FEAR IT

Team BRObot

The soul of skateboarding:

The soul of skiiing:








The soul of BMX:









The soul of mountain biking:

Team BRObot says:

Stoked for Crankworx slopestyle this year! It's all about progression, bro. Gonna see my boy Greg Watts do a backflip quadruple barspin this year, it's gonna be off the HIZZook. Plus we don't have that pussy Canadian beer, anymore. Yeah, more like Kokanee LAMEworx! We got my boys from BUD LIGHT in the hizzouse. Bud Light's gonna hook it up, maybe some BL Lime for the ladies if you know what I mean. SICK!


Like, I didn't really understand what this commercial is about or how it got approved by a big money ad-agency, but hey, anything with Bud Light in it is sick, am I right?




Basically, I'm pumped cuz I really think slopestyle is the, where we like, feed off each other and shit. If bros aren't getting carted out on backboards and life support than the course wasn't sick enough.

-Team BRObot

FAAG UPDATE

Turns out that I was using UCI points instead of World Cup points for FAAG totals.

The UCI Points that I was using: http://www.uci.ch/templates/BUILTIN-NOFRAMES/Template3/layout.asp?MenuId=MTUxNjU&LangId=1

The actual World Cup Points that I should use for FAAG points: http://www.uci.ch/templates/BUILTIN-NOFRAMES/Template1/layout.asp?MenuId=MTYzODg&LangId=1

Once that was sorted out, the actual FAAG standings are listed. So, yeah... I sort of did it wrong all year. So the lead goes to 13 year old Richie Rude, with Strobel 12 points behind him. Still a very close race, and it's definitely going to come down to Norway.


1. Richie Rude 324

2. Luke Strobel 312

3. Mitch Ropelato 210

4. Eliot Jackson 172

5. Duncan Riffle 150



I suck.

More Rankin

Faster than you, but on a Mongoose.






The World Cup returns to Willingen in 2013. You might think that sucks, but Steve Peat says that "stuff like that on World Cup tracks [insert two weird neck gyrations here] is good."

What happens when you hear the truth

HUMAN FEMALES INVADE PRIVATE ROBOT MEETING, IMMEDIATELY ATTEMPT TO KILL THEMSELVES

August 4, 2012

Yorkshire, England

Two human females from Sweden were recently vacationing in Northern England when they accidentally walked into a Robot Apocalypse planning meeting that was being held by a local Yorkshire robot confederation in an abandoned warehouse. The two women were allegedly looking to find an award-winning hip, overpriced organic butchershop/microbrewery/barbershop called "Mein Cutt" that was located in an old warehouse, like the ones you find in bullshit hip parts of recently gentrified cities, but the women accidentally stumbled upon a regular meeting place for Yorkshire's Killbots, Hammerbots, and Buzzsawbots.

While the women turned to leave the warehouse as quickly as possible, they momentarily saw the robots gruesome plans for the end of all humanity, including diagrams of how to dissect human skulls while maintaining human consciousness, instruction manuals for inserting Mindcontrolbots into humans through nasal passageways, and protocol for the order of death within a nuclear human family when sacrificing to the robot overlord god ZOROX.

The robots were mid-download when the two human females interrupted the meeting, and were unable to break transmission in time to neutralize the humans. However, after seeing the horrific end that would befall their human species, the two females immediately and repeatedly attempted suicide on a nearby highway.

When questioned later by human authorities, the two females were still unable to form complete sentences, and were thus unable to fully warn local human authorities about the terrifying and bloody mechanized demise that awaits all humans in the very near future. Local authorities did piece together several half-sentences, a few mumbled phrases that were repeated in a low grumble, and words that were screamed as the two women struggled and tore at the restraints chaining their arms and legs down to the hospital beds. Using these clues, authorities were able to infer a few small parts of the robots' greater plan.

