Max Houtzager

Keep your eyes peeled for up and coming DH/XC/Super-D racer Max Houtzager. After recently coming off a hat trick at the Downieville Classic in the juniors category, and a win at the BC Cup Finals, racing XC. He also scored a top 3 at the Race for Tara at Northstar earlier this month. He is a sure threat no matter what discipline he ends up racing. Keep up with his racing blog here. As well as a daily food account for a healthy body and the fuel necessary to win, Flavor to go Fast!

Check out his take on the Race for Tara.



I didn't race much downhill this year except Sea Otter / two Northstars. I had a good race at the Otter with a decent result but a flat and a crash at the N*'s. I wanted to have fun shredding some downhill on this last Northstar trip and possibly end with a good result, however, a failing to recover-bruised heel and a blown up fork almost made me not race and just go home early. I got the fork to work ok with some adjustments but it was still pretty useless, and after getting more use to my bike and the blown course I decided to race. This event is a lot bigger than the usual N* races, with some big sponsors and plenty of big pros showing up such as Mark Weir, Jason Moeschler, Brian Lopes, Carl Decker, Evan Turpen, and Duncan Riffle.

The course started from the top of Northstar (where you don't usually get to ride), which basically just added a fast and pedally fireroad to a fast pedally singletrack with a sort-of climb (for the guys on all mountain bikes it wouldn't be a climb but for dh bikes it definitely was). Then you went down Sticks and Stones, which was already ripped apart having been raced on a few weekends before. It's a lot of sandy ruts with scattered rocks, some flat pedaling sections, rock drops, and two big technical rock gardens. The top half you were pretty much sliding through the dust the entire time and then the bottom half opened up a little bit with way more steep sections and rocks. Definitely a downhill bike course, at least in the dry. You then traversed back over to the main trails and finished on the reworked Daytona berms and finish line jump.

After dry dry dusty practice it started pouring rain on race day, becoming an all mountain bike course for sure. I got one practice run on the lower half and it wasn't too wet, actually quite tacky for Northstar (once in a blue moon). By the time the race started it really rained hard and everyone froze standing around under the over hang at the start. After getting soaked on a 15 minute lift ride in the rain and then standing around for 40 min trying to warm up and dry off (pedaling would just make you more wet and cold), most people couldn't feel their hands. I started, teeth chattering and hands shaking, and couldn't really shift gears at all let alone keep my fingers on the brakes. It was way harder than I anticipated to pedal the flat fireroad and uphill singletrack out of the saddle on a dh bike with flat pedals, which became even more evident when my friend Marshall (WTB/Santa Cruz/Fox) caught and rode away from me on the climb, making up the 30 second gap. It was also really hard because the dirt was wet and slow and lots of giant puddles sapped your speed (making you freeze even more). The rest of the course was all about being smooth and fast but still hanging it out a little bit, since the changing conditions were unpredictably sketchy. What was a little tacky and occasionally muddy became one giant gnarly creek with tons of slick rocks and some wet ladder bridges. I made two major errors by clipping my pedals, getting sent completely off the track once (hiking back up) and almost going OTB and coming to a crawl on a flat rock section in between the two main rock gardens the second time. Overall I pedaled as hard as I could and rode most sections at a respectable pace but didn't hang it out too much. It was mainly just really awesome pinning it in the pouring rain because it was really gnarly and felt like a world cup, where the tracks are always steep, rocky and brutally wet due to unpredictable weather.

I thought I'd be lucky to podium because my run felt slow overall. I left because results were taking a while, I had fun racing in the rain, and there was some stiff competition for sure. I guess it was just as hard for everyone else though so I found out I ended up 3rd! I was totally stoked to finish off with a good result again this year and win some sweet Smith goggles.