Psychosis Race Recap

What the f*ck just happened?

Since returning from a long weekend in Golden, BC for the revival and 25th Anniversary of the Psychosis downhill race, I’ve had the same conversation with a myriad of people, and it boils down to this. Anyone who didn’t race the OG Psychosis was likely there in part because of Seasons, and none of us knew how to adequately capture or communicate the event and weekend to anyone, whether we were trying to use words or editing hours of video footage. What the f*ck just happened?

The Golden Cycling Club has done a good job of the history of Psychosis, but the short version is it was raced from 1998-2008 and was the stuff of legend (and again, this Seasons segment, which you really need to watch below); a course that wasn't just long, but incredibly technical and physically demanding (yeah, there's a hike-a-bike in the race). A version of the race was revived for the 2020 Crankworx Summer Series, and the stage was set to bring back the race for the 25th anniversary.

It was, in a word, psychotic. It was one of the most fun sports weekends of my life. If every fiber of FOMO you have wasn’t vibrating all weekend, you weren’t paying enough attention.

I’ve been sitting at my desk all week buzzing, trying to piece together the madness, looking through photos, knowing explaining it in a way that does the event justice is futile and I’m going to think of 489 other things I wanted to tell you about after this goes live. But we must try.

Thursday

As per usual, my day started with a steep climb towing a heavy trailer on my gravel bike and retreating back down to home having deposited 35lbs of toddler off at daycare. But then, instead of plonking down at a desk, three of us loaded an enormous heap of gear, spares, and DH bikes into the back of a truck and turned east, with 8-ish hours of Highway 1 in front of us.

While long solstice daylight hours can be a challenge for a 3.5 year old, they’re great for mountain biking dads who want to get some riding in the evening. Once we got to Golden, the truck exploded gear all over our gracious host’s house. We had a quick dinner, we met up with a few others, and then headed for the mountain looming over town; Mount 7.

There’s no chairlift at Mount 7, just a rough dirt road to the top. We’d be shuttling in the old Dodge Ram owned by our host Rabbit and affectionately known as “Woody.” The easiest spots to enter the racecourse are at 3k, 5k, and of course the infamous Dead Dog. On Thursday, the racetrack above 5k was closed, however what was open covers a significant portion of what we’d be racing and includes the road gap; a 12’x35’ stepdown that was one of two features giving me jitters before I’d even left Vancouver.

Wanting to shake off the road trip and warm up a bit, we started with a lap of 5k, and I managed to ditch the road gap jitters with a tow from a friend. High speed, straightforward, and consequential I was glad to check the box early on and help prevent it from getting in my head; features have a habit of growing larger the longer you stare at them.

My excitement had been building all week, but it really started to ramp up. Ready to just make some more laps of the course, I was outvoted and we headed for the top. This was an excellent decision, and after a gorgeous stop at the top during the golden hour, glancing down Dead Dog (which despite the fresh grooming during the closure, did nothing to ease my concern…), we dropped into one of the best laps of the year; just an insane selection of steep, steep loamers, linked together with high speed bench-cut, and we finished on 3k with another session on the road gap. Bring on the beers.

Friday

Being a bunch of dads, we were up early and staring down the barrel of Dead Dog. If you’ve ever been there, you know. If you haven’t, you stand at the top of the steepest trail you’ve ever seen, wondering how much traction there can possibly be in the loose shale, and everyone standing around tells you it gets steeper in the woods. There’s no way that can be possible… steeper?!

As was the case for most of the weekend (including the race), Rabbit lead the way on his Super 8, and I eventually followed. And it wasn’t bad! Reasonable grip, some slashing around to slow down and then into the woods, where shit got bad. Like, real bad. The worst some of the locals had ever seen it bad. Once we’d left the shale, it turned to sticky, gummy, bald-your-tires-instantly mud, right as everything got even steeper. I made it down, but my confidence was ruined.

