Unkas profile

Thank you Mr. Belson and NSMB for pieces like this one. It's the honesty and rawness of not shying away from the darkness we all walk through sometimes that puts this "bike" page in a realm of its own.

Yes, this is Petzen and it's in Austria. Just a mile or two from the Slovenian border that runs across the same mountain though. But we who live here have always took the border as more of a fluid fictitious line in the heads of politicians than a concrete physical division 🙂

The best think I've read in relation to mountain biking in quite a while. Thank you! 🙂

Thanks for the cool article - I've been intrigued by the prospect of big wheels on aggressive hardtails and now I think I just have to test one. I spent the summer in Whistler and through a string of coincidences and the universe's sense of irony I ended up bringing my hardtail with me instead of the fullsus. I have to admit I was worried at first but it proved to be a blast. And the bike is a very average 26-wheeled frame - albeit with aggressive angles, saved somewhat by the coil 36 up front. Although I was beat up more than I would be on a susser. I had so much fun on a HT I would surely pick it again. Now it seems that getting one with bigger wheels may even change the game for the better a bit.

Pure and refreshing …

I agree. The happiness and total focus my pooch radiates when on a bike ride with me is priceless. Dogs were born to run. I will stop here, so I don't digress and get into the whole issue of perverted breeding practices based on esthetic goals.

There is a European context to the oddness 🙂 Varying levels of controversy are involved in the extent and limits of mountain biking in the Alpine. While some countries (Switzerland, Italy …) are very progressive in this regard, others (Austria, Slovenia, to some extent Germany …) are much more restrictive when it comes to allowing mountain bikers to use existing (most of them primarily hiking) Alpine trails or building new ones. While things are gradually changing for the better, this is still a hot and in legislative sense often murky topic here in the old continent (for example, most of the all mountain riding we do in Austria and Slovenia is technically illegal). One of the things that mountain biking community can contribute here is promoting responsible behavior towards fragile Alpine nature and communities that live there.

Posted by: Flatted-again

Here’s my dadwagon on a rainy SW day.

That is one beautiful-looking machine.

You can really see how slim the chainstays are from this angle. Looks like it should be a pretty smooth-riding rear end despite the short chainstays.

I rode the past seven years with the bear spray in the water bottle cage. I grabbed an old water bottle and cut it at the part where it narrows (it took a few tries to get the hole large enough for the bottle to fit). You need one of them $5 nylon bear spray holsters that MEC sells - this is key for a tight fit. You can easily grab and pull the spray out of the cage with the plastic part attached. I tested it a couple times :S

Yes, it looked super ghetto, thank you, but our trails were way off the beaten path so there was never any risk of running into fashion police. Bears on the other hand were a regular occurrence. Somehow I also managed to not spray myself but that was probably just dumb luck.

I've since moved into cougar country, so now I'm trying to figure that out...

Hey, I apologize if this is the wrong thread, but I'm heading to Whistler beginning of this week and was looking forward to exploring the trails outside the park. Already got some cool suggestions from the posts above, but being solo (unless I manage to convince my fiancee to join me) and new to the area I would totally love to have some company on the trails. Post-ride beers and food on me of course :)