Bike Park Wales - Takes your breath away

[Jackware]

Knuckle dusted
Rib tickler

 

[Tubby G]

Unlucky crash there, hope you heal soon

A friend of mine used to work at BPW so was obviously riding it all the time (MTB not EMTB). He’s broken just about every bone in his body on those trails and he’s an excellent rider. Finally threw in the towel on his last hospitalisation and just rides XC and local trails now

 

[steve_sordy]

Ground Hugger?

 

[Tonybro]

I think we need to Vote in a Custom Title for @Rahr85

First thoughts :

Twiggy
The Ginger Limpet (due to his ground attraction)
RoadKill
J.K.Rollings (You have to Honour the Scotts)

Maverick or Topgun! With the Berlin track - You Take My Breath Away...

 

[carlbiker]

I'm the least likely to bite when confronted by a self emposed "safety advisor". I commute 20-40miles into and through rush hour city traffic 4 days a week every week and don't ever even wear a helmet. That descent above tops out around 50mph with a cattle grid a little further on that I hop at 42mph ish but on the entire ride (2hrs) I only saw about 6 cars.
Cam is an insta360 GO2... I got it specifically so I could do POV footage without a helmet (or chesty)... it's got a lot nicer softweare than GoPro's mess of an App too

I love roadbikes, BMX, DH, mtb and Emtb...

pick one and be a dick about it

If I had just one pound for every ‘I have a Scottish head’ comment I could afford the self riding ebike I’m yearning for ?

 

[carlbiker]

Quite the opposite, the extra camera flying off mid accident makes for much better content.

The original idea was to have me at the front with one of the cameras facing backwards but that was for later in the day. I record all my rides so i have a record of what i got up to, i'm not trying to impress anyone, just gives me something to focus on after the ride is over and helps me learn how to badly edit videos for other stuff.

An added unforseen bonus is now i feel i can finally get that tattoo i've been longing after but was always worried about being able to sit through the pain, last weekend has truly recalibrated my 1-10 pain scale and i know what actual pain feels like. Silver clouds and all that... ?

I’d ditch it at least for a little while, I found there a distraction unless ofc your not like me and can ‘multi’task being a movie director whilst still developing the trade; I’m happy to just ‘task’ for now!

My best moments tend to come without the camera which is annoying plus it’s one less thing I can blame...hang on, lemme go get it actually ?

 

[Gary]

Are you going to knock us a review of this up .. I know you said you were getting one when they were announced .. but haven't seen anyone else mention them since then.

short review.
10minutes after opening the packaging I had set it all up and everything installed. 10 minutes later I'd made a short video and 10minutes after that I'd edited it and uploaded to tik tok. After 2.5years I still can't manage that with with my HERO7 black. And GOPRO's shitty software. One button.
No fucking about with hundreds of mounts and thumb screws.
Buy one.
Don't expect to be Pewdiepie a week later.

 

[Zimmerframe]

One button.
No fucking about with hundreds of mounts and thumb screws.
Buy one.

Other than the road bike zoommmin footage, do you have an MTB clip to see how it looks ? Very artistic gravy chips vid by the way !

 

[Gary]

Other than the road bike zoommmin footage, do you have an MTB clip to see how it looks ? Very artistic gravy chips vid by the way !

go pro is better in low light.
I'm on my way to a mates for beers. Its off road all the way so I'll stick it on the magnetic medallion for you and post the results later on Instagram if I'm not too chonged.

 

[Zimmerframe]

go pro is better in low light.
I'm on my way to a mates for beers. Its off road all the way so I'll stick it on the magnetic medallion for you and post the results later on Instagram if I'm not too chonged.

Don't leave it on by accident and live stream if you end up doing some horizontal jogging...

 

[Gary]

It's on IGTV unedited for ya.
The rest is on my onlyfans

 

[Zimmerframe]

It's on IGTV unedited for ya.
The rest is on my onlyfans

That works really well ! Thanks for not including the horizontals. Top job over the bales. Think I might have to get one. What's it like for adjusting angles and so on ? You can't clip it to a nipple and influence it ..

