Larrabee profile

Pedal pin toughness: the buttressed tall=5.5 mm) stainless steel pins on my Squidworx pedals are all fine after a year’s riding. 

I no longer “maintain” the trails by shaving down rocks and shredding logs and stumps with my pedals — as I did in my greenhorn year of riding.  I roached a pr. of Stamp 1 pedals every 6 months back then.

I do contact the odd hunk of bedrock with my Squidworx (I weigh sub-105 kg only in my dreams), and the pins are TOUGH.  Never bend, never break. Don’t underestimate a buttressed design.

“I just hope the snake isn’t made out of a handlebar.”

Well-penned, Sir.

Thanks Mike, again, for your self-deprecating and illuminating writing. 

To highlight my hypothesis that one of the best things about mountain biking is reading a concise, cinematic description of an event that I’ve also experienced, I submit this:

“I am positively giddy about being so blown that I can barely push my bike up switchbacks that everyone else is riding at a conversational pace.”

There’s something about having life intermittently stripped down to its bare essentials that makes it worth living. 

I second the motion: a compendium of your writing in book form would tickle me pink enough to fork over lots of green. 

What a delight to read your work this morning.  Keep on hammering out your stories. We love ‘em.

Strategically-placed water coolers along the trails FTW. 

Refilled by government employees rappelling down from $30 million twin-turbine helicopters. 

Water bottle bosses (barnacles) B-Gon.

Done and done. 

Those who don’t like using the refill stations will be issued a tax refund (each user-drinker will have to scan the bar code on hem’s “hydration card”). 

No way will non-thirsty shredders be subsidizing parched grinders.

Here’s part of the problem:

“Just add a bit of imagination…”

That just ain’t gonna happen. 

And: OMG!  There must be 10,000 words of comments already. 

You struck a nerve!  Thanks!

slimchances57:

Thanks for that breath of fresh air. Amen brother (or sister).

What an absolute treat to read this _skookum_ writing (May I say that?! I’m an immigrant from Eastern Ontario to Victoria.)  Thanks!  It made my day….

“Upon leaving the driveway for the first ride, one observation was the lack of sound that dogs the MaxxGrip Assegai on tarmac. The familiar sound that resembles a lazy driver who leaves their winter tires on all year long. You can feel your soul leaving you as you grunt up the hill on suction cups.”

“… feel your soul leaving you…”

Kudos!

“But lately, it's the ones with provenance, patina, repairs, and ///detrition*/// that absorb my interest.”

Excellent word; new to me. Thanks for a great article. 

*the action of wearing something away by friction.

Could someone post some info on the metallurgical differences between resin-only rotors and rotors approved for metallic pads. (To satisfy my curiosity.). 

Thanks.

I’ve read this article several times over the years.  This time, the photos of you two riding on the stone steps through the village struck me as jarring enough to warrant comment.

In what universe is that behaviour going to be considered polite or couth?  Would I do that in my home country, let alone as a guest in another country?

Is it possible that some objectively harmless behaviours are simultaneously offense or simply rude?

The discussion about biases related to the perks and pleasures associated with the press junket have been deep and wide (above). Thanks to all who chimed in. 

Yes, I’ve read “Drunk on Press Junket Lemonade” several times.  While I admire the efforts at introspection there, my position is that there’s no way I would be objective about the product after experiencing it in that manner. 

You easily convince me that riding the e-bike was fun. I’ve raced motocross and rode several years on an ‘07 KTM 525 EXC. 

I’m not as easily convinced that these so-called eMTBs are to be considered acceptable where non-motorized _bicycles_ have been used for decades.

It is deeply embarrassing to me if electric motorcycles with pedal-regulated throttles are welcomed onto trails that were built with the provisio that they’d be used with human power only.

I cannot escape the feeling that this acceptance is an enormous blunder  

I wonder if bicycle media are making an error by reviewing them (“eMTB”) at all.  

Sure, everything is fairly calm now (2021/2022).  I lived through the dirt bike boom of the 1970s.  A million dirt bikes sold per year in USA.  And it wasn’t long before land access was denied in, what, 98%, 99%, more(?) of the areas than before the dirt bike boom. 

Sure it’s tough if someone disabled wants to ride a motorcycle (as I see an eMTB) on bicycle trails and is denied that pleasure. 

Let that person ride in an Off-Highway-Vehicle (OHV) area, and funnel all the electric motorcycles there too — even if they have 230 watt motors, and the throttle is auto-regulated by crank rotation.

I’m grateful for your careful and considered journalism — and for the opportunity to express myself in your publication.  Thanks!  And good luck.

Endurimil,

Damn, it’s good to read that; you recovered by working hard, hard, hard. Thanks for putting in your experience here! And — articulating the e-biker telling you to buy one. Same thing happened to me with the only e-biker I’ve listened to up on Mt. Work. I say “listened” because my experience was of meeting Foghorn Leghorn.

Yes, the potential disaster of having trail access yanked out from under us like “the ole tablecloth trick” is constantly on my mind with electrified lightweight motorcycles using the trails that typically were never intended for them.