o.k I am biased. But, my 12 year old son reached out to NF knowing that they had an ambassador program for trail builders. My son is a pretty legitimate trail builder, if you have ridden in squamish/britannia you have probably ridden one of the trails. NF put him on an ambassador deal. As trail builders, this is the first time we have ever gotten anything. As a result, I am super happy to support the brand, and stoked that they recognize the contributions of builders (most brands do not). On a side note, wifey has stolen his NF pants as she adores them.
Ha! I was driving my son and his friend to ride a xc trail (fred-tinder-yer
mom in Squamish). The conversation in the back made me realize that my biases
were wrong. This is what I heard "I like technical way more then flow trails,
Icy Hole is one of my favorite trails", "I love climbing", "slabs are cool".
If anything I learnt that old school is new school once again. Oh, and these
boys build and maintain trails and are 7 and 8 years old. Have hope, the older
we get, the more we forget what we were like when we were young. The next
generation is awesome.
Its going to be an interesting next couple of years watching how this plays
out. The rules of the playground are not concrete in many areas. For instances
in Squamish, Crumpet woods is a multi-use trail system between trial riders
and Mtb-ers. It shoudn't work, but does, as the trials riders are looking for
a different type of ride (not focused on speed, but technical difficulty
and/or hard climbs) and are not that interested in the XC mtb arteries in that
zone. Once you have an engine, suddenly ups - are just as fun as the down.
The interesting thing, is once you realise that you want the bike to ride up
as well as down, the bike will become an electric trials bike (which are
already available). At the moment, the electric mtb's seem lost to me, and
disdainfully looked at by mtb-ers, and moto riders alike. To me they are the
moped of the forest. Probably fun, but embarrassing to be seen on.