Congrats, you're almost there; only 174 post to go. but that certainly hasn't stopped you from chiming in every time someone mentions the name Pushed (come to think of it, that might be the only reason you post at all?).
How to be an expert at anything...
- Thread starter MarkDH
- Start date
Congrats, you're almost there; only 174 post to go. but that certainly hasn't stopped you from chiming in every time someone mentions the name Pushed (come to think of it, that might be the only reason you post at all?).
To quote you; " did my post hurt someone's feelings?"
Why does my post offend you? Could it be that twelve page thread of the BOS S*xtoy review? I just reread that a few minutes ago; what a clusterphuck. Mr. school administrator certainly had something to spew in that thread.
BTW, no, if you read this thread, you would see that Pushed isn't mentioned in it at all. Since it's been a couple years since I was an advocate of theirs at this website, and you and others were still living in the dark age of suspension,, I've tried all sorts of shocks. My current shock is not a Pushed product at all.......
Why does my post offend you? Could it be that twelve page thread of the BOS S*xtoy review? I just reread that a few minutes ago; what a clusterphuck. Mr. school administrator certainly had something to spew in that thread.
BTW, no, if you read this thread, you would see that Pushed isn't mentioned in it at all. Since it's been a couple years since I was an advocate of theirs at this website, and you and others were still living in the dark age of suspension,, I've tried all sorts of shocks. My current shock is not a Pushed product at all.......
I personally believe to achieve success on a DH bike there is a lot of merit in being a well rounded rider/athlete. I know for me, some of the biggest breakthroughs for my DH racing came from time on the hardtail and BMX either dirt jumping or riding park and street. XC is awesome because you get to spend a longer amount of time on the bike, helps you get fit and if your bike is set up right you can also attack the quick DH sections and practice line choice, vision technique etc.I'm pleased at the good response this thread has recieved, and keep continuing the discussion for sure, but could anyone answer my question B? Especially from people that race DH, I would like to know wether they found riding hard DH for short times, easier stuff for longer times, or a mix of the two to be most benificial to their speed? I'm pretty sure most people would say a mix of the two, but some personal experience stories on this would be cool.
I also believe that if DH is what your training for, that every time you touch your Big Bike you need to ride it like you race it, pushing yourself. Not so much that you land yourself in the hospital everyday, but pushing yourself so that when the actual race comes along your body and mind are used to the pace.
As far as off the bike training, I believe your programs number one goal should be injury prevention then mobility/body awareness then flexibility, and lastly power and strength/mixed in with anaerobic intervals. Your program should also focus on what is most productive leaving you time to still ride.
Like others have mentioned before too, you have to find your own mix, focus first on your weaknesses as this is where you have the most to gain.
I've also heard the 10,000 hrs thing, they always talk about that during the olympics especially with the Gymnasts . It includes everything related to training for the sport, and for these world class athletes its usually stated that it takes them 5-10 years of intense training to reach this precise level.
Which shock works best for pot belly homers doing wheelie drops off of their front porch and then making pie charts about how their shock spikes at high speeds?
Assuming we all do have close to equal visual abilities, one thing I know is different between average Joe and The Super Pros is the way they use there eye's. Vision technique and training related to where the eye's are looking what they focus on etc. is an important part of any sort of high speed racing weather its F1, MotoCross, or DH. This can be one of the hardest arts to learn but incredibly affective.
Well, I am past the 10,000 post mark, so I am an expert on everything.
This Homer doesn't do pie charts; there is no need. Thanks to the suspension experts here at ridemonkey, I have purchased my last shock. Everyone here knows, thanks to them, that the vanilla rc is the pinnacle of suspension performance.
Funny, A BOS shock is just that; just a repackaged vanilla rc.
Funny, A BOS shock is just that; just a repackaged vanilla rc.
Wrong thread bud. That was a clusterfyck. Lets not turn this into one on the wrong subject.
Anyway, I would like to experience the magical revelation that comes at that 10,000th hour. I'll go from Sport to pro in an hour!
But seriously, I've always found that hard work and practice work pretty well for becoming a "master" at something. Downhill biking is tough though, because injuries are so common. I've been out for the past month with an ankle and wrist injury. I know I'm gonna get alot better from riding 3 times a week on a regular basis then no riding for a month then a week of riding all day, even if the hours are roughly the same.
As far as progression goes, it seems to be a bit of a potshot. I know guys who are about my speed after one day of riding, but then they just don't get any better. Some people seem to be slow and steady - tons of practice seems to be the way to go. Some people have better body awareness and start off better, but don't practice and so they don't get better.