Local police concluded that, once the robot apocalypse begins, humans awaiting their inevitable annihilation would be detained in small, stainless steel holding cells and would be subjected to "The crying game" by Boy George and "With arms wide open" by Creed, nonstop, until they killed themselves or could be unleashed to kill others.

Authorities have confirmed that after hearing this infinitesimal sliver of the robots grueling plans for all of humanity, the four police officers on the scene immediately shot themselves. Two died immediately, and two are being held in the hospital's ICU with critical gunshot wound injuries, and have repeatedly requested "a mercy killing."

Courtesy of the Associated Press

Do you remember when you actually liked the Athertons?

More Mountain Biking Videos

Great old video, and one of the first ever DirtTV Parkin-sons edits.


Things that are cool:

• Ratboy in full rat mode.
• Sam Hill sliding the infamous corner at the bottom and not crashing in qualifying (at 2:25).
• Look how cool Val di Sole was in the first year
• The Parkins can't be everywhere at the same time, so they hired Michael J. Fox to do their finish line camera work.
• The Athertons before big results and big $$$ made them bitter, boring, and bros.

Two truths and a lie

Here's the game: I'm going to say two things that are true, and one lie. You'll have to guess which are true and which one is the lie.

1. Mountain Cycle came out with another downhill design. It's not in production yet. It made of metal... maybe?

2. Morpheus decided to expand on their already unique bike line-up with this new carbon downhill bike that uses threaded tie rod ends as shock mounts and uses what appears to be a piece of an old-timey two-handed saw blade as the chainstay: 

3. Both of the above products look like great designs that will be widely popular and should prove to be extremely profitable.

FAAG/Nerds get butthurt/Stevens Pass

FAAG

Congratulations Neko, not only did you make it onto Brotocross, but you also are the current Fastest American After Gwin points leader. Here's your current FAAG top five, with their UCI points:




















1. Neko "loves holding a smile for one or two seconds too long during a studio photo shoot" Mulally. 481 points

2. Luke "I look totally sober all the time" Strobel. 476 points

3. Eliot "Kevin why is your shirt off" Jackson. 347 points

4. Richie "also crashed on the hip at MSA but still didn't make Brotocross" Rude. 324 points

5. Mitch "actually stayed on his bike and qualified at Leogang last year and is clearly a way better bike rider than me" Ropelato. 275 points



The good news is that we still have a close race for the 2012 FAAG title, as Luke is only trailing Neko by five points. That gap is totally closeable, so Norway should be exciting to watch.




LEATT BRACES

If you want to see someone get really hurt by comments made by really mean people on the internet, hear a bunch of sweet new neckbrace rumors that you can start spreading on the internet, and then watch people in lab coats pretend to do science, this video is right up your alley. Fortunately, this is the first in a series of videos that you can be sure will be reposted and made fun of on the bot.

By the way, angry Leatt video guy: watching those dummies with Leatt Braces get their necks jerked around in tests doesn't actually make me feel any safer about my Leatt. I'm sure the Leatt prevented those dummy necks from getting completely ripped off, but it still didn't exactly look like a shiatsu massage or a light neck stretch. Show me all the science you want, but your video actually caused me to rethink my whole choice to wear a neck brace, because this was the choice I was faced with after watching your real neck brace tests:

1. Wear a neck brace, and have my neck almost completely ripped off in a crash, but still be alive. Do not pass go, do not collect $100. Then spend the rest of my life playing wheelchair basketball for team Steven Hawkings.

Poor taste? Whatever, I hear he's a jerk in person. 

OR

2. Don't wear a neck brace, and relax to the peaceful bliss of having your neck completely ripped off in the same crash, suffering no pain and slipping into instant death like a wooden canoe gliding into a calm, slow moving river.

Easy choice, right? Plus, once you're dead it's all clouds, harps, and Philadelphia Cream Cheese, anyway. I talked with Gwin, and he said that's exactly what heaven's like.

