Dude riding is on a full squish. He is following the hardtail dude. But, yeah, the calm on all that wet wood is inspiring. Obvs he know his Vancouver trails. And wild how letting go of the brakes when over roots makes them much, much more chill. But they are usually also in braking zones or close enough that it is easy to accidentally tap the rear and just slide across a root.
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Something something pnw wood less slippery
Some places use split planks rather than sawed planks.
All of the trail systems near me have torn out most of their wood features. Anything thatās left either has wire mesh staples to it or itās split planks.
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We put wire mesh on allthe wood shit we build. The two log rides we have are sketchy as fuckā¦the scary one has a cheater line and I take it 100% of the time. Havenāt fallen off the other one yet
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New Brage just dropped.
The more raw feel of the videos is what I think helps set him apart. Not that the impeccably sculpted features from Semenuk and the like donāt take insane talent to ride, but this just feels a bit more approachable and even inspirational. Like, you want to go to the woods, clear some landing and just huck it.
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Not a great promo for sram wireless eh.
Eh, no, but shit happens and especially so on the Tour Divide from what I gather, so it hasnāt changed my personal preference for SRAM. Were I going to do the divide (and Iām definitely not), Iād go with mechanical for the repairability.
I donāt believe EF has a drivetrain sponsor and they ride Shimano in the WorldTour so I assume AXS is just what came on the bike.
I gotta say the footage of the course did not inspire me in any way to want to do it. Probably logistically its harder to get to the more scenic stuff for filming?
there are some beautiful sections of the divide but also a whole lot of wide open spacesā¦ not entirely a super scenic route like the Colorado trail is
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Agreed. The old Ride The Divide movie was more inspirational from what I remember.
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Thats exactly what I was thinking too.
Itās funny to hear from the dude who organized the first Divide race, Mike Curiak. Heās one of those super-crotchety dudes, tough as nails, did things like race a 1,000+ mile Iditarod race solo.
The route he blazed originally was so rugged he DNFād the first time, and he calls the one thatās raced now basically 'a long dirt roadā. I guess itās changed a lot. The original was probably a lot more scenic to go along with being so tough.
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Iāve done a good chunk of it (Butte to Abiquiu) and I found it to be pretty dang scenic. But this is also coming from the East Coast, so all the wide open spaces were themselves pretty novel/scenic to me, ymmv if you live out in the Rockies and do beautiful rides all the time.
Agreed that a lot of the footage shown is likeā¦ him in a gas station. Which I guess is:
- The easiest footage to get, logistically
- Has some human-interest to it (look at this world-tour pro fill his arms with packages of oreos! pretty funny!)
- Has the least chance of incurring the wrath of trolls talking about the film crew helping him out
As someone getting more interested in single-speeding ultra routes, I did also really enjoy hearing one of the strongest riders on earth complain about what a pain in the ass it is to singlespeed a hard route.
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We had a tarcker do the tour divide on a single speed (on purpose).
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Thats the difference between doing something because you had to, vs because you want too. SS is a great option for some ultra events I reckon.
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Judging by your latest ride photos (and all of your other ride photos), you ride in one of the most beautiful places on earth, so I can see why youād say that!
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My riding buddies dont agree with me. One is from Kansas and the other the UK. They pointed out to me that there is different wayās of interpreting scenic. For them it can be wide open spaces. For me its mostly about native bush. Ha ha. Scenery changes very quickly here too. I remember thinking that Ride The Divide movie looked pretty spectacular.
I too like seeing wide open spaces, since Iāve spent most of my life in a place without them.
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