Downville Thunder & Lightening favors Marin Boys

Two accounts of the Marin Boys Monopoly of D'ville

Sam Lueck:
It was a battle of the bay area boys in the expert 35+ all mountain category. Ryan Booth threw down with a 4 minute lead after the cross county run with me in second and krage about 20 sec back in third. Day two's downhill run should have favored Krage and I on bigger bikes (longer travel) while Ryan was rolling a Hewit hardtail special niner. But Ryan's run wrote a different story, yielding only 45 seconds to Krage's winning time, and earning the All Mountain podium! Ryan with a first, krage second and me third...but the race of the day was the DH battle between Rachel and Katarina Nash, both setting course records, while the latter won by a heartbreaking margin of 2 seconds.

TK: It was definitely a D-ville that you didn't want to miss... the pro field was off the charts!!!! I must say I was intimidated lining up with all of these legends.... Den Satake, Chris Urban, Sam Lueck, "Da Kezar", Ron Bolds, Ryan Booth( hard tail Niner 23 lbs ), Paradigm Cory.... oh and all the others who now come to our local stomping ground... Ex national champs and world champs... Sweet!!!

The train up the climb seemed like a single file line from top to bottom. I think 150 people passed me on the pavement! Regardless I kept my head down, tunes on, and stuck to the wheel in front of me on my 31.5 pound ransom. When I did look up I realized I was on Brian lopes wheel!!!

Cool.. I let him go. I pulled a record time for myself 1:15 to the top...ripped sunrise, only to have the cramps from HELL attack on the traverse over to Pauley... dismount... scream, cry, try to ride, scream, get passed by Cory.. cry some more!!!! It was bad!!!! Finally over came that and
rallied down the mountain passing everyone in sight... Battled with Urban on first divide where we both caught Cory who had suffered a flat! 2:41 for me on the XC... my best time!!!

As you can see below the other fellas dominated! It was just too bad the rest of the Tam crew wasn't there to clean up! Ardel, Mann chicken, Shady, Mclure, Mule, Moab... there would have been some serious Tuesday night crew fireworks!!!!

So the chattered started for the downhill run the next day..... hmmmm can Booth hold of a charging Kezar...?!?!? Hard tail niner vs double bounce stumpy with a mad dog possessed pilot!!!! And Sam lurking on his Nomad!!! Only 3 minutes needed to take the overall from the booth man.

It was classic... all the scenarios playing out! Do I take it conservitave? Do I pin it? Will the kezar go nuts and crash? What pressure do I run? Save it for first divide? Tip toe
butcher??? All I said was... "smooth lines and pin it when you can" And that is exactly what the Booth Man did. And he was able to hold off a charging Kezar!

I had my fastest DH run ever.... flying down sunrise and butcher creek, super smooth and fast... legs feeling good... I caught the 2 in front of me so I knew I was having a very good run!!!! I had an ok climb up from the bridge, buried it the whole way... no water after third divide onto the road hurt me... could of used some for the first divide TT... big ringed it the whole way but was pretty faded.. I'm sure that is where the raging kezar did some damage to me! I dumped it on lower first divide on the shaly white sand hairpin right as well... conceded seconds there too. But I'll take second to Krage any day!