 

[Rahr85]

So here's part 2 that nobody asked for and the thread went off topic, but i'm house bound so you are f**king well getting it. ?

 

[Jimbo Vills]

Glad you are relatively ok mate, the bike isn’t too bad and you are in good spirits about it all!

As others have said, try not to over analyse everything. Just accept it happens and move on otherwise it’ll be a demon that’s hard to shake.

I learnt that a long time ago crashing bikes on track ? shit happens. Rest up.Go again ??

 

[Gary]

That works really well ! Thanks for not including the horizontals. Top job over the bales. Think I might have to get one. What's it like for adjusting angles and so on ? You can't clip it to a nipple and influence it ..

I built that trail singlehandedly. Farmer put bails there keep cattle out the woods when being moved from field to field or execution bus. But during lockdown has left them I assume to discourage folk from walking/riding the trail. He can be a bit of a dick sometimes.
nipple clamp mount probably wouldn't be the steadiest.
frame size/width/resolution/colour etc can be adjusted on the app and adjust FOV, angles, rotation and frame size on the insta360 desktop/laptop editing software. I even uploaded anything to the laptop yet nevermind used it but it looks similar to other editing studio software so if you're familiar with others you should get on fine with it.
The footage I put on instagram is just raw downloaded to my phone and completely unedited. wore the pendant high on my chest and just lucked out with the angle.

 

[Simminney]

Hello all, i figured i would give this it's own thread as things didn't quite go as i had planned and there is a lot of fragmented content regarding this over the site.

Before this all happened i was going to be using an ebike pedal pass but one of the other four guys managed to fall off at greno woods and fractured his c1 vertibrae. So straight away we were down to 4 of us but all using the uplift service for the morning session.

The other 3 had made plans to travel down on the friday and go for a casual ride. I chose to repeat my first trip to wales and set off not too long after 05:00 when the sun was up and made my way down to meet them. Setting up seemed to take forever and sam managed to break a valve core whilst setting his tyres up, taking this moment i wandered off to sign in for the day and pick up a second go pro to hopefully capture some extra footage which could include the other people with me.

Normally i run around 22/24 psi in the tyres but was given advice (poor in hindsight) to run more pressure to avoid splitting a tyre on a rock.

Fairly uneventful start to the riding, chose to warm up on the blue trails. They are nice and flowy and fast but the extra pressure in the tyres really killed my usual feel for the bike and worse just meant i was getting a lot of extra vibration through my hands making the end of the run a lot more hard work than they should have been.

Then we had a look at the red trails. First time down we went down vicious valley and dropped into A470 to allow us to scope out the newly refurbished trail, this run i just went nice and slowly and either rolled over the jumps or made sure i landed flat on the top, nothing much to report here. Then it was AC/DC which once again showed up my lack of confidence on the bike for the day and had a few close calls which made me just revert to my usual tyre pressure setup.

If i had to pick one i would say i do prefer the more technical red trails to the jumps but it is great that bike park wales has just enough to cater for almost everyone.

So anyway, had a good blast going down a mix of the other red trails including some sketchy moments on ac/dc, next time up the others were asking if we should do dai hard which is a black graded trail, given that i wasn't really feeling all that confident i asked if we could skip it for the time being and they accepted this and decided to go down A470 again, this is where things took a turn for the worse.

Before anyone feels the need to critique my riding i am well aware of what skills i do/don't have and i do try and ride within my limits. On this occasion having rolled down the trail once before and seen multiple youtube videos i was aware of what i was getting myself in for in theory, but there aren't really any places near me where i can practice getting in the air on big jumps in the style of a470 so i had to just hit it and pray. First few weren't too bad and i stuck to what i knew in terms of just staying neutral on the bike on the transitions and trying to keep a consistent speed. I was a bit too fast for a few of the jumps and as such didn't shift my weight forward enough for a smooth landing, but there's time to improve on that. When i got down about two thirds of the way down the next jump i was faced with was just as the trail turns right slightly and i know i'm no good at anything but dead straight. I think i might have touched the brakes on the run up but regardless i realised i was going to come up a bit short on the landing so braced for the impact and well..... watch the video.

