Ortenblad and Holcomb Win Downieville Classic

DOWNIEVILLE — Tobin Ortenblad and Ruth Holcomb won the All-Mountain World Championship titles at the Downieville Classic on Sunday, closing a weekend in which temperatures in the canyon reached roughly 100 degrees on both race days. Ortenblad took the men’s title on a tiebreaker, in a race he has been chasing for years. Holcomb, 23, who won the BC Bike Race earlier this summer, won the women’s title in her first appearance at the race. Both ride for Santa Cruz Bicycles and SRAM, and both rode the new Santa Cruz Blur, a lightweight model built for cross-country racing that the company updated this year.

Because of the heat, organizers dropped the Gold Valley Rim Trail from Saturday’s cross-country route and sent riders down the Sunrise Trail to Road 93 instead, the route the race used before 2019. Both routes reach the top of Baby Heads, the loose, rocky descent into Gold Valley, where the standard course resumes.

The Downieville Classic, produced by the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship, pairs a point-to-point cross-country race on Saturday with the Downieville Downhill on Sunday. Saturday’s race starts in Sierra City, at 4,100 feet, and opens with an eight-mile climb of about 3,000 feet to Packer Saddle, a stretch riders know as the Trail of Tears. From the Sierra crest, at 7,469 feet, the course drops 5,700 feet into Downieville. Organizers list the full route at 26.5 miles. Sunday’s race returns to Packer Saddle and takes a more direct line back to town, 15 miles with 5,333 feet of descent and 1,010 feet of climbing.

All-Mountain racers must ride the same bike both days, and the overall title is decided on points rather than combined time. A win is worth one point, second place two, and so on down the field, and the lowest total takes the championship. A tie goes to the rider with the better downhill finish.

Saturday from Sierra City

Andrew L’Esperance, a Canadian riding for Ibis, Maxxis, and Pearl Izumi, won the cross-country race in one hour, 57 minutes, and 44 seconds. Ortenblad finished 54 seconds back, Justin Peck was third, another six seconds behind, and the Australian road professional Lachlan Morton was fourth. L’Esperance had scouted the climb out of Sierra City earlier in the week and was grateful for the early start. “I pre-rode the climb the other day at midday, so it was a lot nicer early in the morning,” he said in an interview posted by race organizers.

He and Morton, whom L’Esperance said he had raced alongside at the Cape Epic in South Africa earlier this year, rode away from the field on the climb. A puncture on the descent then cost him time and changed how he rode the rest of the course. “I had one small flat that I had to fix, so that was definitely stressful,” he said. “I had to ride super smooth the rest of the way.”

Haley Smith, L’Esperance’s wife and a rider for Factor Racing, won the professional women’s race in 2:16:37.9, placing 29th overall and finishing more than ten minutes ahead of Holcomb. Smith started with the professional men and crested the summit alone. “I just hung on for dear life on the descents,” she said. A loose part nearly caught her out. “I think my skewer came loose,” she said. “I maybe didn’t properly do a bolt check so shifting got a little funny.”

Sunday from Packer Saddle

Marco Osborne, riding for Transition Bikes, Fox Factory, and WTB, put down the fastest professional men’s downhill run at 44 minutes and 11 seconds. Ortenblad was second at 44:32 and L’Esperance third at 44:43. Osborne had placed 17th among the professional men on Saturday, and the run lifted him to sixth overall.

The two runs left Ortenblad and L’Esperance tied on four points apiece, and the downhill tiebreaker gave the title to Ortenblad. He said he had started Sunday knowing precisely what the arithmetic required. “I was second yesterday, so I knew I just needed to beat Andrew, who beat me yesterday,” he said. “And I needed to beat Justin, who was one spot behind me.”

Ortenblad said he had come to Downieville for the last four or five years and had mixed luck, losing races to mechanical trouble and to fitness in various combinations. In past years he had tried to balance carrying speed through corners against pedaling, he said. On Sunday he gave that up. “I think it was just all out today everywhere,” he said. “No flow, just as fast as you can.” The run was clean, he said, apart from one unplanned clip-out.

