Kintz Family Video of 2010 opener

Super Heroes!

Super Heroes abound at the 3rd Annual Tamarancho 1000, held on Halloween.

Not only were there riders who were super heroes but an incredible effort by Tony Ruggiero and the Parent Committee made this event a huge success!

Thank you all so very much for putting together an organized, delicious and well staffed event. From the breakfast burritos to the burgers to the lap counters and course marshals, it was, like the awesome Drake MTB Team itself, a well oiled machine.

Many thanks go out to Julia Voilich and the Redwood gang as well for their part in making this a great success. Drake riders rode 114 laps and Redwood added another 51 for a total of 990 miles! Add Coaches laps and we were able to hit the official 1000 mark to make this a true Tamarancho 1000.

Again, thank you all for participating. This is a great start to what I am sure will be an incredible season for Drake MTB.

Roll Pirates!

Drake MTB at 2010 State Chamionships

Here was the incredible lineup for the 2010 Drake Pirates MTB Team!



• Paul Chourre — Head Coach
• Neil Doucet — Asst. Coach
• Jack Wise — Asst. Coach
• Kevin Hall — Asst. Coach
• Patty Brockley — Asst. Coach
• Eric Brandt — Asst. Coach/Team Mechanic
• Nikole Denton — Asst. Coach
• Patchen Homitz – Asst. Coach

Paul Chourre – Head Coach

Paul Chourre was born and raised in San Anselmo and attended Drake High School where he played Football and ran Cross Country. Graduating in 1967, Paul attended College of Marin and was involved in the very start of Mountain Biking in Marin. Gary Fisher and Charley Kelly custom made a disk brake bracket for his clunker that was sporting the “newest” Cook Brothers rigid fork. “I grew up loving the trails of Marin from my Cross Country days and mountain biking was a perfect way to enhance the combination of physical exercise and love of the outdoors.”

Although Paul worked and participated in many local races in Marin, racing was never the dominant inspiration. “My inspiration comes in opening the door to kids and teaching the love of the sport as something they will carry with them throughout their lives as I have.” Paul is coaching the team for the 5th year now and is a USA Cycling Club Level Certified Coach and has met the requirements Head Coach for the NorCal MTB League.

Jack Wise

Jack Wise has lived in the Fairfax area since age nine and spent much of his time growing up in the hills surrounding Fairfax and Sleepy Hollow. There were no mountain bikes then but Schwinn Varsity’s were the main mode of transportation. Since the 80′s he has been riding mountain bikes for recreation. Jack has twin boys Sam and Austin who are returning sophomore rider’s for Drake MTB, he has always helped out in all of his sons activities and jumped at the chance to help coach mountain biking. Jack hopes to have all the kids that ride to come away with the love for a sport that they can do for their entire lives.

Neil Doucet

Neil Doucet was born and raised and still resides in the same house in San Anselmo. A1970 Drake Graduate, he has enjoyed the sport of mountain biking for over 30 years. He got involved with the Drake MTB Team in 2007 when his son joined the Team. As with all the Coaches the Love of the sport is something we all hope to share with the kids so they too can develop a life long sport. A graduate of the NorCal Wilderness First Aid Course, safety and respect for the environment are primary concerns. Of course having fun is the primary objective.

Nikole Denton

Nikole Denton was born in Dallas, TX, but moved to the Bay Area ASAP! She and her boyfriend Patchen Homitz own a home in heaven (a.k.a. Fairfax) where they live with their two cats and eight bicycles.

Nikole previously worked in Information Technology, but decided to change her career and the future by becoming a teacher. She is completing her teacher credential program at Dominican University in English and special education, and will graduate May 2010. She works as an Instructional Aid in the special education department at San Rafael High School, and is a private tutor. This past summer, Nikole taught summer school for TUHSD at Redwood High School, and works with Tamiscal High School’s Team program leading snow camping trips.

Nikole raced Category Three road races, and has dipped her toe in mountain bike races. She raced the 2009 Sea Otter Classic where she placed second in Category Two, and she raced Category One/Pro Tamarancho race where she was the last person on the course and ecstatic just to finish. Currently, Nikole is training for the Big Sur Trail Marathon, and recently finished second in her category in the Double Dipsea running race. She also enjoys backcountry snowboarding, backpacking, traveling, and reading.

Nikole has completed the NorCal League’s Wilderness First Aid (WFA) course, and has studied nutrition and fitness for athletic performance. She has been volunteering with the NorCal league for two years, and is excited to be a Drake assistant coach.

Patty Brockley

Bio pending

Patchen Homitz

Patchen was born in San Diego, but at five his family moved to the Bay Area where he has lived in San Francisco, Oakland, Lafayette, and all over Marin County (13 places in the past 11 years). He taught English at Redwood High School for three years and has spent the past eight years teaching in The Team Program at Tamiscal High School. He is a certified Wilderness First Responder (WFR) and has led more than 40 backpacking trips with high school students at Team.

Patchen’s bike obsession started with a purple Schwinn Stingray he got for his sixth birthday, which he rode all over the Sunset District in San Francisco. At eleven (1973), he and his Tam Valley buddies transformed their Stingrays into BMX bikes with motorcycle handlebars and grips, and single seats taken from “ten speeds.” In college he bought an expensive road bike using a student loan intended for tuition, books, food, and shelter. In 1990 while living in Connecticut and working for an REI store in New York, he entered his first triathlon at West Point Military Academy, and his first mountain bike race at Mount Snow, Vermont. In 1995 teaching at Pleasanton’s Foothill High School, Patchen formed the FHS bike club, racing at Sea Otter and Billy Cross. In 1996 he left teaching to lead a two-year bicycle expedition through 23 countries along the Pacific Rim.

When he returned from traveling, he became the volunteer coordinator and mountain bike ride leader for Trips for Kids in San Rafael. In 2001, while on his summer break he rode a seven-week bike tour of northern Europe through seven countries. At Redwood, Patchen created a bike club that eventually morphed into a mountain bike race team that he coached for five seasons, earning one league championship. He looks forward to bringing his biking, teaching and coaching experience to this year’s Drake team, but mostly he looks forward to helping the students grow and mature. Patchen and his girlfriend Nikole own a home in Fairfax where they live with their two orange cats and eight bicycles.

It was a classic match-up of student versus master every bit as great as Vader vs. Kenobi. They fought, struggled, and even trash-talked to gain cycling supremacy at Drake High, the only high school in the country to produce not one but two national collegiate cycling champions. The stakes were high.

What happened on that day is the stuff of legend. Some will say that the kid showed up the master by beating him to the line. Others deny, saying the kid only had to do two laps, and the old timer, three. Not a fair comparison.

But, what we do know is from that meeting came the birth of the Drake Mountain Bike Team.

In December of 2002 we had our first meeting. That spring, 8 Pirates came out to race. By the spring of 2009, Drake had earned the title of 2004 and 2006 NorCal State Champions. And, finally, in 2009 Drake won the first-ever California State Championship, bringing high school mountain biking’s most prestigious honor to where it truly belongs…at the foot of Repack and Mt. Tamalpais.

Drake MTB Team (Rushed Version) from Andrew Abballo on Vimeo.

Ride on, as a pirate. (I understand of mistakes and sudden ending)