Downhill biking on an “Beyond Expert” trail in BC (SLYT)
August 18, 2021 6:58 AM Subscribe
Awesome, horrible! How does he get back up the trail?
posted by a humble nudibranch at 7:35 AM on August 18, 2021
posted by a humble nudibranch at 7:35 AM on August 18, 2021
I like the little laughs after riding over a drop! But yikes. I’m glad there are people recording their rides for the rest of us to enjoy vicariously. I hope no one attempts to imitate them without this level of skill...
Curious about the kind of effort involved in laying a complex bike trail like that in the first place, who does it, is it other mountain bike enthusiasts? Do they need a permit for something like that?
posted by bitteschoen at 7:36 AM on August 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
Curious about the kind of effort involved in laying a complex bike trail like that in the first place, who does it, is it other mountain bike enthusiasts? Do they need a permit for something like that?
posted by bitteschoen at 7:36 AM on August 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
Ye gods.
posted by doctornemo at 7:36 AM on August 18, 2021
posted by doctornemo at 7:36 AM on August 18, 2021
I do like the non-superhuman touches, like test walking over one catwalk around 1:30, or trying to figure out where the damned trail is going around 4:30.
posted by doctornemo at 7:37 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 7:37 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
These kinds of trails are generally accessed using ski lift infrastructure. Downhill bikes are absolutely miserable to crank uphill.
posted by rockindata at 7:39 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by rockindata at 7:39 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
honest to god, i am not sure i could do that on foot
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:42 AM on August 18, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by Caxton1476 at 7:42 AM on August 18, 2021 [8 favorites]
All I can see when I watch this is all the various ways I would break my bones.
posted by drewbage1847 at 7:43 AM on August 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by drewbage1847 at 7:43 AM on August 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
dude is an elite athlete. nice find. the joy in his laugh is palpable.
posted by j_curiouser at 7:49 AM on August 18, 2021
posted by j_curiouser at 7:49 AM on August 18, 2021
My marrow aches just watching that.
posted by djeo at 7:56 AM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by djeo at 7:56 AM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
This was a nice run, and the 'mere mortal' parts made it more approachable to me.
For more extreme versions check out any of Danny MacAskill's videos. I like the one with the baby carrier.
posted by TDIpod at 8:01 AM on August 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
For more extreme versions check out any of Danny MacAskill's videos. I like the one with the baby carrier.
posted by TDIpod at 8:01 AM on August 18, 2021 [4 favorites]
A particular effect of the stabilized video is to make it feel like a rails shooter, and what you lose is a sense of how steep is the trail, how often he's pointing downwards at a 45 degree angle. The only time you get a proper sense of that is the jump he refuses, where he turns back and shows it from the side.
And, I mean, thank Christ for that effect, because I'd probably have thrown up all over my monitor.
A coworker who's an avid (horizontal) cyclist recently started doing this in his 40s, and brags about how much of a chump he feels like on the trails in North Vancouver, watching 20-somethings blast past him on the trail and take jumps without even slowing down to imagine the possible mangling.
posted by fatbird at 8:02 AM on August 18, 2021 [5 favorites]
And, I mean, thank Christ for that effect, because I'd probably have thrown up all over my monitor.
A coworker who's an avid (horizontal) cyclist recently started doing this in his 40s, and brags about how much of a chump he feels like on the trails in North Vancouver, watching 20-somethings blast past him on the trail and take jumps without even slowing down to imagine the possible mangling.
posted by fatbird at 8:02 AM on August 18, 2021 [5 favorites]
I was never a technical rider -- didn't have the skills, didn't have the strength, didn't have the bike -- but I recognized the laugh instantly. It's the sound you make when you're in the zone and feeling right on the edge of control.
It was good of him to keep in the parts of the ride where he would stop to survey a segment before riding it, including the ramp he nopes out of, even though he edited out the parts where he was getting lost. There's no shame in acknowledging your limits.
posted by ardgedee at 8:15 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
It was good of him to keep in the parts of the ride where he would stop to survey a segment before riding it, including the ramp he nopes out of, even though he edited out the parts where he was getting lost. There's no shame in acknowledging your limits.
posted by ardgedee at 8:15 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
I love his low key style -- the occasional comments, his little laugh as he goes over something cool or fun. Mind you, if that trail is near Merritt, it's probably currently on fire.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:15 AM on August 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by jacquilynne at 8:15 AM on August 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
I do like the non-superhuman touches, like test walking over one catwalk around 1:30
I honest to god was wondering why he pointed his bike to the right when the straight ahead looked like the trail...but nope.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:28 AM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
I honest to god was wondering why he pointed his bike to the right when the straight ahead looked like the trail...but nope.
posted by 922257033c4a0f3cecdbd819a46d626999d1af4a at 8:28 AM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
How does he get back up the trail?