The good news was that I wasn't knocked unconscious, the borrowed gorpo flew off on impact and whilst i was in a fair bit of pain the adrenaline was stopping me from realising what had actually happened. As i was able to get up and walk about/crouch/lie down my friends just thought i was winded and after some confusion i managed to get them to call for help. A nice lady medic who works there turned up on a bike and tried to get some information out of me to not much avail and a vehicle was called to come and collect me.

Most of the next hour was me mostly just trying to breathe and keeping my eyes shut to concentrate, the dark humour in me still couldn't help but laugh when i heard the others struggling to lift my heavy ass bike into the rescue car and then my own car. Regardess, the pain was the most i've ever felt and somehow i managed to stagger into a&e at the local hospital. A CT scan, some various prodding and sticking tubes in my side and copious amounts of painkillers later i was told that i had managed to break ribs 4,5&6 and puncutred my right lung and that everything else seemed to be in tact.

Couple of days rest in hospital and i was sent home packing with a goody bag of drugs and a letter allowing me to stay home for at least 6 weeks. The staff were excellent and i'm sure my stubborness did them a favour as i didn't ask for much assistance whilst i was in, nobody is making me use a bed pan even if it means hauling a container and a seperate drip on wheels with me.

I know i got a mix of luck and unlucky, 9/10 times i would have just slid down the other side of the jump and got straight back up, but i could also have broken my spine if i had not worn the protection i had. I will go into the aftermath in terms of protective gear and what was damaged in another chapter.

Cheers to anyone that made it this far, the video is pretty much the tl:dr..

My wife doesn't seem to understand how i am able to make fun of it all but what's the point in worrying over what could have happened?

I walk my dogs past there quite often and get scared just looking at those jumps. All kudos for taking them on and glad to hear that everything will mend ??

 

[Sidepod]

So back on track, what is the answer here?

Ok the OP is clearly no BenBren Deakincloughdog but he’s doing ok , up until the off.

I’m not convinced this is a damping issue. Send a 1 ton boulder off that lip in the same trajectory and it’ll bounce off at some random angle, damping or no damping.

Short of knowing every jump intimately how are you supposed to ride them without rolling over or sky rocketing it?
Knowing it is cheating a bit isn’t it? A greater skill would be reacting to whatever comes at you?

Is the answer to bail when you know you’re heading for a case or absorb the impact as much as possible?

I think most of us are in that ambition/ability confusion zone and one of these is heading our way, so if there are any experts out there, talk us through it.

 

[Zimmerframe]

So back on track, what is the answer here?

Ok the OP is clearly no BenBren Deakincloughdog but he’s doing ok , up until the off.

I’m not convinced this is a damping issue. Send a 1 ton boulder off that lip in the same trajectory and it’ll bounce off at some random angle, damping or no damping.

Short of knowing every jump intimately how are you supposed to ride them without rolling over or sky rocketing it?
Knowing it is cheating a bit isn’t it? A greater skill would be reacting to whatever comes at you?

Is the answer to bail when you know you’re heading for a case or absorb the impact as much as possible?

I think most of us are in that ambition/ability confusion zone and one of these is heading our way, so if there are any experts out there, talk us through it.

I think it's been said ?

At first glance, yes, it looks like any typical Scotsman going all retro, Screaming FREEDOM as they escape the clutches of earths gravity, but then forgetting about everything which happens afterwards.

But you can see from the video he's not riding in his normal smooth, relaxed, in control manner (if you've watched his previous ones).

With each subsequent jump you can see he tenses more and holds his body incorrectly. As @Gary says, he sets himself up for it basically.

Unlucky. We've all done it when we're not in the zone or we're tired/concerned about our beard colour - just look at Rob Warner.

