PSA

Put your brakes back on.

If you think crawling around at 3mph so you can practice tricks on 2 foot airs is rad, then either put on some brakes and learn how to ride or kill yourself.

3 mph < Brian Foster

The only thing I thought about after watching this

Jared Graves has won the Sea Otter DH like a thousand times.

IMBA

I recently joined IMBA. That's a whole other story, but in the meantime, I've been reading their site and there's not a single thing they put up on their site that isn't absolutely mind-blowingly crazy to me. IMBA is either the worst, most evil organization on the face of the planet, or everyone involved is a complete idiot, or their instructions are targeted at the lowest, worst bike riders on the planet, or all three.

Here's a gem I read today: IMBA revises trail care rules for muddy conditions.

Improvements in bicycling technology and riding techniques yield the following additions to IMBA’s advice:

1)   Consider Hucking. Riders who once wondered whether it was better to ride through a puddle or go around it now have a better choice: Air it out. “Most riders today can comfortably launch 5 to 15 feet, depending on speed and trail conditions,” noted Van Abel.

2)   Only Ride 650b, 29er or Fat bikes in Wet Weather. “There’s no excuse for being caught out in the rain on an antiquated 26-inch rig,” said Van Abel.

3)   Manual, Wheelie or Nose Wheelie to Reduce Impact. “This one is pretty simple,” said Van Abel. “One wheel has 50 percent less impact on the trail surface than two.”

Of course, some older mountain bikers will need to upgrade both their technique and their equipment in order to comply with IMBA’s advice. “If you’re in your thirties or forties and entering your golden years of cycling — you may not have the skillz or the bike you need to ride in wet weather,” said Van Abel. “In that case, your choices are simple — stay indoors, or get properly trained by someone who has completed an IMBA Instructor Certification Program class.”

Do I have the skillz or the bike to ride in wet weather? Now I don't know.



EDITOR'S NOTE: Turns out this was actually an April Fool's prank, so good on IMBA for getting the robot. Going forward, I'll have to pull from their plethora of other equally ludicrous articles if I want to make fun of them.

Aaron Bartlett for President of mountain bike movies

That is all.

Getting paid to be awesome.

Lars Sternberg also lowered a few spots on the kill list today. Somehow Lars has figured out how to get paid for this crap, and for that TEAM ROBOT salutes you.

Like the rug at Lebowski's, shifty-eyed sidekick guy in the Bronson pic really ties the whole thing together:

Lars is pretty close to the bottom of the list, by now, but we still haven't forgotten back in '04 when he failed to defend freedom and liberty and got third to a bunch of backwards cowboy hat-wearing Canadians at a local BMX race.

Okay, so it was fifth place who was wearing a cowboy hat, but still. Team Robot never forgets.

Death by trails

Thanks for sending me this, Bob. One spot lower on the kill list.



This is the sort of spot where you're either a local, you're Brian Foster, or you die. And I don't mean the locals kill you if you ride there, I mean that unless you're there digging week in, week out, walking the terrain constantly until you know every inch of the trails by memory, or unless you're BF and you possess dark magic or unicorn blood or whatever he has that allows him to do anything on a bicycle with his eyes closed, then you will surely die riding these trails.

Besides being absolutely instant-death massive, I've never in my life seen such a concentration of blind jumps, weird transfers, and turning jumps in one trail spot ever. On the helmet cam, you can't even spot most of the landings until dudebro with the helmet cam is landing. There are maybe two jumps on the whole video that are straight and offer good visibility. Even most of the straight jumps are overgrown, and coming into the lips you can't see whether the next gap is 15 feet or 30.

That's not small. Yes, that's a six foot tall landing way out there.

Death by trails.

METAL MONDAY!

650b

Mitch wins the 2013 Fontana National on a 29er, cementing all the fears you've been worrying about. Big wheels are here to stay. The Taliban will take back Afghanistan. Hostess is out of business, and they're not coming back. The pillars of freaking civilization, people.

This just in: Santa Cruz releases a sweet looking 650b Blur TRc named after a mediocre WTB tire and a stellar action movie star.

Like I said, stellar.

