Downieville Registration

Once again more news coming out of the world of Singletrack, which has become my default checking out regularly updated domestic MTB news. Despite the fact I started to loathe Velonews for turning into Lance/Astana News, Singletrack seems to be lacking that. I orginally was planning to attempt to craft together some elegant posting about what Contador and Specialiazed should do regarding their new TT bike being banned. However, I can't stand Specialized so I didnt feel like wasting more than 10 minutes at a time towards them, instead I offer a quick suggestion to the guys. Fast forward to 0:45 of this YouTube clip for the Flying Scotsman, and start planning to have Contador modify the TT bike with a hacksaw before leaving the start house.

Now onto the news surrounding Downieville. For those who don't know The Downieville Classic is a combination of XC and DH race in California. It has become the default "All Mountain" World Championships involving a 20 something mile XC race followed by a 15 or so mile DH race, where all participants must use the same bike for both races, and can only change tire pressure. On top of the world class courses, from everything I've heard the vibe is top notch. It appears that when registration opened, a bunch of people weren't able to register because they didn't know some required password. The organizers got a bunch of emails from complaining D-bags (who would probably walk the vast majority of both the courses) about how their plans were ruined. As a result the organizers have put the event on hold because of these bad apples.

This reminds me a little of the SSXC08 registration. Everyone was told how to register and what time registration opened up. We knew the field was capped at 350, so sure enough when the clock struck 12 on Jan 1, 2008 a bunch of people sent emails to register. Well with the internet, emails got lost, and people like myself who should have gotten registered didnt. Guess what myself and about 40 other folks did as a result, we didnt complain, we showed up at the event not taking no for an answer. Curtis did what he could and all of us who showed up were allowed to compete. So if you dont get into Downieville, try just showing up, and see what happens, if they wont let you in, try poaching the course. USA Cycling has no involvement so odds are the people in charge dont have giant stick up their ass. That's just my two cents, hell probably closer to just one cent, on that issue.