Psycho Thriller
Was Golden’s Psychosis Downhill the world’s most brutal mountain bike race?
Y2slay—Twenty-five years ago, Golden’s Nate Briggs captured the 2000 Psychosis Hard Tail category on a bike with v-brakes and what looks to be maybe four inches of suspension, with a time of 18:36. “Hard to see under the padding, but I'm wearing a SAIT track suit from the 70’s,” Briggs recollects. “I was in college at that time and some buddies on the school team found those in an equipment room, so we all wore them to the bar one night, then I used it for Psychosis. Also, that's a kayak helmet … ’cause I was broke and they were cheaper than bike helmets.”
Joe Schwartz will never forget the feeling of sitting in the start gate at the top of Mount 7. It was 2000. Red Bull Rampage was still a year out from its inception. Back then, Schwartz was a Kona-sponsored rider on the way up. He felt compelled to put his bike in the back of a pick-up and drive to Golden for Psychosis, a DH race that, in a few years, would grow from a grassroots event that was as much about beers as it was about biking, into a must-do race for many of the top gravity riders in the world.
“At that point, there was no event that compared in terms of rowdy, raw mountain biking,” Schwartz says. “There’s nothing like standing on the top of Dead Dog trying to get psyched to drop in and looking thousands of feet down into the valley where it ends.”
Launched in 1999 on Mount 7, one of the original rogue trail zones in Golden, Psychosis was flat-out mayhem on two wheels. There didn’t seem to be enough superlatives in the mountain biking lexicon to adequately describe the race.
From its beginnings to its final running in 2008, big names in the bike biz showed up to test their skills, among them Chris Kovarik, the late Steve Smith, Sam Hill, Claire Buchar, Tyler Morland, Curtis Keene, Nathan Rennie, Kyle Strait, and many others. When Red Bull jumped aboard as a major sponsor in the early 2000s, the marketing machine touted it as “the world’s most demented downhill race.”
The stats speak for themselves. The race starts with a 35-degree pitch of loose shale—and that’s far from the steepest section. It then drops 1,200 vertical metres over 7.3 kilometres of dusty and rooty high-speed and high consequence trail. There’s a mid-race lung buster of a hike-a-bike, and back in the day, a massive road-gap that kept ambulance crews and first aid attendants busy.
The current official course record was set the final year by Australian and multiple World Cup winner Kovarik, who crossed the finish line in 12:35.14. To get a sense of just how physically punishing that is, the 2024 winning time at the UCI World Cup downhill at Mont Sainte Anne was just under four minutes. That’s mini golf compared to the twelve-and-a-half minutes of white-knuckle plunging from the start gate atop Mount 7 down Dead Dog, Moonshine, Skid Marks, 3K/True Value, and Snake Hill/Tail Gate to the finish line beer garden at the rodeo grounds.
Last summer, due to popular demand and a sense of nostalgia, the Golden Cycling Club hosted a special 25th anniversary running of Psychosis.
“We felt we needed to honour the legacy of the event,” says Andy Bostock, director of skills development for the Golden Cycling Club. “The last event was 2008 and still the reputation of the course would see countless visitors coming to Golden to challenge themselves on the notoriously difficult course. So, we knew there was still interest in the race coming back at some point.”
It was a huge success. The event sold out at a cap of 200 racers in two categories: Psycho Men’s and Pyscho Women’s, both 18+ only. Children need not apply.
Alexander Schmidt, a heavy-duty mechanic and longtime Golden resident, wouldn’t have missed it. He raced Psychosis nine times, and also rode the 25th anniversary event on his old Santa Cruz V10 that had basically been “a mantle piece" since the last time he pointed it down Dead Dog at the Psychosis start gate years earlier.
“No one died, but there was always a heap of gore,” Schmidt says.
DementYa —After acquiring sponsorship rights for what was an entirely volunteer effort, Red Bull dubbed Psychosis "the world’s most demented downhill race.”—Joe Roberts Photo
Weekend festivities included a historic photography gallery and talk show at the local brewery, after parties at the bar, and a town that was buzzing again with the Psychosis vibe.
“I’ve raced every event from 2003. I’ve ridden the course hundreds of times and it’s still the most intimidating course to race because it's just very steep, very fast, and vey long,” Bostock says.
Rusty Gillespie still gets misty-eyed when he thinks about Psychosis. He took over as volunteer race director for the third running of the race.
“We wanted to bring it up to the level of a world-class event that would attract the best riders from around the world,” Gillespie says.
In the early days, it was grassroots to the core. Race plates were re-purposed paper plates, and racers had barely crossed the finish line before someone would thrust a frothy beer into their mitts, and then another. After racing in the morning, participants traded baggy bike pants and pads for a dry suit and booties and then hopped into rafts for a running of the rowdy Kicking Horse River. Then more beer and music, until the wee hours.
When Red Bull got involved with some modest sponsorship dollars, it allowed Gillespie and his team of volunteers to tidy up a few things, like plumbing water into the rodeo grounds. It also put the event on the international map. For a race director, Psychosis could turn a guy’s hair grey overnight. Gillespie remembers one year popping into the road gap for a mid-race inspection. One competitor had just crashed and blown out some of the fencing. Spectators had crowded closer into the landing transition, excited to see the top-tier riders send it big. Gillespie says he had to force the crowd to retreat and help him hastily fix the fencing. A few seconds later, another racer crashed and tomahawked through the very spot where a crowd had just stood. Catastrophe averted.
“Psychosis became the biggest event in Golden, but it wasn’t making much money. It was a massive undertaking for volunteers,” Gillespie says.
Melissa Huntley agrees. She and her partner Mike Rubenstein, former GM of Kicking Horse Resort, ran the safety crew for 10 years and says pulling off the event required an exhausting effort by volunteers.
“Watching those pro riders on the course was mind-blowing,” says Huntley, who saw the race grow in reputation and allure during her time as a volunteer.
That hit home years ago while cycle touring in Bolivia with Rubenstein. They had stopped at a tiny bike shop and were talking to the staff, who wanted to know where they were from. When Huntley said “Golden” and “Kicking Horse Resort,” she got blank looks.
But when she mentioned Psychosis, their faces lit up.
“They were like, ‘No way. That’s where you’re from?'” she remembers with a laugh.
Seeing Psychosis come alive last year for the 25th anniversary brought back memories for many past volunteers and racers.
The Golden Cycling Club says the 25th anniversary Psychosis was just a one-off, a necessary, collective community nod to a legendary race of downhill guts and glory. There are no plans to put it on the annual event calendar.
“The event stopped in 2008 due to volunteer burn out, and the club needs to utilize our volunteers to expand our trail network for a broader demographic of riders,” says the club’s Andy Bostock. “To be honest, people who ride a trail like Dead Dog are a small percentage of riders who visit Golden.”
Psychosis may be gone again, but it won’t be forgotten any time soon.
~ Andrew Findlay
Find this full-length story and more in The Trench’s Spring/Summer 2025 edition: