I should get a pair of those spec shoes. Though I am fully converted to mid/high. Somehow still got a rock in my shoe yesterday lol.
rocks can ignore gravity once per day, as a treat
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Pedaled like that for a good 200 ft to where I was going to stop anyway. Super annoying.
So also ride report on the Avalanche suspension damper I got for my fox36. First ride in over a month and I just sent some rolls/step downs that I often have to stop and ponder if Iāve been away for a while.
But the real noticeable difference was on sustained chunky sections. Where Iād be wondering if my hands were going to hang on and be feathering the brakes, I was encouraged to keep the brakes open and let the bike get loose. This thing wants to go fast.
Also: just more control in general. Like I hop over a few big stumps for fun on this ride, and going up and over felt so different.
One downside is that I can feel the flexiness of the fox 36 chassis more. Whoops.
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Got one more race this week in the local series. Itās def not one iām fast at as itās a lot more chunk. You can jump plenty of the rocks if you go real fast, but kinda chunky at my very medium speed.
Problem is that one time I had a real dumb crash on this trail where i got 11 stitches. Thereās an up and over rock /\ and one time i stalled on it and went to put my foot down and couldnt find the ground and took a good tumble.
Itās completely put up a psychological block.. Truly feels like my brain is fighting with itself, one side is like just let off the brakes and your bike will pop over it. The other is like you fucked your knee up so bad you couldnt pedal a bike for a month you idiot.
Very annoying. So, iāve made it over this rock once in practice, and today i couldnāt do it at all.
But i did this feature pretty smoothly twice tonight, which seems a lot harder than the other rock, so Iām taking that as a fair trade off as the sight line is weird on this feature so i hadnt tried it before, then it turned out to be pretty easy to hold enough momentum to get back up into the second part of this line.
The whole trail:
The rock that fucks me up is at 1:40 - but he does a different line and skips the ādragonās backā option from the short above (does an optional drop at 2:13 then rejoins the main a-line at 2:33)
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thatās pretty gnar
While it looks pretty easy in his pov video, when you see the other slowed down or other perspectives in the first video, we know it isnāt that easy. Def some good gnar.
I feel like i definitely would have lost some ability to read all the rocks compared to life in PA and east coast riding.
Yeah, itās def classic everything-looks-flat POV footage. Itās really only steep on the alt lines, but thereās a lot of places to mess up if you get off line. So hoping to just keep it in control and take good lines.
Thereās several short cut alt lines that cut off a lot of trail. The first section shaves off like 350-400 ft.
This series of sections shaves off like 600 ft. (the blobs are where i was sessioning)
Thereās one in between but itās super gnarly and doesnāt save nearly as much distance.
Strategy is to ride smooth and take the hard lines at very controllable speeds and get a pedal in here or there on the flatter trail.
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Tried on a freerider pro at a shop ā i think i need a wider last!
Adidas ruined 5:10
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I need birkenstock to make a mtb shoe
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I have wide feet and have never found anything that works as well as Sidi mega sizes
itās been 15 years, everyone needs to get over it.
(they still fit me so no complaints)
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I get very frustrated when I find the right thing and spend years buying the same thing over and over and then they take it away and I canāt find a thing that is as good
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Freerider Pros are my jam, but not the canvas or BOA versions (too narrow and wide, respectively).
Yeah I wanted to get the boa ones, but read about them being way roomier than the other versions and decided against it. Iāve had the canvas freerider pros the last few years only because thatās what I found at half off. I preferred the synthetic/fake leather ones i had before as they were much more water resistant, but iām on the buy last yearās color for 50% off train so i take what i can get.
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The BOA version is downright cavernous.
Hm these were the canvas ones, gotta try the BOA i guess!
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FYI - The all-canvas Freeriders (not Pros) run narrower than the suede/mesh version. Not great for folks with high-volume feet.
looks like sierra has some of the mid free rider pros on deep discount for those in bigger size ways
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