Ski lifts, vans or trucks.
Downhill mountain biking has evolved into it's own sport that doesn't really exist outside of ski resorts or established riding areas where riders use support trucks or vehicles to get to the starts of trails at the top.
Modern downhill mountain bikes are heavy and they're basically motorcycles without a motor. They're usually incredibly heavy, pushing 40-60 pounds depending on the riding style and regime.
There are free riders that will ride, walk, hike or otherwise push their bikes to the top but it's less common for pure DH riding.
Today there are multiple segments of off road riding types and styles ranging from full downhill racing, slope style riding (big ramps and jumps, higher speed, more groomed trails, doing stunts off the big features), free riding (DH with more pedaling and climbing), cross country (more pedaling and climbing and most closely resembles early mountain biking and more sub-genres.
The bikes are also wildly different between each genre these days. Cross country riders are the most likely to use hardtail bikes with better pedaling capabilities or otherwise lighter full suspension bikes that have lighter suspension and suspension lockouts for riding flats or climbs.
Slope/park bikes tend to be lighter and faster than full DH bikes even though they look almost identical. Slope/park bikes might also have the least amount of pedaling involved and the smallest drive trails because their riding environments are very precisely groomed to use gravity and smooth trails and features for speed and big air, and slope riders prefer lighter bikes so they can whip their bike around in stunts like back flips, tail whips and more.
Most pedaling that downhill riders do today involves small flat sections between features, pumping enough speed up for a jump or feature or for balancing on ladder or log runs. (Ladder runs are the ramps with planks you see all over the video.)
They don't really ride their bikes outside of being propelled by gravity very much, even thought a given DH bike might have a 1x11 drive train capable of doing some climbing, sometimes these gear ranges are vestigial.
Today modern pro or race ready DH bikes might even have less than 1x11 gearsets to save weight, complication and to have less stuff to damage from crashes. Most modern DH/MTB derailleurs even have options like clutches that effectively lock a derailleur in place to prevent shifting entirely.
Downhill mountain bikes in particular may be the most rapidly evolving bike technology in the general world of bicycles.
For an example, if you notice on the bike in the video there's a lever on the left side of the handlebars that looks like a shifting lever but it's probably for a dropper seatpost. There's almost no way that that bike would have a front derailleur or more than a 1 speed crank. DH bikes switched almost exclusively to 1x cranks over 10 years ago, maybe more.
Dropper seatposts use that lever to open a friction cam along with a spring loaded telescoping seat post that allows a rider to adjust their seat height on the fly while moving, without having to get off the bike to adjust it.
There are also similar systems to lock out or adjust the suspension front or rear using a thumb lever on the handlebars.
Modern DH mountain bikes are also stupid expensive. The bike in the video is probably worth well over 5,000 USD. 4-6k USD is the base entry level for these kinds of bikes.
Curious about the kind of effort involved in laying a complex bike trail like that in the first place, who does it, is it other mountain bike enthusiasts? Do they need a permit for something like that?
These trails are usually evolved over years and, yes, they're usually designed and built by other DH enthusiasts that know the mountain or region.
In the case of ski/mountain resorts there's usually a team of builders. The compensation for these builders ranges from being directly paid by the resort, to perks like housing, meal plans or lift passes to volunteers who get paid nothing at all besides maybe lift tickets and passes. It's a lot like the skiing/boarding community and there's also usually a lot of overlap between the DH riders and skiers and snowboarders.
Basically think "ski bums" on wheels, and a lot of DH riders may also be skiing or boarding bums who work the various seasons at a resort.
Outside of the resorts in established freeride parks it's usually entirely volunteers and established trail crews, and there's sometimes a lot of controversy and drama about this. Going out and adding your own features or cutting a new trail in an established free ride area without getting involved with the local crew is usually a sure way to instigate drama and make enemies.
Then there's even more controversy about renegade trails being built in protected areas or even in National Forest Lands where there may not even be any real rules against it.