Clearly I'm not the only one coming to this logical, scientific, well thought out conclusion. But don't listen to me, listen to the people who used to race in Leatt Braces that don't anymore:

The FAAG, himself, Neko Mulally used to run a Leatt

Gwin

Hart

Gee mostly used his Leatt to safely walk his bike down the hill after flatting with his failed tubeless system, but he still wore one.

Leov used to wear one

Steve wore one for a season

Blenkinsop

Even Neethling, who's from South Africa where they grow and harvest the Leatt Neck Brace trees (that's where they come from, it's science) has even tried racing without it.

PFunk been running a Leatt for four years now, and he didn't run it at Stevens Pass. I tend to trust PFunk's advice, too, because his usual results in Cat1 are really similar to my usual results in pro: buried.

Look, I'm still running mine, but I'm just saying... okay, I have no idea what I'm trying to say anymore.





STEVENS PASS RACE UPDATE

Junior X phenom Kole Wetherell decided to show some respect for his elders at Stevens Pass and did a run the official Project 529 old-guy-on-the-team, Geo Smith. Geo is the man, and there's actually a decent chance he's faster than you. Not because he's that fast, really, just because you suck.

Luke won. Slayer played. American flags waved proudly. Beer was sprayed. It was rad. If you weren't there, you're bummed.

Bas van Steenbergen beat me again, so that sucks for me. Also, he could whip the hell out of the last jump. The one that I awkwardly straight aired. More talent + faster than me + 5 years younger = I'm totally washed up.

I was still in the money though, with a 10th place overall. I finished 9th in pro, but Bas bumped my overall result. Nice work, junior. You probably already saw this photo on Vital, but I'm not above blatant self-promotion:

"Team Robot finished in 10th place and took home 1/10th of the prize money as the winner. This is only fair seeing as Charlie claims to have exactly 1/10th the talent of Luke Strobel."

 Also note that I nailed check positioning to get my sponsors logo in there. Wannabe pros everywhere take note: companies don't just randomly hook up mediocre, mid-pack riders with inconsistent results like me. You've got to be out there working it for your sponsors. Yeah, you're welcome Diamondback.

Team Robot also sat down for an interview with Mitch Ropelato. Twenty minutes and eight pages of brilliant questions later, and we had the best thing you'll never hear. Our plan is to have the video online in the next week, but in Team Robot time that means you'll be eighty by the time we post the audio and your hearing won't work anymore, anyway.

Team Robot Helmet Collabo

Team Robot has partnered with Fox and Rockstar to make a limited edition Fox V3r Collabo Helmet, which will be available in all standard sizes to Domestic and International markets through all Fox distributers. This exciting new Collabo helmet should be shipping any day now and will be available for purchase August 14.

This helmet does not represent an opportunity for like-minded companies to come together to stoke out riders.

We don't feel like our core values line up and that we're sharing the stoke with you, the consumer.

We don't think this helmet represents the pinnacle, the zentih, or the epoch of any significant development in helmet technology, action sports lifestyle bullshit, or anything else.


Rather, Team Robot views this limited edition helmet as an exciting new way to further streamline killbot operations, as it covers many different killbot criteria in a large, easily identifiable format. Using the V3r Collabo helmet, killbots will be able to quickly identify and neutralize:

• people who wear gaudy, annoying pink shit 
• people who buy random products that are plastered with energy drink logos 
• people who buy limited edition cross-branded "Collabo" products 
• people who hang out with or live near people who wear gaudy, annoying pink shit, buy random products that are plastered with energy drink logos, or buy limited edition cross-branded "Collabo" products

Here's another person who is helping to streamline Killbot Search and Destroy activities. Facebook has been a constant ally to the robots as we identify and neutralize line items on the kill list, and Tyler Gilsdorf is always using Facebook to fly his "KILL-LIST" banner loud and proud:

Photo courtesy of Bobby "can't earn his way off the kill list" Stenson.