, myself, and others will be handing out to EACH PERSON THAT ACTUALLY RIDES at the gathering a "goodie bag". This goodie bag will have stuff for everyone in it, including HammerGel samples, stickers, key chains, and a limited edition Jericho/Downieville Gathering Pint Glass to drink your FREE beer from.
To cut down on time, the bags will randomly have the "little stuff" thrown into them, like the afore-mentioned stuff, plus: cool tools, pumps, t-shirts, hats, hydration packs, "Buffs"®, videos, more pint glasses, lubes, Thomson stems, saddles, tires, etc. etc. If you get cool stuff in yours, good for you. If you get screwed, too bad for you. No whining about not getting something, no wanting to trade, blah blah blah. Be happy with what you are given and go talk to someone you don't know for the love of god.
EACH GOODIE BAG WILL HAVE A RAFFLE TICKET IN IT AS WELL. The Raffle ticket is good for the big ticket items, like wheel sets, bike stands, Fox Forx, 5th Element shocks, On-One Frames, e13 chainguides, Heim 3-ringChainguides, Crankbrothers Eggbeater pedals, etc. etc. etc.
We want the "good stuff" to get handed out, but with mucho excitement and expediency as well, so we can get to fraternizing, er.. socializing.
Lastly, I NEED YOUR HELP. If you can help at all contribute to this deal, email me. Again, as I always say, if you are going to attend FOR SURE, email me with your MTBR screen-name (or real name if you aren't an MTBR geek) and hometown so I can get an accurate count. My email is DownievilleGathering2003@hotmail.com
HOTEL NOTE: They are filling up fast in Downieville if you are not camping. Get a hotel room reserved NOW, seriously.
OUT OF TOWNERS: You can ship your bike now to Yuba Expeditions in Downieville if you want. If you want to ship your bike, you have to have a UPS call tag sent for the pick-up as Greg doesn't have a UPS account, but the Driver WILL pick up if you purchase a return shipping.
Again, Reno-Tahoe International Airport and Sacramento International Airport are both 2 hours away, and rental cars are available at both locations. Yuba Expeditions will pick up at Reno-Tahoe airport if the group is large enough. Contact Greg at Yuba for more information. yuba@nccn.net
CONTACT: Again, if you need to contact me, email me at DownievilleGathering2003@hotmail.com
Thanks,
Jed (AKA Zonic Man) |
| Zonic, you have pushed me over the edge | radair
Mar 24, 2003 6:00 AM | | Booked flights this morning, June 24 to July 2.
Anyone want to hook up in Tahoe on Wed., 6/25?
East coasters: flights are cheap - $222 for ManchVegas, NH to Reno, NV round trip!! |
| Eme | Finch Platte
Mar 24, 2003 6:46 AM | | swagkingathotmaildotcom
fp |
| Idiot of the day award. | Pete.
Mar 24, 2003 8:55 AM | | Quick! Duck!
Something just flew over your head! |
| Saturday's "A" ride sounds close to the WSSC route | shiggy
Mar 24, 2003 10:19 AM | | It was only 40 miles or so and
i everyone
did it with one gear. It was fun!
I will be running the Cascade Cream Puff 100 that weekend. |
| True and False. | Zonic Man
Mar 24, 2003 10:33 AM | | Add 5 miles from town up to Gold Valley Road.
Add 5 miles for First Divide.
Then you have the same route.
Oh yeah, from what I hear, not everyone completed Big Boulder, but was sent down Pauley..... |
| But we did have to ride up from town! | scorcher seb
Mar 24, 2003 10:50 AM | | And dammit I just about rode all the way up Big Boulder too! And at least 2 of the UK guys went a ways down Pauley and turned around and went back up Big Boulder, which must have added about an hour of riding!
Ok, that's enough exclamation marks for one day!
;o) |
| Liar! | Zonic Man
Mar 24, 2003 10:52 AM | | !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Oh, sorry. |
| re: Important Downieville Gathering UPDATE | Ebo
Mar 24, 2003 11:13 AM | | Hey Jed. Are we there yet? I have two friends (Sharkman and Chuck) meeting up with us in Downieville. Should be able to sweep Saturday's Bullards Bar ride for Battman42 and maybe help out Big Boulder sweeping on Sunday's North Yuba/Halls Ranch ride. Cheers. P.s. - still planning to get there early Thursday to secure a campsite. |
| Thanks. | Zonic Man
Mar 24, 2003 7:11 PM | | Appreciate it. Will put you down for sweeping both rides Sat. and Sunday.
Your buddies are welcome! |
| Will there be a dance contest? (nm) | SLF
Mar 24, 2003 11:45 AM | | |
| question on weather. | Richard
Mar 24, 2003 2:53 PM | | What are the low's at night?
How are the trail conditions (snow?)? |
| I predict there will be weather. | shiggy
Mar 24, 2003 6:07 PM | | They had weather there last October.
You can keep an eye on it here. |
| answer on weather. | Zonic Man
Mar 24, 2003 7:10 PM | | In late june, probably 75 degrees in the day time, max of 80.
At night, probably 45 degrees-ish.
No snow, USUALLY, highly unlikely. Most likely PERFECT trail conditions as they'd really be snow free only about 3 weeks realistically.
Probably a 1 in 30 chance of rain coming that weekend. (Let's hope!) |
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