What we really need is a test group of 50 or 60 riders to go out and ride for 10,000 hours and report back
if they ride 3 hours every day it will only take 9 years and 47 days
i have to say i have over 10,000 hours riding bicycles. so what does that make me? master? pro? expert? a sissy? fairy? obsessed? loser? a dumbie? lol this thread is nuts i tell ya.
10k hours is obviously TOTAL time training though, not just time doing the ACTUAL activity. I.e. a javelin thrower - his activity only lasts about 3 seconds, to do an hour of that a day he'd have to throw 1200 times!
So you can count all of the time pushing your bike up the hill as well, imho.
So you can count all of the time pushing your bike up the hill as well, imho.
I don't think that is the case to be honest. In that article, the guy was saying The Beatles for example were playing pretty gruelling 8 hour shifts, as in playing almost solidly for 8 hours (I assume they stopped to take a p*ss now and then!).10k hours is obviously TOTAL time training though, not just time doing the ACTUAL activity. I.e. a javelin thrower - his activity only lasts about 3 seconds, to do an hour of that a day he'd have to throw 1200 times!
So you can count all of the time pushing your bike up the hill as well, imho.
I mean pushing your bike uphill may get you fitter, but it's not going to make you a technically better rider. You're not training your brain or sharpening skills.
On another note, Mike Buell has his head screwed on right, some good advice there.
More like 30 seconds.. (preparation, run up & throw - you don't just stand there and chuck the thing 
)
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A5wdaSwVeTo
But with your reasoning, would sitting in a telecabin or uplift truck count too?
)http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A5wdaSwVeTo
But with your reasoning, would sitting in a telecabin or uplift truck count too?
I know you don't just stand there and chuck it, but the running/throwing bit takes no more than 3ish seconds... in that vid he essentially starts at 24sec and is finished by 28sec. Even if you take into account the prep time in working the audience etc up (which wouldn't be there when he's training) it's still not much. 30sec = 120 throws in a day to do an "hour" of it - his arm would bloody fall off wouldn't it??More like 30 seconds.. (preparation, run up & throw - you don't just stand there and chuck the thing
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=A5wdaSwVeTo
My point was that it's an utterly pointless metric!
No, as you're not doing any physical work, and the mental ability you gain sitting there thinking about it is minimal in comparison, especially since you'll spend 90% of that time chatting ****e to your mates
If you could do back-to-back DH runs though (ride for 3-5 minutes, stop, rest 5 minutes, then do it again) imagine how quickly you'd improve though. Initially you'd only have the fitness for 10-20 runs even if you could do them in 2-3 hours, but you'd soon improve and before you know it you could be doing 60+ runs in a day, that'd be epic. And your bike would be shagged, lol
Unfortunately it's just not possible in our sport, even the quickest uplifts takes 20 mins realistically once you factor in unloading/loading.
What you want is a massive see-saw to build a course on. You ride down it, flip a switch, and the whole thing pivots so you're now immediately back at the top
Or maybe a massive conveyor belt to put the course on?
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I think I'm pretty good at eating at this point, I guess you could call me a master of it, if anybody wants any tips/pointers/lessons, feel free to ask.
But seriously, I wonder how important habit is compared to actively focusing on something - I get the feeling from my own experience (and the gist of the article) that habit is much more important, since you frequently don't have time to think about the line you're going to take, you just take the one your mind habitually looks for. Cornering, jumping, speed control all seem to be related too. It seems to me that the point of this article is that the more habit you're able to incorporate into a given activity, the more time you'll have for focusing on other stuff about it that you can't necessarily do by habit - sudden obsticles rocks etc, improvising for music, etc.
But seriously, I wonder how important habit is compared to actively focusing on something - I get the feeling from my own experience (and the gist of the article) that habit is much more important, since you frequently don't have time to think about the line you're going to take, you just take the one your mind habitually looks for. Cornering, jumping, speed control all seem to be related too. It seems to me that the point of this article is that the more habit you're able to incorporate into a given activity, the more time you'll have for focusing on other stuff about it that you can't necessarily do by habit - sudden obsticles rocks etc, improvising for music, etc.
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This is an interesting thread...don't PUSH it, though!!!
From my experiences, I was always an ok-to-average rider once I got into dh/fr (started in xc). I stayed that way for a while until I got out and rode a lot more - as in any free time I had was on the bike. I haven't really let up since and now I feel tons more confidence and technique in my riding. The one thing that has helped my rapid progression is being aware of my weak points and doing what it takes to improve those areas...even if it means walking back up the same section 5+ times. Once you feel more well-rounded, you will naturally want to get out there and pound out run after run.
I also do most of my riding on an all-mtn bike and save the dh rig for times I know I'm really going to push (verb, not noun) myself or hit the BIG hills. It helps me force my technique a little more since I don't have the luxury of 8" of travel below me. Once I get on the big bike, I feel soooooo smooth - and fast, too! During the week, I commute 10+ miles each way to and from work so I get a good cardio workout from that, which means more time in the woods on my days off.
