Humility

I hope you weep when you see demonstrations of bike skill like this:

Orange Dirt World Team - That Flippin' Five a mountainbiking video by CaldwellVisuals


Also that looked like way more fun than anything I rode today on THE SHORE!!!

They say "don't meet your heroes." It's kind of like that, although the ladder bridges and skinnies have been the funnest parts so far. By far.

A message to Cam McRae and Pete Roggeman

Hate to break it to you guys, but your trails suck.

I'm not going to tell you what trails I rode because already I know, no matter which North shore trails I rode, the locals will say "oh yeah, well those aren't the good ones. Trust me, if you'd ridden [xyz trails with exactly the same fundamental qualities but slight superficial differences] you'd be pumped."

In graphic design it's helpful to repurpose old resources where possible. You don't always need to reinvent the wheel, and as long as no one can see the underlying similarities, or as long as you're working for two non-competing clients in different sectors, you can save huge time by borrowing here and there from past work.

Fortunately I already had a graphic kicking around that I think captures the trail design ethos on the North Shore, so with a few little tweaks here you go:

More thoughts on Canadian "technical" trail building:

It's not because I didn't ride "the gnarly trails." If anything those would be even worse, with the steep fast bits being even steeper and faster, and the violent, awkward, jolting 90 corner at the bottom being even more violent, awkward, and jolting. It's called momentum, guys. If you designed the trails in 1998 when bikes had 2 inches of suspension and surviving a four foot rock roll was the highlight of your year, you probably didn't give two shits about carrying speed. Your whole goal was probably losing speed while somehow not dying. But it's 2015 now, I have 8-inch disk brakes, 2.5" tires, and lots of quality suspension so I can stop. Somehow I'm just not seeing the joy in going from two miles an hour up to 15 and then back to two 800 times in one descent.

Now I understand why people come down to Oregon or Washington and ride trails that we think are boring and say how amazing they were. I can only imagine that these people have never gone downhill unencumbered at a rapid, sustained rate in their entire lives. Hearing stories from Canadians who rode boring, vanilla places like Oakridge and came back raving makes me weep for those poor souls who've never enjoyed momentum before. It's pretty simple guys. Downhill = momentum = fun. If you can keep the trail pointed downhill instead of weaving all over creation, it's pretty fun.

Oakridge is pretty boring and half-assed and yet people from Canada consistently come back raving about how mind-blowing the trails are. You could have this too, Canadians, if you gave a moment's thought to maintaining momentum in your trail building (in between ripping bong hits, devaluing your currency, and talking about "the good old days in college when Sublime was still at the top of their game and Green Day hadn't sold out yet").


And we're riding a shuttle-accessed trail system up here. I saw people out there on downhill bikes. I can only imagine what that poor bastard from Langley was suffering through on every run with his 9.5 inch travel 41 pound 26 inch wheel Intense M9. I'm on a shorter travel sub-30 pound 29er and the flat, awkward bits are still awful. If you ever wondered why "Shore bikes" like the Norco VPS range and the Kona Stinky's from 1999-2009 all had high BB's, short top tubes, and steep head angles, it's because the average speed on this trail system is about four mph, with top speeds somewhere in the 12-14 mph range.

There's a reason why this bike looks the way it does. In a related story, there's a reason why no one outside of Western BC purchased this bike in 2009. Or in 2010 when it was on clearance at your local bike shop. Or in 2011 when it was still on clearance at your local bike shop. Or 2012. Or 2013...

My biked sucked to ride until I took 13 psi out of the rear shock and opened up the compression to Descend mode. I started the day in trail 3 mode, then trail 2, then trail 1, then full descend mode, then I took 13 psi out and left it in descend mode. There are exactly three other trails in the universe I've ever run my shock in descend mode for, but it still wasn't soft enough for the snail's pace thrashing that my bike was taking yesterday. Add to that mix a toxic cocktail of high tire pressure to keep from flatting on all the rock ledges you have to run into... and it was awesomely slow and awkward.

I didn't know you could make trails that were so rough while simultaneously being so slow until I came to the North Shore. Bravo.

A question to the panel

Now that I officially live in a van, what's the shit/shower/shave/maybe workout plan? I can get wifi, coffee, and oily, sad croissants at Starbucks, but the Starbucks bathroom shower of shame has limited appeal. Here are some ideas, chime in if you're a seasoned road warrior/Matt Foley/

YMCA membership:

Their image, not mine. 

LA Fitness:

Au natural:

This is great

It's so simple.

Taiwan

It's perfect. I like the musical breakdowns in the infomercial, but really I can't choose. There's so much to love.

Between this graph and that DHX 5.0, you know you want to know more:

http://www.pinkbike.com/u/rok-cn/blog/introduce-to-vr-link-suspension-amp-the-prototype.html

Seems legit. There's so much good stuff there, I can't even... just follow the link.

