Transition Bikes Throws the Spur Into the Deep End at Downieville

If you wanted to test a new bike, you could take it to your local trail, lap your favorite flow loop, and call it a day. Or, you could do what Transition Bikes did and throw it headfirst into the Downieville Classic, one of the gnarliest, most storied all-mountain races in the country, before it's even officially released. Bold move. Respect.

That's exactly the play Transition made with the all-new Spur, their downcountry weapon that blurs the line between XC efficiency and trail bike capability. Rather than the typical controlled media rollout, Transition loaded up TR athlete Maghalie Rochette and product development employee John Richardson, pointed them toward the Sierra Nevada, and let the race do the talking.

The Downieville Classic isn't messing around. We're talking a 26.5-mile point-to-point course that climbs from Sierra City up to Packer Saddle at over 7,000 feet before a scenic and wild ride back into downtown Downieville. It's the kind of race that punishes a bike that can't climb efficiently and punishes a rider on a bike that can't handle the descent. There's no hiding from either end of the equation, which made it the perfect, slightly terrifying, litmus test for the new Spur.

John Richardson put together a 9th-place finish in the pro men's field in the Downhill and a 5th overall in the All-Mountain, which is no small feat for a first-time Downieville racer against a field full of people who have been coming back to this race for years. Maghalie, meanwhile, showed the kind of grit that makes watching athletes do things you absolutely couldn't do deeply satisfying.

After the race tape came down, the duo traded race kits for baggies and dove into Tahoe's Ponderosa trails, arguably the better part of the whole trip. Because that's the thing about a bike like the Spur: the race is just proof of concept. The real point is every other ride after that.

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