Bidwell Park * CSU Chico Cycling * Sept. 16 & 17, 2006
Don Morehouse rails the Bidwell Bump Super D course last weekend.
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| Event Description (from CSU Chico Cycling) |
| There are two races over the course of the weekend. On Saturday the XC riders will race the Bidwell Bump. A 13 mile loop that has some of the best single track in northern California. On Sunday there will be a Super D in the time trail format. |
| Course Description |
| THe Bidwell Bump starts on a long jeep road climb for about four miles. Then it takes a left turn down a nine minute descent. Next the racers will ride a fire road down to a creek crossing. From there the course will snake up another fireroad. At the top the racers will be rewarded wwith a ripping four mile descent. A hike a bike is the last major challenge in the race. The finish will be the old gun range after South Rim Trail. It is a point to point 13 mile course. The Super D will start from the top of the south ridge in Bidwell Park. The course will be a mix of single track and fire road with some climbing. It will finish at the same place as the XC race. |
Ronnie Jordan bombs the Bump. Photos by Tomo.
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Race Report From Don:
“The most technical XC I’ve ever seen, short but very painful. I used the Nomad for both races, but ran some DH tires and suffered in the XC (the last time I raced there I had three flats), so just like D-ville, I wasn’t gonna have any chance of flatting, but I did have to pay up with the added weight on the first 1000′ rocky climb, railed the hell out of the first descent and thrashed my lungs on the fire road climb after the water crossing (yeah, there’s another 1000′ fire road climb that dumps you onto the singletrack above a river and it hurts bad!!!). Then some more super rocky fun singletrack, then a hike section that goes straight up to the last bit of fun to the finish! They lumped the pros with the experts so of course I got throttled (I believe 9th of 15)!
The Super D course was fantastic! Pretty much the second half of the XC without the hike section along a trail called Guardian (I wanna show you guys that trail for sure), it dished out the pain! I stacked hard on my morning practice run and was stuck with a painful dent leg for the race, couldn’t pedal worth a damn and the course had tons of pedal sections, ups and downs, gravity dropper in full effect (oh, it’s working perfectly again), then I slid out on some marbles during the race run on a straight-away of all places and slapped hard again ) : better luck next year, amazing course though, best Super D ever (think I had a 5th out of 9, ahh, better luck next time)!
Ronnie, his girlfriend Jennifer, Tomo and Fumi from Pimpbiker were there with shwag to give out to the top racers. They are really cool, that’s the first time I got to hang out with them, awesome couples! Ronnie raced and did well in both the XC and Super D, Jennifer did the XC, I’m not sure if she enjoyed much of it though ( ; but she finished the whole thing! Janice did a practice run with me on Sat. evening after the XC and decided that may not be the best “first” Super D race to put on her resume! Tomo got some pics that I believe will be on their way to you…………………………… ”
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Links:
dhRENO.com 
did don mention the 10 mile climb in pitch black darkness after the practice run on the DH course saturday evening???? um… no….. yeah….. we forgot the car at the top……