© 2003
The Nugget Newspaper
Sisters, Oregon
All rights reserved

Send us an email

Display Advertising
This is a PDF file. View with Adobe Acrobat Reader. 

The contents of the on-line edition of The Nugget represent a selection among the stories that appear in the weekly print edition.

Sisters riders blast downhill

Tyrel and Logan Godsiff and Nick Pierce raced at Mt. Hood. photo by Bruce Casey

Hurtling down a mountainside on a bicycle may not be everyone's cup of tea, but for four young men from Sisters, downhill mountain bike racing is the sport of choice.

Brothers Logan and Tyrel Godsiff (19 and 17) and Brandon Overstreet (19) have been racing for three seasons. Newcomer Nick Pierce (17) just completed his first season.

Downhill consists of piloting a bike down a trail built into steep terrain, negotiating natural and man-made obstacles. Competitors are taken to the top of the course either by chairlift or a vehicle shuttle. The person who makes it to the finish line with the fastest time wins.

There are two classes of bike used in the sport. Full suspension bikes utilize technology from the motocross motorcycle industry; they have front and rear suspension and disc brakes.

This serves to increase speed and safety, according to Logan Godsiff, who races this type of bike.

"If you know you can stop, you'll go faster," he said. "Disc brakes are very reliable. Full suspension smooths the ride and softens the landings."

Anyone who has ever watched one of these races knows that smooth and soft are relative terms. More often the riders look like human shock absorbers.

Most of them do leap up unharmed from spectacular crashes, due to their resilient age and the fact that they wear protective gear in the form of full face helmets, goggles, upper body armor and shin, knee and elbow pads.

Hardtail bikes have no rear suspension, which makes it more difficult to go fast.

Crashes, mechanical failures, and breakage are fairly commonplace.

Pierce and the Godsiffs competed on September 6 in a race held at the Mt. Hood Ski Bowl Bike Park.

Around six races are sanctioned each season by the Oregon Bike Racing Association (OBRA), and the weekend's race was the series finale.

Tyrel Godsiff and Pierce, who race hardtail, finished second and fourth respectively.

Godsiff's chain fell off partway down the hill and rather than stopping to fix it, he coasted the remainder of the way.

"You have to stay off the brakes when you're coasting because you can't use the pedals to pick up speed," he said.

He added that it helped that he was familiar with the course.

Godsiff's finish placed him as OBRA series hardtail champion.

A victory a couple of weeks earlier let him walk away with the Oregon state championship.

Pierce, competing in his second race, finds the biggest thrill of downhill just riding the trails.

"I like doing the jumps and going faster than cross-country mountain biking," he said.

A broken collarbone on his first ever downhill practice run last year didn't deter him.

"It just goes with the territory," he said.

Logan Godsiff competes in the Expert Senior Men's division, a competitive, hard-riding group.

His enthusiasm for the sport began when he lived in New Zealand and would watch the pros on television.

"I knew I wanted to be a rider, not a spectator," he said.

When he moved to the U.S., Godsiff began his downhill career with department store mountain bikes, which he quickly trashed.

Godsiff admits that he learned the hard way, by trial and error.

These days Godsiff uses a full suspension bike that is worth more than his car.

The downhill racing scene is fairly small in Central Oregon, but it is growing, said Godsiff.

Both Godsiffs and Overstreet race as part of Team CORE (Central Oregon Racing Excitement).

Headed by two enthusiasts from Bend, CORE is working to build into a junior development program, providing sponsorship and mentoring to up-and-coming downhill riders.

For more information, call Peter Barnes at 389-2349, or stop in at Eurosports in Sisters and talk to Logan.

Back to front page