The planning process is usually very organic. New lines evolve from old ones or riders spotting new possible trails or lines and walking the proposed area or route. Ideas and implementations may span years.
The trails also evolve over time due to issues like fallen trees, erosion, planned erosion avoidance and control and more. Fallen trees is where the log runs evolved from. It's often just easier to turn a fallen log into a riding feature than it is to cut it up and move it.
It mimics the same way that a lot of ski resorts evolved. Someone good on skis or a board sees a line and says "Yean, I want to put a line there and build it out!" and then they go and do that, often with a crew of volunteer trail workers.
posted by loquacious at 8:55 AM on August 18, 2021 [25 favorites]
Ski lifts, vans or trucks.
Downhill mountain biking has evolved into it's own sport that doesn't really exist outside of ski resorts or established riding areas where riders use support trucks or vehicles to get to the starts of trails at the top.
Modern downhill mountain bikes are heavy and they're basically motorcycles without a motor. They're usually incredibly heavy, pushing 40-60 pounds depending on the riding style and regime.
There are free riders that will ride, walk, hike or otherwise push their bikes to the top but it's less common for pure DH riding.
Today there are multiple segments of off road riding types and styles ranging from full downhill racing, slope style riding (big ramps and jumps, higher speed, more groomed trails, doing stunts off the big features), free riding (DH with more pedaling and climbing), cross country (more pedaling and climbing and most closely resembles early mountain biking and more sub-genres.
The bikes are also wildly different between each genre these days. Cross country riders are the most likely to use hardtail bikes with better pedaling capabilities or otherwise lighter full suspension bikes that have lighter suspension and suspension lockouts for riding flats or climbs.
Slope/park bikes tend to be lighter and faster than full DH bikes even though they look almost identical. Slope/park bikes might also have the least amount of pedaling involved and the smallest drive trails because their riding environments are very precisely groomed to use gravity and smooth trails and features for speed and big air, and slope riders prefer lighter bikes so they can whip their bike around in stunts like back flips, tail whips and more.
Most pedaling that downhill riders do today involves small flat sections between features, pumping enough speed up for a jump or feature or for balancing on ladder or log runs. (Ladder runs are the ramps with planks you see all over the video.)
They don't really ride their bikes outside of being propelled by gravity very much, even thought a given DH bike might have a 1x11 drive train capable of doing some climbing, sometimes these gear ranges are vestigial.
Today modern pro or race ready DH bikes might even have less than 1x11 gearsets to save weight, complication and to have less stuff to damage from crashes. Most modern DH/MTB derailleurs even have options like clutches that effectively lock a derailleur in place to prevent shifting entirely.
Downhill mountain bikes in particular may be the most rapidly evolving bike technology in the general world of bicycles.
For an example, if you notice on the bike in the video there's a lever on the left side of the handlebars that looks like a shifting lever but it's probably for a dropper seatpost. There's almost no way that that bike would have a front derailleur or more than a 1 speed crank. DH bikes switched almost exclusively to 1x cranks over 10 years ago, maybe more.
Dropper seatposts use that lever to open a friction cam along with a spring loaded telescoping seat post that allows a rider to adjust their seat height on the fly while moving, without having to get off the bike to adjust it.
There are also similar systems to lock out or adjust the suspension front or rear using a thumb lever on the handlebars.
Modern DH mountain bikes are also stupid expensive. The bike in the video is probably worth well over 5,000 USD. 4-6k USD is the base entry level for these kinds of bikes.
Curious about the kind of effort involved in laying a complex bike trail like that in the first place, who does it, is it other mountain bike enthusiasts? Do they need a permit for something like that?
These trails are usually evolved over years and, yes, they're usually designed and built by other DH enthusiasts that know the mountain or region.
In the case of ski/mountain resorts there's usually a team of builders. The compensation for these builders ranges from being directly paid by the resort, to perks like housing, meal plans or lift passes to volunteers who get paid nothing at all besides maybe lift tickets and passes. It's a lot like the skiing/boarding community and there's also usually a lot of overlap between the DH riders and skiers and snowboarders.
Basically think "ski bums" on wheels, and a lot of DH riders may also be skiing or boarding bums who work the various seasons at a resort.
Outside of the resorts in established freeride parks it's usually entirely volunteers and established trail crews, and there's sometimes a lot of controversy and drama about this. Going out and adding your own features or cutting a new trail in an established free ride area without getting involved with the local crew is usually a sure way to instigate drama and make enemies.
