Dirt Magic: From Dying Mining Town to Mountain-Bike Mecca | Patagonia Films

[Music] the town of Don evil was something I've never seen the history that's there and the people that you meet basically is that time when you sit there and think of yourself where did I grew up where did I come from why wasn't I born here [Music] when you actually are truly alone in these woods you know when you get up to the ridge and you hear that wind blowing through the pines sometimes it sounds like voices there's like whispers [Music] it produces the most euphoric feelings of just complete freedom nothing's going by [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] the town of down evil was something I've never seen [Music] as rivers that are so pure looked like you just dive in and start drinking out of them you know and then the history that's there and the people that you meet it basically is that time when you sit there and think of yourself and go where they grew up where did I come from why was I born here California's famed scenic beauty is most spectacular in its mountain country where towering evergreens soften the rugged landscape my name is Greg Williams my great-great-great grandfather I was in a tribe of me walks though the Miwok Indians found an easy way of life in this land of plenty and when the Gold Rush happened he came north and came to down evil and started leading pack mules up into the remote mines so for me it's a lot of my heritage and being able to kind of retrace my steps here in the northern Sierra my parents had a 1942 Jeep and a lot of our summers were spent banging around on the dirt roads and then as a teenager my parents bought me a mountain bike and so got to experience this place and really kind of just learn about this place on two wheels [Music] when I look at this isolated Canyon at the confluence of two rivers there's really only one reason it is here and that is gold my name is Lee Adams lived here for about 40 years now was the county sheriff by 1859 it was a pretty solid town down evil had about five thousand people which is hard to believe by today's standards first of his mining going away then timber going away then the Forest Service made a decision to move their district office from down evil to Nevada City so this community always worries about what is next really when gold left the reason for a community to be here left as well Donny boo who was this beautiful place that looked like it was just like barely there a lot of history but having having some pretty real issues with how it existed mountain biking was becoming a thing but mountain biking didn't have an easy path to being considered legitimate there either there's a lot of resistance to it you live in small towns people like they don't want to change for a reason you know there was gold mining and there's logging and that was a huge shift wasn't always very welcome was like oh you're the mountain biker people I mean there were signs of said we hate mountain bikers greg was bringing in something that was completely different sometimes things are worth fighting for you and if you don't know they are at the time yeah I was like early 90s and nobody knew about down evil three of us have been just like riding this area and and figured out like [ __ ] man people would love to like get a ride to the top of this hill oh I thought it was crazy yeah I mean like you're gonna do what three riding buddies decided that since they spent most of their weekend's mountain biking already they might as well bring others along and so started coyote adventures and my dad's like let's let's try and get a shot going basically lived in that shop feeling like it could end at any second that is a virgin pina colada babies drinkin we woke up one morning and Greg's like I think we should have in a bike race how are you gonna convince these people they don't know about mountain biking and you're not gonna bring a bunch of bike racers down our Main Street spell room in the gold rush town of down evil this weekend you were out of the luck yeah all rooms sold out over two months ago but this weekend the bike festival is just one example of how Don evil is writing to better economic times on mountain bikes first down evil second or third in my first in about four years out of many times yeah first time up third down evil big Manny I don't even trying to remember what it felt like the first time you know the tour company was great and never really put down evil on the map but the coyote classic was that was the catalyst like looking back I just I had no idea like [ __ ] we were doing [Applause] [ __ ] bill race was something that was totally different because there wasn't any races like that you know you had all these racers coming to race in this race you know there's nothing like a stopwatch at a time to run for people to really pay attention [Applause] [Music] the first time I met mark Weir was in 1996 when we did the very first downhill downhill I've never met anybody like him in my whole life you know the way he approached it the way he trained for it the mentality that he had I held back on a lot of stuff because I wanted win one race leo Salazar won the first one zombie a salad bar like all these guys that were like pros and I was a sport racer those guys are all better riders than me I knew I wanted to be I knew what I didn't want to give up I knew what it was going to take from then on I never lost again [Music] [Applause] even it's like the Muhammad Ali of down evil this is my track you can come and try and win and you won't beat me because I've done too many runs on it there's no way he brought a lot of energy and a lot of media and I'd like to think like nobody's like as an athlete is put down upon the map more than him I mean it's seven times down evil champion can't be B won't be beat [Music] [Music] the format for the down evil classic is Saturday they do a cross-country race from Sierra City to Don evil it's roughly 27 miles with over 5,000 feet of climbing on Sunday they raced the down evil downhill and that's around 17 miles with around 4,800 feet of descent know you think you're a cross-country racer come up here try this don't bring your little tires [Music] someone underestimates it then maybe better we really fit or serves them right [Music] freaking hardest race ever done you know the cross country is put down evil on the map by having the downhill was it really put it on the map it's a real honor for people to line up on Sunday and to to race back to town [Music] for me there there's people that just think the all balanced most important the Dalit was the most important thing it always has been because it says downhill it's cooler just the way it is I'm sorry you know just the way it is [Music] the culture and the people that ride bikes and the way that they care about a place you know it really came to fruition here in Downey Villa where you know you could all get along you can all drink together at the end of the day and you can all be passionate about this place [Music] [Applause] you know the quality of people that come through here is unlike any other and and the level that people really care about this place I think is is it's contagious there's not a day in down evil that is bigger than the bike race this place is not seeing those kind of crowds since the gold rush [Music] there's becoming a definite shift in the perceptions in that town towards mountain biking there's more sort of acceptance that this is economically vital and important it's so nice to see those same people and they go yeah this has been a beneficial change [Applause] [Music] you know down the evil like how's that magic to it you know I mean people come there and they kind of imagine what it might be like but then they experience it and it's like it's like nothing they've ever experienced before you know [Music] we'd had this sort of realization like you're putting a race on but what do you do and and you want to have a bike shop up here but how do you do that so you've got tens of thousands of mountain bikers you have to have some way of taking care of that land we started having you know trail work days you know come and work we're gonna have fun we're gonna drink beers we're gonna ride bikes gonna howl at the moon you have to see where the stewardship is gone yeah that's amazing we maintain huge section of the Pacific Crest Trail you know who work on dirt bike trails mountain bike trails our NOAA state parks for a service without those boys you know this place would be a touch different for sure those guys move so much Earth we've maintained over 800 miles of trail we've contributed around 75 thousand hours we don't want to just make a bomb downhill run here we want your hiking experience to be really good we want you to continue to ride your horses up here you know the trails is the easy part it's it's how do we keep each other here and keep this economy going and keep working families here in the northern Sierra this year we've employed 37 full-time people and they're all Lewiston Sierra County residents which is really important we started a trail kids program which is kind of like the foundation of our of our youth program kind of a prideful experience knowing that what you're doing is going to be something that'll leave a lasting impact on a whole bunch of different people kids get to go out and kind of get to know their local areas a little bit better work together it's pretty sweet oh I think without mountain biking down evil might in fact be pretty sad at the time you don't recognize you're part of something that's gonna be what it becomes you know you don't get what you get here alone you get it from the community and that's what this place is brought to me and once you experience it like it'll be a place that you want to come back to for the rest of your life it might be like that other places but I don't know any other place this is my place these are my people I realized when I was a young man many years ago that the the business of life was to acquire as many friends and memories as you could was about anything else I don't have a lot I got a lot of crap but but uh but I got a lot of memories and I got a lot of friends we would have never known when you meet someone that that person you're gonna know for you know they're gonna be like there when you have your first baby this wasn't a race it was something to wake up for I built my family in down evil look where you're going though Jesus trying to build multi-generation situation and that changes things you have buddy awesome miles being there in that place with those people during that time who are all still like some of my closest friends ever the most family community thing I have found in this life [Music] sometimes we didn't do it right like you make mistakes and we've all learned from it and like it's so enlightening to be with those same people and go I should remember we did that we just kind of learned on our own you know and after 15 years we feel like like we know a bit we don't know everything but we're at a point now where we have enough projects in line that things are happening every year like every year like there's some big thing but you know those things started a long time ago and and there's more good things to happen you know we call it dirt magic it takes some patience but if you believe in it and you have people that believe in it and that work hard and they're passionate it happens sky's the limit man let's see where this thing will go you [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] I know your honor [Music] this ticket soon [Music] you know God [Music] I said we got [Music] [Music] god [Music] [Applause] [Music]

