If you want to watch one of the best bike handlers of all time straight up slay some concrete, watch this. About 4 minutes of solid gold, followed by guys talking about shoes. So the end is kind of a bummer, but whatever, the riding's good.
5 points for each skatepark you recognize. I've got 10 points for Hood River and I think Reedsport.
The Troy Lee motto is "For the World's Fastest Racers." On all of Ben Reid's gear it says, "For the World's Fastest Looking Racers."
Not to take anything away from his speed, but anyone who's seen Ben Reid ride in person would swear he's going to win every race for the next decade, and everyone who's actually seen the results from the last decade knows that's probably not going to happen. The first time I saw Ben Reid ride in person was at the 2010 Port Angeles ProGRT, and it was mind blowing. I remember every time he came through it was silent for a while after because we had to cap our ears to keep our brains from leaking out. In the tight s-turns in the middle of Upper Pro he was going warp 7, Mr. Sulu.
***A quick aside: nice video, and way to use something other than dub step. The production was still a little too bigtime for my taste, but it was inarguably rad.***
Maybe Ben Reid just looks fast, or maybe he's every bit as fast as he looks, but only when the clock isn't ticking. Either way, he crushes everything except the World Cup top 15 list, making him the heir apparent to the all-time practice winner for the books, Kirkaldie.
The only real race Kirkcaldie ever won is the U.S. Open, but that didn't stop him from winning practices at Norbas and World Cups for his entire career. Kirkcaldie still has the lifetime record for most practices won, and has won practice on all six continents that aren't Antarctica. Kirkcaldie's lifetime practice winning record makes Gwin's world cup winning record from 2011 look like amateur hour. One time when he was a boy someone else won practice at a race, and the young Kirkcaldie was so pissed that all of the hair on the top of his head fell off. True story.
But don't take my word for it, listen to what CaliBro McHouseman has to say in this video predating dolly cams in MTB, and watch Old Man Time put the hurt on Duncan Riffle's least favorite trail:
Ben Reid is the new Kirkcaldie.
And Connor Fearon is the new Sam Blenkinsop. Think about it and you know I'm right.
A few key takeaways from this video:
- Mountain biking is super fun, and they're fast, even without dub step.
- You can still ride the entire Schladming world cup race course
- Why is there not a race there?
- Any one of those foot off corners that Strobel does would be a Clay Porter wet dream in slow mo
- If the gap at 1:15 looks that big in a helmet cam video, it's terrifying
"Following Connor is gnarly cuz he's sideways the whole time and you can't really see the trail."
-actual, not fake Luke Strobel quote
"When the clip ends at the bottom of the run, that's actually the camera running out of batteries. We got pretty lucky on that one. Connor forgot to charge the camera the night before."
-actual, not fake Luke Strobel quote
"I think Charlie has some real potential, and I think he's going to go places in the downhill world."
-clearly fake Luke Strobel quote
I know I've posted this clip of Connor Fearon turning some spectators' brains into soup, but it's good every time:
If you're a youngster whose never seen all the the old VHS and DVD bike videos, you probably watched that Kirkcaldie video from Play Corter and thought "Whoa, theres no way that's a CP video. That video had exactly zero dub step, smoke machines, 1000 FPS cameras, or cable cams." But like a youngster whose friends listen to Lil Wayne who finds Slayer or Metallica for the first time and says, "this doesn't suck," here's another blast from the past that will blow your mind:
Clay Porter used to show multiple clips of actual bike riding, uninterrupted by interviews or starry night cloud time-lapses:
Also, if Ben Reid reids this, he should know that I'm neither fast nor fast looking.
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