Then there's even more controversy about renegade trails being built in protected areas or even in National Forest Lands where there may not even be any real rules against it.
The planning process is usually very organic. New lines evolve from old ones or riders spotting new possible trails or lines and walking the proposed area or route. Ideas and implementations may span years.
The trails also evolve over time due to issues like fallen trees, erosion, planned erosion avoidance and control and more. Fallen trees is where the log runs evolved from. It's often just easier to turn a fallen log into a riding feature than it is to cut it up and move it.
It mimics the same way that a lot of ski resorts evolved. Someone good on skis or a board sees a line and says "Yean, I want to put a line there and build it out!" and then they go and do that, often with a crew of volunteer trail workers.
posted by loquacious at 8:55 AM on August 18, 2021 [25 favorites]
Also, here's a complete 30 minute video of a full mountain race where they start at the top in snow way above treeline and end up riding all the way to the bottom right through an alpine town.
Imagine continuously descending for 30+ minutes at speeds up to 100 k/ph over snow, rocks, gravel, mud, scree spills, grass and even semi-urban streets. Note there's a bunch of places where he's off the bike and just pushing it on foot as fast as possible.
Then there's stuff like Red Bull Rampage where it's basically extreme technical downhill free ride with slopestyle without a timed race element. The runs are short but there are multiple free ride lines and routes and they're being judged for big stunts, drops, flips, technical riding and they do backflips over 50-100 foot gaps that have 100 foot drops or canyons below them.
posted by loquacious at 9:05 AM on August 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
Imagine continuously descending for 30+ minutes at speeds up to 100 k/ph over snow, rocks, gravel, mud, scree spills, grass and even semi-urban streets. Note there's a bunch of places where he's off the bike and just pushing it on foot as fast as possible.
Then there's stuff like Red Bull Rampage where it's basically extreme technical downhill free ride with slopestyle without a timed race element. The runs are short but there are multiple free ride lines and routes and they're being judged for big stunts, drops, flips, technical riding and they do backflips over 50-100 foot gaps that have 100 foot drops or canyons below them.
posted by loquacious at 9:05 AM on August 18, 2021 [2 favorites]
The rider in the video is riding an "All Mountain" bike, rugged, but not a downhill bike and he would be riding back up the hills for another go round. BC riders are pretty organized setting up their trails with easier routes to climb up and then one way trails down. He has a link to the map of the trail he is riding, Mid Revival, and there is no ski lift anywhere near.
posted by FungusCassetteBicker at 9:29 AM on August 18, 2021 [8 favorites]
posted by FungusCassetteBicker at 9:29 AM on August 18, 2021 [8 favorites]
I broke a collarbone just watching the video.
posted by Beholder at 9:34 AM on August 18, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Beholder at 9:34 AM on August 18, 2021 [5 favorites]
The rider in the video is riding an "All Mountain" bike, rugged, but not a downhill bike and he would be riding back up the hills for another go round.
Yeah, don't take what I say as gospel. What I know about modern mountain biking is likely out of date and I'm doing that thing where I try to explain something to outsiders that are even more outside than I am where I have some limited knowledge that I've only observed and picked up from osmosis being around bikes a lot or just looking at articles and resources about bikes.
Modern mountain bikes are totally bewildering to me these days. There's so much new technology and subtle differences between the bikes that I couldn't reliably tell someone the difference between an all mountain bike, a full downhill bike, an enduro bike or a slopestyle bike except maybe for a few key points.
There are definitely plenty trails/free ride or whatever riders that do climb to the tops of trails and they don't rely on ski lifts or support vehicles to get to the top of a trail.
While I ride a lot of dirt on my no-suspension mountain bike that is effectively a 1990s era no-suspension mountain bike but with skinny tires in the 35x700 range, I'm definitely not doing any jumps, ladder runs or log rides.
I could probably keep up on some fairly advanced trails on the right bike because I do know how to descend rocky dirt trails and do some jumps and drops and clear some ladders and log rides but anything more than a foot or two of air and I'd be way out my league or comfort zone. I can ride up and down some pretty sketchy, rocky trails but there's no way I could ride most of the trail in the video.
I used to call my particular niche kind of hybrid/touring/gravel/cyclocross/xbike bike a "gravel bike" as a generic term but that term has recently evolved into something else entirely that basically means a drop bar road bike with more frame clearance for mud and fatter tires and has evolved into a particular kind of race bike that isn't road, cyclocross or MTB riding, so I've had to stop calling my bike a "gravel bike".