Channel: Patagonia

Views: 1,140,626

Keywords:

Id: lFAuFH9V5mc

Length: 19min 20sec (1160 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 03 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/EmergencyTelephone]

Seems dying mining towns make successful mtb locations. Just look at Derby in Tasmania.

[u/Teh_yak]

Lovely film. It's an old curiosity of mine, to see what difference mountain biking infrastructure, trail centres or even basic trailheads make to an area.

Mountain biking country tends to not be, let's say, in the centre of the world for money. I suppose that changes a bit with places that were made for skiing and transform to mountain biking when the snow's gone.

My personal experience with Wales, Scotland and a little in the Czech Republic is that it looks like some places that would plain not exist any more without it.

Man, I want go biking now.

[u/jcatania935]

Kingdom Trails in Vermont is another story of a small town transformed by mountain biking they have had a few good videos done on them too.

[u/PeteDub]

Just did 40 miles there last week and the best thing I learned is that Downieville has no open container law. You can Cruz the streets with a beer in your hand! I’m mean Ive been doing it for years, but didn’t know it was legal.

[u/freakytone]

I love Downieville. My first time mountain biking was there. Got my ass kicked, and have loved it ever since. There were many amazing MTB / camping trips to that place. Also, the fire lookout is a really fun hike up above the trailhead.

[u/dunsh]

Patagonia is killing it with their films lately.

[u/nor_cal_rider]

Gotta being the big bike and the bmx for that fun lake but into river kicker session.

[u/pFort212]

Guy playing drums on a mountain as you ride by? Yup i'm in

[u/[deleted]]

I live right by there