All the dumbest crashes from the UCI Downhill World Cup practice sessions:
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Was there an episode with helmet talk lately? I remember something about one with the tightening ratchet thing on top, instead of at the back.
Hereās the best available helmet safety ratings. Itās not perfect, but itās the best we have.
https://www.helmet.beam.vt.edu/
This is the helmet I have with the top ratchet.
The one they originally sent me was broken. They sent me a non-broken one at no charge. I just had to prove I had destroyed the broken one by taking a photo of the old helmet after its straps had been cut off.
The advantage of the top ratchet is twofold. One is that if you have a ponytail, your hair can go out the back without any kind of mechanism in the way. Two is that it evenly tightens all the way around your head instead of just in the back.
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Wow thatās a lot of blowouts! One of them looked like the suspension blew too.
The worst falls mountain biking are the slowly escalating ones where you know youāre in a bad spot, but youāre over-leveraged on the trail and the wipeout is inevitable. That trail also was far beyond the level of mud I would ever in my life consider riding.
Thatās not one trail, but all the trails in the UCI downhill World Cup races. Of course youāve never ridden anything like it, because these are the best downhill riders in the world, getting as close to their limits as possible (in practice, so they know where to not ride so hard and break their bikes in the actual race).
Like a previous mountain bike video I shared, someone replied āI could never do thatā, and yeah, thatās the point. These are some of the highest level riders. If you could do that, or ever could do it in the future, you wouldnāt be finding out about the videos on this forum.
The much more relatable experience is like this from Eric and Yuma, where they spend three days trying to get the courage to hit the biggest jump on a double black diamond jump trail.
Check it out:
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Some absolute clangers on here!
This video starts interesting, turns informative, passes through entertaining, and then has a punchline that had me in fits.
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An oldie but a goody.
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Yep. Bike people have been talking about this for quite a few years now as the problem has gotten worse.
When I was a kid I got all my bikes at Toys āRā Us. They werenāt the best bicycles, but they worked. They were assembled properly. You could right them around the neighborhood no problem for many years. They would get stolen before they broke. They cost maybe as much as an NES at the time, which was much cheaper than a more serious bike, but not inexpensive.
Nowadays the prices on the bikes at the big box stores are basically the same as they were then. $150 maybe. Since thereās been a lot of inflation since the '80s, thatās a huge price reduction. The quality of the product is way way down. It doesnāt really need to be up because suburban kids who get these bikes are unlikely to ride them far as their neighborhoods are full of all the car awfulness seen elsewhere in this thread.
Kids in NYC that have bikes and actually ride them almost universally are riding fixies and one-speeds. Having more gears and brakes is better, but those are at least real frames with quality wheels and handlebars. The only time you see a Wal-Mart bike in the city is for a very small child just riding in the park with training wheels or whatever.
Iād really like to see some sort of consumer protection law crack down on these. We have lemon laws for cars. Why not lemon laws for literal all products at any price range?
Itās also a safety issue. Sell some kid a bike that had its brakes put on wrong and the fork on backwards. Iād say I was surprised none of the stores or bike companies have gotten sued, but thatās probably because nobody who has these bikes successfully rides them far enough to suffer any kind of harm.
Yeah, I know what you mean. Iāve had three bikes in my life, two in the same kind of price range(one was about a grand worth of mountain bike. I won it as a prize buying a coke and a mars bar from a petrol station, it was very fancy for the timeā¦which was admittedly 15 or more years ago), and they all lasted for ages - Hell, the last one I sold for about a hundred fifty bucks, because it was still in great condition apart from some cosmetic damage from riding it. The bike it replaced, I gave away to a friend who needed one, it was still in perfect condition.
I agree. Consumer protection laws are vital, and it fucking sucks that the US doesnāt have them in a widespread fashion. Another one for the list, I suppose.
Tom Pidcock keeps taking the piss: wins the CX world championship so dominantly he crosses the line in a Superman pose.
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I guess the UCI rule banning that doesnāt apply to CX?
All the body positions that are banned are only for downhill aero reasons. Like the rule your ass has to stay in contact with the seatā¦ only for downhill, not for the entire race.
TIL. But I wonder how strictly that downhill part is enforced. If the road is just a 0.5% downhill grade, thatās going to feel like itās flat, but itās technically downhill.
Mixed terrain race? Why not change tire pressure WHILE RIDING???
Banned by the UCI in three, two, one ā¦
EDIT: should have read the article before commenting.
Whatās cool is how this concept is heavily used in military vehicles, and also offroad sport vehicles, already.
I want a mountain bike with this system now.
It would make sense with electric mountain bikes, as then you could have a powered compressor in the hub, rather than a pre-filled reservoir. It would be fiddly but might help with comfort and control in the long run.
First black African winner of a grand tour stage. Also hit himself in the eye with a champagne cork.