Look guys, here's the deal, and this is the straight dope for all the industry guys listening. Either you make a 650b bike, and soon, or you're going to be completely irrelevant as company. Without a new 650b bike, I give you're company one to two years, tops.

If there's one thing I've learned as a professional racer, as I've worked and struggled to become an elite athlete, in my brief moments of success and brilliance and enlightenment, it's this one simple sentence:

It's about the bike.

Trust me guys, it's about the bike. All that noise you hear about hard work and discipline and training and love and passion, it's a joke. None of that amounts to anything if you have the wrong tires or brake pads or especially if, God help you, you're running the wrong size wheels for the race. I've hung out a lot with a lot of strong riders, and they know this simple truth. Guys like Adam Craig work hard to look like they spend their entire winters on a singlespeed, riding "just for fun" and trying to "enjoy life." Yeah, would guys like Adam need to spend huge amounts of energy pretending to enjoy riding bikes, especially simple, low-tech, elegant machines like singlespeeds if they didn't know the huge advantages of having the latest tech on their side? You and I both know the answer to that one.

Adam Craig knows that if it's about anything, it's about the bike:

I was thinking about entering some of the Oregon Enduro's, but it looks like I'm gonna be on a 26 inch bike, like a freakin animal. Guess what? Not even gonna bother showing up to those Enduro's, because I know that if I had the 650 bike I could be on the podium, but settling for less just isn't in my DNA. I'm sorry I was born this way, I'm a winner, and winners don't settle.

I put these videos in order of bicycle technological advances so you could see the incremental improvement of the different bikes.

DB Welcomes Charlie to the DF5 Team from Diamondback Bicycles on Vimeo.

Here's me riding a 26 inch trail bike, like an asshole and clearly having zero fun. As you can see my wheels are dropping into bomb holes left and right, dragging my speed down, and every bump seems to suck speed out of my ride. The only possible benefit to my bike is that it turns a little better in berms, but as soon as it's a bumpy turn? I might as well put it in park. Riding a 26 inch trail bike for Diamondback is akin to charity work. I only do it to help out the brand, otherwise my 26 inch bikes would go straight where they belong: the dumpster, or an orphanage, or Goodwill, or wherever rich, privileged, white people throw older but still functional stuff that doesn't make them feel cool anymore.




Specialized S-Works Enduro 29 Trail Battles - Let's Make It Interesting - More Mountain Bike Videos

As you can see, if Brad and Curtis are having 10% more fun than me, then they're carrying at least 20% more speed through the bumps on their superior wheel size. But, again, back to the technology: you could see that Curtis could barely get those big wheels going in that uphill sprint race. So much for acceleration, I heard that's not really important anyway... said NO RACER EVER.

Some people call 650b the Goldilocks size, some people call it the silver bullet. Maybe it's perfection, or nirvana. And not that overrated band from the crappier, rainier city North of Portland, but the real definition of nirvana that includes enlightenment and total loss of self.

So a Buddhist, a priest, and a Rabbi walk into a bar...

On second thought, 650b bikes aren't nirvana, because you're definitely not going to lose your sense of self on them. You're going to discover new levels of how awesome you are compared to everyone else who sucks. If you ride with people who kick your ass right now, trust me: you'll show them once you get on a 650b bike. Just look at Bryceland in that SC video? Can you imagine ratboy having that much fun shredding the rad** on a 26" trail bike? Neither can I. It's impossible.



Let's contrast that with how riding my 26er made me feel:

Riding a bike with 26" wheels is like charity work for me. I do it begrudgingly so I can feel good about how nice I am, but if I could pay someone or an organization to do it for me I would. True story.

Wheel size = winning or losing

**"Shredding the Rad" is a licensed trademark of Paul Lacava Inc.

Hilltop Hoods/tricks

I don't know why Hilltop Hoods doesn't show up in more riding edits. They've got a great sound, and I think their music really matches the pace and mood of riding.

I also thought this guy's tricks were all super rad. He made riding look fun and relaxed. I think "chill" is the word I'm looking for; his riding looked so chill. If I practiced enough and, you know, worked on my basic bike handling skills, I could see myself riding like this guy.