Yesterday I joined a birthday ride to celebrate a good friend's 45th. He rallied six of us into an epic day that went off perfectly. The local dropped expert trail knowledge. Every rider stepped up to new and intimidating challenges, and the guy who always crashes had a spectacular OTB right in front of me! Back at the trailhead beers and hotdogs galore were waiting for us. For the next several hours the hotdogs glistened and biking stories were told. Everyone crushed the techy ten mile ride so I was surprised to learn that most of the crew had started mountain biking during or just before Covid. Me and the other Gen Xer were the only lifetime riders. A few hotdogs in, one mustached millennial posed the question, "So when did mountain biking get good?" It's a great question. Especially if your first bike is a carbon 29er with a dropper and a 1x drivetrain. The other old guy started describing a specific point in full suspension development but I disagreed. I decl...
I was fortunate enough to meet some friends for a Valmont riding session the other day. I've known Jesse since the pre-child days and now both of us are fathers. My girls are both skilled bike riders but they really accell at the sportsball activities. They have inherited the gene for team ball sports from their mother. Jesse's son on the other hand is a cycling prodigy. He flows with incredible style over the biggest jump lines or across the finish line. At one point Jesse and another dad split for the slopestyle line and I went with the boys over to the trick jump. I may have mentioned before that I believe tricks are an important aspect of jumping bikes. I just think if you're going to jump bikes, why not do some tricks? The alternative route for progression is to just keep jumping bigger and bigger jumps and this can lead to a plateau with severe consequences. To me a cool trick on a medium size jump is more impressive than a dead sailor over a massive jump. Basically,...