I flew out to Bentonville on Wednesday, May 24th in order to get out there and get settled, put my bike together (had to disassemble to ship it), and get a little riding in before Saturday’s trials competition. Several of us that were staying together in an AirBnB headed over to the Bentonville Bike Fest trials area Thursday to help set up for the competition do some riding. That afternoon, Debi Studer appeared with some friends, including trials riders from Switzerland and France. Apparently her trials bike had been lost on the flight over, but it had finally been located, so she was ready to get in some practice. After greeting us, she invited us to join her and he friends on a group ride in downtown Bentonville. This was actually my first street ride, so I was looking forward to it.
The ride started near the public parking area, with a session on the famous metal “paper airplane” sculpture, then migrated towards the park in the center of town, stopping to session a handful of other spots along the way. Surprisingly, we only got kicked out of one spot. As with my local trials crew group rides, this one included good riding and plenty of goofing around, like Seba’s “boon” gaps. (If you’re unfamiliar with the term “boon”, check out The Shin Dig – you’ll hear them mention it frequently. Essentially it’s hopping without using any pedal kick.) There were also a few really sick lines, like Seba’s manual to hop up, to gap, to drop and Debi’s hop onto a wobbly trash bin.
As the video title says, we had some broken bike action too. Early in the ride, David’s hydraulic brake cable started leaking, so he went back to swap out his trials bike for a mountain bike. We also hade a more substantial broken bike event. I won’t bother explaining that ridiculosity – you’ll just have to watch the video for that one. Ironically, what isn’t shown in the video, is that apparently Jack Carthy was downtown and allegedly witnessed the destruction. I wish I knew what he was thinking as he observed the chaos…
2 Comments
Dan · May 13, 2024 at 10:21 am
Sorry I missed out on this last year. Any plans for trials group rides at this year’s 2024 bikefest?
Tim Chemacki · May 13, 2024 at 7:40 pm
Hi Dan – Excellent question! I have not heard of a specific date and time, but I’m pretty sure we’re gonna have something this year. We always have a ride on the course after the UCI comp is over, but I’m pretty sure we’ll also have something downtown before the comp. It sometimes happens spur of the moment. Probably be a post on the USA Bike Trials Riders group on Facebook when it happens.