And now my bike and riding is off in it's own little niche within a niche where I run flat bars with bar ends, luggage racks, skinny road/touring style tires and so on that's somewhere between a bike touring bike and a road bike even though it closely resembles a late 1980s to mid 1990s hard fork, hard tail MTB.
The new term or definition that my bike and riding fit into seems to either be "adventure bike" or "x-bike". It's like the sport utility vehicle or sporty AWD Suburau of the bike world. It can haul ass or groceries or sometimes both.
More confusing is that my bike is now electrified which makes it even more niche and hard to define because I have it dialed in for both high end speed as well as very low speed, high torque technical climbing and off road single track trail riding. So it's somewhere in a vague place between a high performance "pedalec" electric commuter-hybrid and an off road bike. It doesn't really fit in with the electric comfort and fat tire bikes and it doesn't fit in with gravel bikes or touring bikes, and it definitely also doesn't fit in with the electric mountain/trail bikes that have full suspension and lack features like cargo or pannier racks.
Like it's really common for people to not even realize my bike is powered even though it has a huge battery pack on the frame and a mid drive motor hanging from my bottom bracket and cranks. At first glance it just looks like a touring bike with a weird looking frame bag mounted on it.
Another interesting new development is that electrified mountain bikes are becoming more and more popular, and they're basically electric motorcycles with pedals capable of going most of the places that a good full suspension cross country or "all mountain" mountain bike can go, where you can use the power for climbing to a trail head and then descend more or less the same technical trails that unpowered mountain bikes can go at similar speeds just using gravity and coasting.
This is rapidly becoming it's own niche style of bike that is totally independent of electric commuter/hybrid/comfort bikes.
posted by loquacious at 10:08 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
Yeah, don't take what I say as gospel. What I know about modern mountain biking is likely out of date and I'm doing that thing where I try to explain something to outsiders that are even more outside than I am where I have some limited knowledge that I've only observed and picked up from osmosis being around bikes a lot or just looking at articles and resources about bikes.
Modern mountain bikes are totally bewildering to me these days. There's so much new technology and subtle differences between the bikes that I couldn't reliably tell someone the difference between an all mountain bike, a full downhill bike, an enduro bike or a slopestyle bike except maybe for a few key points.
There are definitely plenty trails/free ride or whatever riders that do climb to the tops of trails and they don't rely on ski lifts or support vehicles to get to the top of a trail.
While I ride a lot of dirt on my no-suspension mountain bike that is effectively a 1990s era no-suspension mountain bike but with skinny tires in the 35x700 range, I'm definitely not doing any jumps, ladder runs or log rides.
I could probably keep up on some fairly advanced trails on the right bike because I do know how to descend rocky dirt trails and do some jumps and drops and clear some ladders and log rides but anything more than a foot or two of air and I'd be way out my league or comfort zone. I can ride up and down some pretty sketchy, rocky trails but there's no way I could ride most of the trail in the video.
I used to call my particular niche kind of hybrid/touring/gravel/cyclocross/xbike bike a "gravel bike" as a generic term but that term has recently evolved into something else entirely that basically means a drop bar road bike with more frame clearance for mud and fatter tires and has evolved into a particular kind of race bike that isn't road, cyclocross or MTB riding, so I've had to stop calling my bike a "gravel bike".
And now my bike and riding is off in it's own little niche within a niche where I run flat bars with bar ends, luggage racks, skinny road/touring style tires and so on that's somewhere between a bike touring bike and a road bike even though it closely resembles a late 1980s to mid 1990s hard fork, hard tail MTB.
The new term or definition that my bike and riding fit into seems to either be "adventure bike" or "x-bike". It's like the sport utility vehicle or sporty AWD Suburau of the bike world. It can haul ass or groceries or sometimes both.
More confusing is that my bike is now electrified which makes it even more niche and hard to define because I have it dialed in for both high end speed as well as very low speed, high torque technical climbing and off road single track trail riding. So it's somewhere in a vague place between a high performance "pedalec" electric commuter-hybrid and an off road bike. It doesn't really fit in with the electric comfort and fat tire bikes and it doesn't fit in with gravel bikes or touring bikes, and it definitely also doesn't fit in with the electric mountain/trail bikes that have full suspension and lack features like cargo or pannier racks.