IMHO, I think the ability to process what we are seeing is key...as well as knowing what to look at/for. Hell, there's so many factors that make up the chemistry of a WC, F1, etc. racer that we've covered, but there's so many more factors. Most of which would likely blow our minds and break our spirits! I will never reach THAT level (especially at the age of 41), but I will still have fun EVERY time I ride and will hopefully continue to progress all the same. That's all that really matters, no?
From my experiences, I was always an ok-to-average rider once I got into dh/fr (started in xc). I stayed that way for a while until I got out and rode a lot more - as in any free time I had was on the bike. I haven't really let up since and now I feel tons more confidence and technique in my riding. The one thing that has helped my rapid progression is being aware of my weak points and doing what it takes to improve those areas...even if it means walking back up the same section 5+ times. Once you feel more well-rounded, you will naturally want to get out there and pound out run after run.
I also do most of my riding on an all-mtn bike and save the dh rig for times I know I'm really going to push (verb, not noun) myself or hit the BIG hills. It helps me force my technique a little more since I don't have the luxury of 8" of travel below me. Once I get on the big bike, I feel soooooo smooth - and fast, too! During the week, I commute 10+ miles each way to and from work so I get a good cardio workout from that, which means more time in the woods on my days off.
IMHO, I think the ability to process what we are seeing is key...as well as knowing what to look at/for. Hell, there's so many factors that make up the chemistry of a WC, F1, etc. racer that we've covered, but there's so many more factors. Most of which would likely blow our minds and break our spirits! I will never reach THAT level (especially at the age of 41), but I will still have fun EVERY time I ride and will hopefully continue to progress all the same. That's all that really matters, no?
I'd add that to become a champion at "extreme" sports requires an acceptance of injury and risk taking. You can win at XC by training and riding a lot but you'll never win at DH, slopestyle, or a freeskiing comp without taking risks and getting hurt sometimes.
There are a couple monkeys who can "Dyno" a shock in their head........
From the NY Times: Shows a different kind of 'sight'....
Blind, Yet Seeing: The Brains Subconscious Visual Sense
By BENEDICT CAREY
The man, a doctor left blind by two successive strokes, refused to take part in the experiment. He could not see anything, he said, and had no interest in navigating an obstacle course a cluttered hallway for the benefit of science. Why bother?
When he finally tried it, though, something remarkable happened. He zigzagged down the hall, sidestepping a garbage can, a tripod, a stack of paper and several boxes as if he could see everything clearly. A researcher shadowed him in case he stumbled.
You just had to see it to believe it, said Beatrice de Gelder, a neuroscientist at Harvard and Tilburg University in the Netherlands, who with an international team of brain researchers reported on the patient on Monday in the journal Current Biology. A video is online at www.beatricedegelder.com/books.html.
The study, which included extensive brain imaging, is the most dramatic demonstration to date of so-called blindsight, the native ability to sense things using the brains primitive, subcortical and entirely subconscious visual system.
Scientists have previously reported cases of blindsight in people with partial damage to their visual lobes. The new report is the first to show it in a person whose visual lobes one in each hemisphere, under the skull at the back of the head were completely destroyed. The finding suggests that people with similar injuries may be able to recover some crude visual sense with practice.
Its a very rigorously done report and the first demonstration of this in someone with apparent total absence of a striate cortex, the visual processing region, said Dr. Richard Held, an emeritus professor of cognitive and brain science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who with Ernst Pöppel and Douglas Frost wrote the first published account of blindsight in a person, in 1973.
The man in the new study, an African living in Switzerland at the time, suffered the two strokes in his 50s, weeks apart, and was profoundly blind by any of the usual measures. Unlike people suffering from eye injuries, or congenital blindness in which the visual system develops abnormally, his brain was otherwise healthy, as were his eyes, so he had the necessary tools to process subconscious vision. What he lacked were the circuits that cobble together a clear, conscious picture.
The research team took brain scans and magnetic resonance images to see the damage, finding no evidence of visual activity in the cortex. They also found no evidence that the patient was navigating by echolocation, the way that bats do. Both the patient, T. N., and the researcher shadowing him walked the course in silence.
The man himself was as dumbfounded as anyone that he was able to navigate the obstacle course.
The more educated people are, Dr. de Gelder said, in my experience, the less likely they are to believe they have these resources that they are not aware of to avoid obstacles. And this was a very educated person.