The format is what keeps him coming back. “You have to be good at everything on the mountain bike, not just pedaling,” he said, adding that races decided by bike-handling skill are becoming rarer. Peck was third overall, Charles Thomas fourth, and Lance Haidet fifth.

Holcomb won the women’s downhill in 50:26, ahead of Hannah Simms at 52:27 and Smith at 52:29, and the win gave her three points and the championship. “But I knew if I won today then I’d win the overall,” she said. She rode within herself after a flat in practice. “I ran a little harder tire pressure after flatting in practice,” she said. She passed riders who had started ahead of her and came down the last miles with Simms. “Me and Hannah kind of rode in together, which was awesome,” she said.

Holcomb was blunt about how the scoring had worked in her favor. “Haley did smoke me yesterday up the hill, so if it was time-based, I would not have won,” she said. Smith took second overall, Simms third, Michelle McGee fourth, and Becky Gardner fifth.

The rest of the field

The results list 512 finishers in Saturday’s cross-country race, 59 of them women, and seven riders who did not finish. The oldest was Michael Koppe, 73, who rode the course in 3:53:15 to place seventh in Expert Men 61 and older. The youngest was Willem Preston, 13, who finished in 3:18:34, one of two riders in Beginner Junior Men.

The longest day belonged to Jessica Mendoza, 37, who took the last of the 512 finishing places in 5:27:08 and was the final woman across the line. Racing in Sport Women 31 and older, she was scheduled to leave Sierra City at 8:50 AM, which put her arrival in Downieville in the early afternoon, during the hottest hours of the day. Sixteen riders finished the course in more than five hours.

Two riders aged 69 raced both days. Max Jones, of Flume Trail Bikes, won the All-Mountain title in Expert Men 61 and older with a 2:53:18 cross-country ride and a 1:01:14 downhill run, beating every rider in his category but one on Saturday. Doug Hatfield, racing the professional men’s class for Santa Cruz Bicycles, went 3:38:40 on Saturday and 1:11:02 on Sunday.

Seth Malone, 14, a Downieville School student, was one of two 14-year-olds to complete the two-day All-Mountain class. He rode the cross-country course in 5:07:46 on Saturday, then came back for a 1:20:10 downhill run on Sunday, finishing fourth of the four riders who completed the two days in Sport Junior Men 13-18.

Payton Shoresman, 18, of Team Booger won Expert Junior Men 13-18 on Saturday and was ninth overall in the cross-country race at 2:05:06, beaten by eight professional men and no one else. Farrell Gallagher, 17, of the Lost Sierra Composite Club took second in the category and 12th overall in 2:08:37. Because Shoresman rode the cross-country race only, Gallagher led the junior All-Mountain contenders into Sunday, but a downhill run of 1:03:57, the slowest of the 16 in his category, dropped him to eighth in the two-day standings.

Kazzle Spencer won the singlespeed class on both days, riding 2:21:49 on Saturday and 53:51 on Sunday. Kate Huseby, 18, won Expert Junior Women 13-18 on Saturday ahead of two other riders and was the only rider in her category to race again on Sunday.

Off the bike

The racing anchored a four-day festival that opened Thursday, August 6. Yuba Expeditions ran trail shuttles Thursday and Friday mornings, and Freehub presented a mountain bike film festival at the Yuba Theater on Friday evening. Racers collected their packets Friday afternoon at the Downieville School gymnasium, and an expo and marketplace lined Main Street both race days.

Saturday’s program ran from the cross-country awards at 1:30 PM to Ron’s House o’ Big Air River Jump at about 4:30 PM, where riders launched off a temporary wooden ramp into the confluence of the Downie and North Yuba rivers. The Log Pull World Championship followed at roughly 6:30 PM, a contest to see who could drag a log down Main Street by bicycle the fastest. The band Joy & Madness played a street dance from 8 to 10 PM on the stage in the Community Hall parking lot. Downhill and All-Mountain awards were presented Sunday afternoon.

Almost all of it ran on volunteer labor. Race volunteers handled setup and breakdown, managed riders at the start and finish, and worked the course, including at aid stations. The Downieville Volunteer Fire Department was central to keeping the weekend running safely in the heat. Emergency vehicles were staged throughout both race days, including an air ambulance. Department members also helped cook for and feed riders after both races.