If you have a friend that asks, "what is mountain biking all about?" show them this video:
It can be hard to explain the role that mean-mugging and slow-mo-yellow-dust-throwing play in an average ride, so let the video do the talking.
Comments on vital and pinkbike were glowing and positive for this video, to which I have to ask REALLY? This is what you want to see from bike movies? There was about 30 seconds of actual, real-time riding in there, and only half of it was interesting. So, what you really want to see in bike movies is dub step, yellow dust, super slow-mo, and 39 seconds of mean mugs? What you really want is this?
Now that I think about it, don't even bother showing the video to your non-riding friends, just email them these screenshots from the video, and they'll be expert mountain bikers just after looking at them:
Really? These videos don't seem freaking weird to anyone else? Is no one else noticing this?
Steve is an awesome guy and an incredible bike rider, but this interview is just terrible. Not really Steve's fault, but holy crap. I couldn't sit through it. So. Many. Comments... HERNIA.
It boils down to "Interview Bro," the name I've affectionately given the interviewer. That's the guy who conducts the interview, I think. That means Steve would be the interviewee. Maybe.
I think the word "interviewee" is like "escapee." I don't know.
Anyway, back to the video. Meet Interview Bro, the man at the top of the kill list right now:
Just for the record, Interview Bro narrowly edges out "tries to write witty things on the grout above the urinal at college guy" for the position at the top of the kill list right now:
First of all, nice sweatshirt, Interview Bro. I don't know whether those are supposed to be stars or exploded alien guts or if it's the latest Air Jordan XXVI limited BS edition Hoodie, but I love it. It really brings out... how much of a bro you are.
Second, why are you standing out on a windy, random slab of rock out by a lake. It just looks... uncomfortable. Plus we're talking B.C. in early March, so we all know it's colder than shit out there, you're not fooling anyone. As if your interview skills weren't enough to drive Steve indoors, you put him out in the cold. Sweet.
P.S. Nobody thinks you're actually going for a bike ride together, so you're not fooling anyone there either. We all know you hiked your asses way out to that rock, and when you're done, you and Steve and the camera guy are going to hike your asses and that perfectly good bike back down to the car, go home, and warm up indoors. Why not just film the interview there? Oh, that's right, because you thought it would be scenic to have trees in the background. I forgot you were an aspiring artist, Interview Bro.
Third, Interview Bro, put your hands down. It looks like you're trying to communicate via semaphore but you lost your flags.
Fourth, no matter what Stevie says, your answer is either "sick" or "rad" or "for sure" or "totally." If Steve had said he was planning to choke the life out of himself with a leather belt around his neck when he got home, you probably would keep nodding and say "shredtacular, dude."
This is what your interview style looks like, Interview Bro:
Fifth. Interview Bro, do you remember when you were in junior high and your language arts teacher told you "there's no such thing as a bad question." Do you remember?
Guess what? Your teacher was full of shit.
When you open your mouth, it's obvious you don't know anything about bike racing. When you listen and do the bobble head thing, it's obvious that you have no idea what Steve's talking about.
So that covers dumb questions, but here's a good question:
Is Interview Bro still better than Brett Tippie?
To illustrate how difficult that question is, I've enlisted the help of someone who's really good at looking stumped:
Continuing in our proud heritage of reposting Brian Lopes press releases, making fun of them, and then putting words in his mouth, we bring you more exciting news from the mountain bike industry:
"I'm really excited to begin this relationship with Novatec. As I cash in on my name recognition and try to coast into the finish line of life, I don't support just any product or company. I seek out the highest performing, best products available, regardless of how much or little they agree to pay me in salary, benefits, % share in the company, or for photo-incentives, mentioning their product in interviews, magazine ads, or event presence. Performance, and nothing else, brought me to Novatec."
-Fake Brian Lopes
"We at Novatec like to partner with athletes that give as much back to mountain-biking as we do. It's in that spirit that we are proud to bring Blopes onto the Novatec team. We are proud to join Brian's other sponsors, a list of high-quality, high-performance brands that all represent the best products in their fields, brands like Lazer helmets, X-fusion suspension, and Magura brakes. Getting Brian's seal of approval is huge for us, because Brian has a long history of riding nothing but the best, like GT and Marzocchi."
Whistler's marketing department added a new trail called "Top of the World" where you can wait in the line forever at their season pass office to hopefully be one of the 100 riders per day that gets to buy the "top of the world" pass, which is good for one run, unless there's a media event or visiting pro riders or a corporate event in which case they give the passes away to those guys and you don't get to do it no matter how long you wait in line. Continuing to rain on your parade:
Whistler's "Top of the World" trail on paper:
Whistler's "Top of the World" trail in practice:
Anyway, a lot of people on Pinkbike were pretty stoked about this, and they shared their stoke in the comments. One comment that jumped out at me came from Nevada Spelling Bee Champion "supr-ridr:"
"Yeah im all for being patriotic and what not, but lets be honest here who wouldnt want to be canadian and live in B.C."
In terms of aptitude with technology, I'm basically a 70-year-old stuck in a 23-year old's body. I'm so far off the back, I still have a yahoo email account. For the privilege of using yahoo mail, I am treated to little "news" stories that pop up in the window all around whatever I actually want to look at. These news stories can range from "who wore that the best" to "8 recipes with pine nuts" to "eat this not that" to "Kourtney Kardashian said what?"
I've affectionately dubbed these little stories "the fake news". Basically they're hardly news stories, and they're targeted at the lowest-common-denominator human beings in the internet-reading gene pool. Obviously I read them all.
So today in the fake news, I saw an article labeled "Careers That Won't Make You Fat." I like a good challenge as much as the next guy, so I wanted to see if I could disprove their lofty claim.
Simple mission: pick the #1 career that "won't make you fat" (it was firefighting, by the way), and see if I could find a counterpoint.
One quick google search on "fat firefighter" later, and mission accomplished:
Way to beat the odds, man.
After accomplishing my goal and, subsequently, my whole day's labors, I scrolled down to see what the other allegedly "non-fattening" careers were.
#3 was "Landscaping:"
Wait, what does a landscaper look like again?
It was at that moment that I realized I had clicked the wrong link on the webpage. This goes back to that aptitude with technology problem I have. I thought I had clicked "Careers That Won't Make You Fat," with a list of actual careers that won't make you fat.
Oops.
In actuality I had accidentally clicked the link right next to it entitled "Costumes for male strippers that you need to not be fat for:"
I wanted to make the best out of a bad situation, so I tried to think of who I could send it to that could use that sort of information.
Unit 0010101001, human name "Adolfo Almarza." Part man, part machine, he's still a work in progress. It's been brought to our attention that he didn't win the race in Brazil. Normally we crush and recycle robots that lose races, but give him some credit; you've got to remember that he's still part human. We at Team Robot believe that when we can replace the rest of the man in him with machine parts, he'll be ready to win every race. He's still a work in progress, and it's incredible that he's come so far on his weak, soft, pathetic human bones and joints that can be so easily crushed with pincer claws or eviscerated with laser vision.
Unit 1001010100, human name "Oscar Pistorious," is nearly complete. He's winning pretty much every race he enters, which is on par for robots vs. humans:
That incredible Adolfo Almarza photo was sent to me by Pro Rider Birry Rewis.
Also, if you don't understand that Mr. Almarza is an incredible athlete with an inspiring story, and that we at Team Robot have the utmost respect for him, and that this was a joke