The day warmed up, and our next lap around 11am was marginally better through Dead Dog as the course dried. Maybe I’d survive. What wouldn’t survive was the weakest link in my fitness… my forearms. I’ll argue all day long that spending time on a gravel or road bike is good for your mountain biking; being able to climb harder, faster, and longer while ultimately being less roached for the descents is a big win. But quads and lungs won’t save your forearms from +/- 15 minutes of absolute downhill battering.

We sat the heat of the day out, relaxing, bike faffing, and knowing everyone else was out there putting holes in the track. The group agreed that another late afternoon loamer lap was in order, rather than another Dead Dog; we’d get to see the track evolution and have another crack at it Saturday morning during the mandatory practice run. With a dinner of sausages and beers complete, it was time to get some rest.

Saturday

For the unfamiliar, racing involves a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Racer meetings, plate pickup, scheduled practice lap times, and race runs all require being there early and standing around. The Golden Cycling Club deserves enormous praise for how smoothly everything went on race day; an event of this magnitude is incredibly complex to pull off, so to have everything go on schedule with no major hiccups is an unbelievable achievement for a largely volunteer organization.

With 60-ish course marshals, medics, and support volunteers on staff I dropped in for practice at the allotted time and took a cruise-y top to bottom. Fortunately, even though the whole course was significantly rougher the fork changes recommended by SRAM’s Chris Mandell seemed to be helping; my forearms were roached, but it was a definite improvement. Coupled with a much drier Dead Dog, my confidence levels were reasonable. I wasn’t there to win, I was there to have fun, and was feeling as ready as I needed to be. What I hadn’t been fully prepared for was the visceral, core-memory trigger of race whistles on course during the official practice lap. It’s been nearly two decades since I’ve heard those blown for me, and the first one hit me deep inside my cortex on Dead Dog. Its race day. Let’s GO.

My race run was… unremarkable. Despite some intervening decades and unlike some of the fellow competitors around me, I’m still very comfortable up in a start tent. I pushed out of the start sixty seconds after the guy in front, rode my race, made one pass, and kept it rubber side down. Mission accomplished. The atmosphere on the bottom half of the course was electric – chainsaws, cowbells, and big crowds in several key spots. Moments after crossing the line (and regaining my breath), someone handed me a beer… this trend would continue until late into the night.

I’ve spent too much time analyzing my race run, knowing I paced myself a bit too hard and had more to give and could have taken more risks. But ultimately, I made no major mistakes and got to the bottom in one piece which was ostensibly the whole goal. I could have gone faster, and I also could have exploded into smithereens trying.

Downhill is the best

It's been a bit of a year for me and downhill. Earlier this year I strapped on a pair of 214’s on loan from World Cup winner and freshly retired Steven Nyman to race The Town Downhill in my hometown of Jackson, Wyoming. And just like Psychosis, I left the weekend thinking, “Why on Earth did I stop doing this?” There’s nothing like the feeling of a closed course, pushing yourself (even just a little!), and being on equipment that’s utterly dedicated to being good at one thing with no compromises. While I walked away from The Town Downhill with more hardware than I did at Psychosis, the feelings were the same; flying high at speed against the clock and an atmosphere of camaraderie that’s only attainable for fleeting moments of time.

Golden is the best

I’ve had to leave out 90% of the weekend’s stories; Jonathan Helly’s absolutely unhinged run smashing Karver’s course record, countless telling’s of Reg and Kram’s world record on Mount 7, the maniacs racing on hardtails, and the unbridled enthusiasm and hospitality of everyone we met and rode with in Golden. I’ve experienced it before, but there’s something special about towns like Golden. It’s hardworking folks just trying to make ends meet in a town that’s a bit rough around the edges, who will look at your $10,500 carbon fiber superbike and offer to show you the coolest trails in town. They’ll then proceed to mop the floor with you on their decade old Giant Glory riding in jeans, and probably ask you to knock on the starter of the truck to get ‘er going. I’ll be back to Golden to ride (hopefully sooner rather than later), and you can be damn sure I’m not going to miss the next Psychosis. Rumor has it it’ll be in a couple years; I’ll see you there.