Like it's really common for people to not even realize my bike is powered even though it has a huge battery pack on the frame and a mid drive motor hanging from my bottom bracket and cranks. At first glance it just looks like a touring bike with a weird looking frame bag mounted on it.
Another interesting new development is that electrified mountain bikes are becoming more and more popular, and they're basically electric motorcycles with pedals capable of going most of the places that a good full suspension cross country or "all mountain" mountain bike can go, where you can use the power for climbing to a trail head and then descend more or less the same technical trails that unpowered mountain bikes can go at similar speeds just using gravity and coasting.
This is rapidly becoming it's own niche style of bike that is totally independent of electric commuter/hybrid/comfort bikes.
posted by loquacious at 10:08 AM on August 18, 2021 [3 favorites]
"Natural log ride, that's what I'm talking about."
"This trail is sick!"
posted by gkr at 10:21 AM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
"This trail is sick!"
posted by gkr at 10:21 AM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
I've been riding on the west coast for decades, now on an all mountain bike. This trail gets a nope.
A colleague who broke his back (not mountain biking) said most of the guys in rehab when he was there were... mountain bikers. They make it look easy, and the low speeds will fool you into thinking it's safe for rubes like me. Nah.
posted by klanawa at 12:15 PM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
A colleague who broke his back (not mountain biking) said most of the guys in rehab when he was there were... mountain bikers. They make it look easy, and the low speeds will fool you into thinking it's safe for rubes like me. Nah.
posted by klanawa at 12:15 PM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
Dave may like it dangerous but he's still crazy to attempt this alone.
posted by thoughtful_jester at 12:20 PM on August 18, 2021
posted by thoughtful_jester at 12:20 PM on August 18, 2021
Thank you, Gorgik and loquacious. I had no idea I was so into watching downhill biking videos. This is cool.
posted by heyho at 5:18 PM on August 18, 2021
posted by heyho at 5:18 PM on August 18, 2021
Curious about the kind of effort involved in laying a complex bike trail like that in the first place, who does it, is it other mountain bike enthusiasts? Do they need a permit for something like that?
In the US, yes, there would be a process (and depending on what you were doing, likely permitting) for legally building new trail systems and infrastructure on public lands. (Many, if not most, downhill ski areas are on public lands, for example, and although in decades past adding new lifts and ski runs was a more ad-hoc process, these days it requires a lot more consultation and oversight.) In practice, people do a lot of it themselves without paying any attention to legalities; sometimes it works out well and sometimes it is ecologically destructive or harms other users.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:18 PM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
In the US, yes, there would be a process (and depending on what you were doing, likely permitting) for legally building new trail systems and infrastructure on public lands. (Many, if not most, downhill ski areas are on public lands, for example, and although in decades past adding new lifts and ski runs was a more ad-hoc process, these days it requires a lot more consultation and oversight.) In practice, people do a lot of it themselves without paying any attention to legalities; sometimes it works out well and sometimes it is ecologically destructive or harms other users.
posted by Dip Flash at 5:18 PM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
That bike is a Norco Sight, a very capable all mountain bike, but not a full downhill bike. Certainly one that can be pedaled uphill for laps, which is just too say that all mountain bikes are extremely capable these days. A full, double crown downhill bike can take some monstrously large hits.
posted by Pantengliopoli at 8:05 PM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by Pantengliopoli at 8:05 PM on August 18, 2021 [1 favorite]
A full, double crown downhill bike can take some monstrously large hits.
Yeah, some of these bikes are insanely tough and take a huge beating not just when things go right but also during crashes and bails. They regularly fall off of cliffs and mountains both with and without a rider attached.
I've watched some videos of competitions and events where rider's bikes get dropped off the side of huge cliffs and bounce off of huge boulders all the way down and the riders barely stop to give them a quick glance before jumping right back on them.
Toss my bike off the same cliff and it might actually get totaled and wreck the frame and fork so bad I couldn't safely straighten it out again. At a minimum it would probably do stuff like taco my rims, blow out tires, break off break levers or shifters, totally mangle my derailleur or derailleur hanger and much more.
There are some other developments in mountain bike tech that blow my mind.
One, most off road bikes these days use tubeless tire setups and have puncture-sealing goo injected into the rim-tire space. This lets riders ride on very low tire pressures for traction and impact management, and tubeless with sealant means they avoid getting pinch flats like clincher tires with tubes tend to get at low pressures.