But then I saw this and everything was better

Great writing

Saw that the SX season wrapped up, and looking through the standings I saw that Cole Seely got the big W at the Houston round. It's pretty exciting anytime someone wins their first race at the top tier of a sport, and a little googling brought me to this spectacular opener of a sentence:

"Ryan Dungey pretty much had things locked up when he came into Houston’s NRG Stadium, owning an 80-point lead in the Monster Energy AMA Supercross Standings, but there is always a mathematical chance that something bad can happen, but the Red Bull KTM rider made sure nothing like that happened and after getting off to a mediocre start (He was 10th at the end of the opening lap) the “Dunge” cautiously worked his way into an eventual runner-up finish on lap 14 of the 20-lapper, more than enough to beat out second overall in the standings, GEICO Honda’s Eli Tomac, to claim his second Supercross title with three rounds remaining on the schedule."

Yes, that's all one sentence. I made it about halfway through before I realized that there are no periods. Reading with bated breath, I hoped that the writer would keep the momentum going, keep the sentence rolling, eschewing conventional wisdom and the warning of grammar nazis everywhere in his quest to fit an entire opening paragraph into one single sentence. Could he do it?

One parenthetical phrase. Two parenthetical phrases. This is a good start. Now three, and then an actual set of parentheses. He's on a roll, no sign of slowing down... four parenthetical phrases, and the finish line is in sight. He... could... go... all... the... WAAAAAAAY!!!!

Six commas and one set of parentheses later and this marathon of a sentence is complete. Congratulations go out to Shan Moore from Cyclenews.com on his crowning achievement. Bravo sir. Bravo.

http://www.cyclenews.com/690/32782/Racing-Article/Supercross--Ryan-Dungey-and-Cooper-Webb-Wrap-Up-Titles-In-Houston.aspx

Buy this

Craigslist ad from my high school friends selling their band/tour sharkbus. They basically stole all my etherial van ideas and turned them into a real thing. Obviously jealous:

http://portland.craigslist.org/clc/cto/4997623115.html

Nice Instagram filter, Jake.

It's a pretty JV craigslist submission, but that's some of the charm.

You're like a child Donny, who wanders into the middle of a movie

Of the 31 comments currently posted on the Whistler/A-Line/End of the World article, Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb here are definitely my favorite because they typify two classic internet argument tactics.



#1: The Didn't Read It's:

Tweedle Dumb is a perfect example of someone who wandered in off the street while the rest of us were mid-conversation. He basically makes my argument for me, albeit in slightly different words, and then says I don't have an argument. Here's the general format:

"You're way off base, all they're doing is [insert exact thing that I said they were doing]."

Making the case decks on A-Line's jumps mellower "so it isn't so bad if you case them"

          ===> Means jumps are less intimidating for squids

          ===> Results in more jamokes on A-Line.

          ===> Defeats the purpose of A-Line and lowers the bar for everyone



As far as your "40 foot drop" comment goes, if you think there were 40-foot drops at Rampage in 2001, kill yourself please. And probably stop reading TEAM ROBOT, because we're going to continue referencing events in mountain biking that date back farther than the three years you've been buying sleeveless Unit jerseys and POC helmets, and freeride flicking loam stashes on fresh trails on your Knolly for your next edit.

Essentially Tweedle Dumb says nothing of value, contributes no original thought, and his response could be boiled down to grunting and the angry retaliatory throwing of feces.



#2: The Didn't Get It's:

To Tweedle Dee's credit, at least he makes a value proposition. "A-Line doesn't matter, it's a squid trail already, you should ride 'real trails,' instead" is what his argument boils down to. Whatever he means by "real trail," I don't know, but I can testify that A-Line is a ribbon of dirt that I've personally ridden a bike on, so in my eyes it qualifies as both "real" and "a trail."

We learned folk call Tweedle Dee's argument the "no true Scotsman" fallacy. He might dismiss trails like A-Line off-hand and might likewise dismiss the growing trend towards dumbed-downedness in prevailing MTB culture, but how will Tweedle Dee like it when the fun police come after his so called "real trails?" Tweedle Dee's focus is too narrow to understand the greater principles at play here, but to quote the great Walter Sobchak, "this affects all of us, man."

By dismissing the validity of the trail in question, Tweedle Dee has robbed himself of the universality of the principle we're discussing. Either the principle applies everywhere, whether we're talking about Whistler Bike Park, your secret squirrel locals only stash, or the city park in your neighborhood, or else it ceases to be a principle and it applies nowhere. If you think trail sanitization and the struggle for a diverse range of trails doesn't affect your local trail area, just wait. Captain Bummer Pants is coming.

As far as being a load of whining bitches, you must be new here Tweedle Dee. That's what we do.