I love riding trials so much that it’s hard to stop once I start. Sometimes I literally ride to exhaustion, where I just have to stop. This ride was one example of that. I was able to pull off some pretty cool lines until I literally just could not ride anymore.
Not only did I try some new lines, I also experimented with a variety of camera angles to get some interesting shots. Since I only have a single GoPro, that means I needed to do lines multiple times to get the shots using different camera mounts. While that can be a pain, it does actually force you to get the lines more than just once. As it is typically stated, you need to do it three times to prove it wasn’t just a fluke.
Rail Gaps
Since I’d been planning to build the skinny beams from my son’s old playscape, I’d wanted to use them to create some “rail gap” lines as well as using them for skinnies. I finally had the opportunity a couple weeks ago. The goal was to rear wheel hop across 4 rails. But then I decided it needed a bit more, so I added a stack of pallets at one end. But of course you can ride the line in either direction!
I found that dropping from the pallets and then riding across the 4 rails, while challenging, was still easier than going in the other direction. After many tries gapping the rails and then up onto the pallet stack, I could not quite keep it on the rear wheel the entire way from end to end. It was so close though!
Skinnies
As you may have noticed, this past year I have been trying to improve my skinnies. I still have light years to go, but I’m definitely seeing improvement for sure. For this session I decided to hammer away at my 10 foot 2×4 skinny beam.
In addition to some successes, I also had a pretty spectacular fail that was actually pretty funny. Ever get propelled over the bars when you’re only going like 1 mph? It’s pretty epic.
Drops
I love gaps and drops. But since I have not been riding as much this past year as I would have if it were not for a stream of injuries, I would be feeling a lot more confident. On this ride I wanted to drop from 5 pallets (not really all that high), but was having some serious confidence issues. I nailed it, but decided to quite while I was ahead. This shaky, lack of confidence was pretty annoying as I’ve done such drops plenty of times. I guess I just need to keep doing my physical therapy exercises and get out of the bike more often.
Riding To Exhaustion
Hopefully it’s pretty apparent that I absolutely love to ride trials. There’s nothing in the world like being on my bike. Whether I’m alone or with other trials riders, I can’t ever get enough. Maybe that’s one reason, in addition to my age, that I have been suffering from stupid injuries like lateral epicondylitis: once I start riding (solo rides in particular), I can’t stop until I’m at the point of physical exhaustion. In this particular ride, my arms and hands eventually had no strength left, so I had to stop or risk a nasty crash.
Several other riders recently told me that they are the same way. I’m not sure if it’s a trials thing specifically, or whether people with that obsessive inclination tend to gravitate towards trials riding. Do you do the same thing? Let me know in the comments.
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