In addition to this a lot of MTB riders also insert "donuts" into their tubeless setups to protect the rims from impacts when they bottom out on a low pressure tubeless setup, or even let them run on flat tires for a while to either make it down the mountain and/or wait for the sealant to fix a puncture so they can reinflate and keep going.
It's basically like modern run flat tires as found on cars today, but for mountain bikes. Same basic idea.
All of this is super weird and foreign to me where I run my tubed clincher touring/gravel tires at much higher pressures to protect the rim, the sidewalls of my tires and my tubes.
With modern kevlar armored tires I basically never, ever get traditional puncture flats, and with heavy duty touring tires like a Schwalble Marathon+ I've found things like wood screws or chunks of sharp glass larger than a US nickel or quarter just jammed right into the tire casing and have been able to just pick it out.
I once ran a set of Marathon+ tires for so long that they had divots and craters all over the casing and body and I was regularly having to pick large pebbles out of them.
Out of my last dozen flats and blowouts they were all pinch flats from hitting something like a crack or pothole too hard with too low of a pressure, or I wore out my sidewalls so much that they would tear open.
Another thing that blows me away with modern mountain bikes is they're now making carbon fiber composite wheels so strong that some manufacturers are apparently offering lifetime no questions asked warranties.
Just see for yourself and watch Danny MacAskill abusing the hell out of a set of rims on purpose to see what it takes to actually destroy them.
Granted those rims cost like $1600 which is more than my bike was worth new.
posted by loquacious at 10:09 PM on August 18, 2021
Yeah, some of these bikes are insanely tough and take a huge beating not just when things go right but also during crashes and bails. They regularly fall off of cliffs and mountains both with and without a rider attached.
I've watched some videos of competitions and events where rider's bikes get dropped off the side of huge cliffs and bounce off of huge boulders all the way down and the riders barely stop to give them a quick glance before jumping right back on them.
Toss my bike off the same cliff and it might actually get totaled and wreck the frame and fork so bad I couldn't safely straighten it out again. At a minimum it would probably do stuff like taco my rims, blow out tires, break off break levers or shifters, totally mangle my derailleur or derailleur hanger and much more.
There are some other developments in mountain bike tech that blow my mind.
One, most off road bikes these days use tubeless tire setups and have puncture-sealing goo injected into the rim-tire space. This lets riders ride on very low tire pressures for traction and impact management, and tubeless with sealant means they avoid getting pinch flats like clincher tires with tubes tend to get at low pressures.
In addition to this a lot of MTB riders also insert "donuts" into their tubeless setups to protect the rims from impacts when they bottom out on a low pressure tubeless setup, or even let them run on flat tires for a while to either make it down the mountain and/or wait for the sealant to fix a puncture so they can reinflate and keep going.
It's basically like modern run flat tires as found on cars today, but for mountain bikes. Same basic idea.
All of this is super weird and foreign to me where I run my tubed clincher touring/gravel tires at much higher pressures to protect the rim, the sidewalls of my tires and my tubes.
With modern kevlar armored tires I basically never, ever get traditional puncture flats, and with heavy duty touring tires like a Schwalble Marathon+ I've found things like wood screws or chunks of sharp glass larger than a US nickel or quarter just jammed right into the tire casing and have been able to just pick it out.
I once ran a set of Marathon+ tires for so long that they had divots and craters all over the casing and body and I was regularly having to pick large pebbles out of them.
Out of my last dozen flats and blowouts they were all pinch flats from hitting something like a crack or pothole too hard with too low of a pressure, or I wore out my sidewalls so much that they would tear open.
Another thing that blows me away with modern mountain bikes is they're now making carbon fiber composite wheels so strong that some manufacturers are apparently offering lifetime no questions asked warranties.
Just see for yourself and watch Danny MacAskill abusing the hell out of a set of rims on purpose to see what it takes to actually destroy them.
Granted those rims cost like $1600 which is more than my bike was worth new.
posted by loquacious at 10:09 PM on August 18, 2021
if that trail is near Merritt, it's probably currently on fire.
That's the triple black diamond version, beyond beyond expert. It's on the left.
posted by fatbird at 8:40 AM on August 19, 2021
That's the triple black diamond version, beyond beyond expert. It's on the left.
posted by fatbird at 8:40 AM on August 19, 2021
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There's a weird ASMR quality to the sound of his bike hurtling itself down over those rockfalls though.
posted by fight or flight at 7:31 AM on August 18, 2021 [2 favorites]