Or it could be that new dropper post ....

 

[Gary]

Follow up review for @Zimmerframe after the weekend
Don't mount the camera high on your chest and off to one side via the magnetic pendant while to a loose fitting riding top and riding world enduro/nat DH tracks. = unwatchable jumpy footage.
basically every single bump transmits through your arms and into your shoulder causing eleventymillion jolts and direction changes the camera can't stabilise. (TBF if you stuck a Gopro Hero 9 to your top but not strapped to a chesty I'd expect similar results.
Lesson learned.
Oh... well... got some nice smooth timelapse footage of the drive down and learned how to delete files
The App is a little awkward to use... But I find most editting software horrible

i'll be below helmet visor mounting it next time (using the magnetic baseball cap mount)

 

[Zimmerframe]

Don't mount the camera high on your chest and off to one side via the magnetic pendant while to a loose fitting riding top and riding world enduro/nat DH tracks. = unwatchable jumpy footage.

So this wasn't MOOB shock waves ? ?

Wonder what it would be like with something more rigid, like chest armour. Not sure how you would mount though as the armour would be too thick for the magnet.

 

[Gary]

I have a GoPro mount for it. So could use the proper chesty if I wanted. I don't. ?
I only mounted it in that daft place because my top had a half zip that was in the way. pendant in the centre of my chest under tight base layer and a normal top (with no zip) and it'd have been far more secure. Not the roughest of terrain but no issues at all with the local singletrack and pendant just mounted centrally to a loosish TLD Tshirt the other night.

 

[Rahr85]

Sort of on topic, booked the bike in to get the suspension serviced and when it is back i'm going to try and get some help getting the rear shock set up correctly for how i tend to ride it, i'm sure the compression was set too open/rebound too fast but either way i'd like to get it sorted out and i'm not the person to do it. Plenty of stories of the 38's being overfilled with grease etc and feeling better after a service.

 

[Gary]

It's just the airshaft that's dipped in a pot of grease when assembled. It doesn't actually impede the fork's performance greatly. Just do a lower and air spring service yourself. There's nothing wrong with barely running any comp damping. And rebound slightly on the fast side for jumping is also fine if you're used to it. It's not like you're hitting 90ft jumps and wanting to trick them.

 

[Rahr85]

Bike has covered 1500 miles without any servicing on the suspension, grated a lot of those miles will have put next to no stress on the suspension i felt it best to do the maintenance now that i can't ride than later in the year when i don't want to stop. I don't really have the desire to try and service it myself and know someone locally who will do it for me instead of sending it off for a 4 week wait at the usual suspects.

As for the suspension setup i want it to be more dialled in for rocky/rooty descents and will continue to shy away from big jumps as i'm crap at them.

 

[Mr President]

Bike has covered 1500 miles without any servicing on the suspension, grated a lot of those miles will have put next to no stress on the suspension i felt it best to do the maintenance now that i can't ride than later in the year when i don't want to stop. I don't really have the desire to try and service it myself and know someone locally who will do it for me instead of sending it off for a 4 week wait at the usual suspects.

As for the suspension setup i want it to be more dialled in for rocky/rooty descents and will continue to shy away from big jumps as i'm crap at them.

Tricky thing is that after an off we are chastened and say we're going to stick with what we know and enjoy, but just when you thought you'd got out.......reality is; we always gradually return into the non-comfort zone, usually because we are with better or more courageous mates as some point. Plus ca change.

 

[Rahr85]

Eventually it may change, but to be doing that line again would require me to put some real time in practicing on smaller jumps and being able to be able to do hips properly. I'm quite happy to go over the size of jumps i was doing previously, the big air time ones just scare me, always have, always will and it's the sort of thing i generally don't like to even attempt.

Those were the biggest jumps i've ever attempted by quite some margin, i wasn't ready for them. I'm not any more or less scared because of what happened. Had i been suffering from nightmares etc then maybe i'd think about it but i'm just looking to get back on the bike and do all the stuff i normally did before.