Scientists have long known that the brain digests what comes through the eyes using two sets of circuits. Cells in the retina project not only to the visual cortex the destroyed regions in this man but also to subcortical areas, which in T. N. were intact. These include the superior colliculus, which is crucial in eye movements and may have other sensory functions; and, probably, circuits running through the amygdala, which registers emotion.
In an earlier experiment, one of the authors of the new paper, Dr. Alan Pegna of Geneva University Hospitals, found that the same African doctor had emotional blindsight. When presented with images of fearful faces, he cringed subconsciously in the same way that almost everyone does, even though he could not consciously see the faces. The subcortical, primitive visual system apparently registers not only solid objects but also strong social signals.
Dr. Held, the M.I.T. neuroscientist, said that in lower mammals these midbrain systems appeared to play a much larger role in perception. In a study of rats published in the journal Science last Friday, researchers demonstrated that cells deep in the brain were in fact specialized to register certain qualities of the environment.
They include place cells, which fire when an animal passes a certain landmark, and head-direction cells, which track which way the face is pointing. But the new study also found strong evidence of what the scientists, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, called border cells, which fire when an animal is close to a wall or boundary of some kind.
All of these types of neurons, which exist in some form in humans, may too have assisted T. N. in his navigation of the obstacle course.
In time, and with practice, people with brain injuries may learn to lean more heavily on such subconscious or semiconscious systems, and perhaps even begin to construct some conscious vision from them.
Its not clear how sharp it would be, Dr. Held said. Probably a vague, low-resolution spatial sense. But it might allow them to move around more independently.
Blind, Yet Seeing: The Brains Subconscious Visual Sense
By BENEDICT CAREY
The man, a doctor left blind by two successive strokes, refused to take part in the experiment. He could not see anything, he said, and had no interest in navigating an obstacle course a cluttered hallway for the benefit of science. Why bother?
When he finally tried it, though, something remarkable happened. He zigzagged down the hall, sidestepping a garbage can, a tripod, a stack of paper and several boxes as if he could see everything clearly. A researcher shadowed him in case he stumbled.
You just had to see it to believe it, said Beatrice de Gelder, a neuroscientist at Harvard and Tilburg University in the Netherlands, who with an international team of brain researchers reported on the patient on Monday in the journal Current Biology. A video is online at www.beatricedegelder.com/books.html.
The study, which included extensive brain imaging, is the most dramatic demonstration to date of so-called blindsight, the native ability to sense things using the brains primitive, subcortical and entirely subconscious visual system.
Scientists have previously reported cases of blindsight in people with partial damage to their visual lobes. The new report is the first to show it in a person whose visual lobes one in each hemisphere, under the skull at the back of the head were completely destroyed. The finding suggests that people with similar injuries may be able to recover some crude visual sense with practice.
Its a very rigorously done report and the first demonstration of this in someone with apparent total absence of a striate cortex, the visual processing region, said Dr. Richard Held, an emeritus professor of cognitive and brain science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who with Ernst Pöppel and Douglas Frost wrote the first published account of blindsight in a person, in 1973.
The man in the new study, an African living in Switzerland at the time, suffered the two strokes in his 50s, weeks apart, and was profoundly blind by any of the usual measures. Unlike people suffering from eye injuries, or congenital blindness in which the visual system develops abnormally, his brain was otherwise healthy, as were his eyes, so he had the necessary tools to process subconscious vision. What he lacked were the circuits that cobble together a clear, conscious picture.
The research team took brain scans and magnetic resonance images to see the damage, finding no evidence of visual activity in the cortex. They also found no evidence that the patient was navigating by echolocation, the way that bats do. Both the patient, T. N., and the researcher shadowing him walked the course in silence.
The man himself was as dumbfounded as anyone that he was able to navigate the obstacle course.
The more educated people are, Dr. de Gelder said, in my experience, the less likely they are to believe they have these resources that they are not aware of to avoid obstacles. And this was a very educated person.
Scientists have long known that the brain digests what comes through the eyes using two sets of circuits. Cells in the retina project not only to the visual cortex the destroyed regions in this man but also to subcortical areas, which in T. N. were intact. These include the superior colliculus, which is crucial in eye movements and may have other sensory functions; and, probably, circuits running through the amygdala, which registers emotion.
In an earlier experiment, one of the authors of the new paper, Dr. Alan Pegna of Geneva University Hospitals, found that the same African doctor had emotional blindsight. When presented with images of fearful faces, he cringed subconsciously in the same way that almost everyone does, even though he could not consciously see the faces. The subcortical, primitive visual system apparently registers not only solid objects but also strong social signals.
Dr. Held, the M.I.T. neuroscientist, said that in lower mammals these midbrain systems appeared to play a much larger role in perception. In a study of rats published in the journal Science last Friday, researchers demonstrated that cells deep in the brain were in fact specialized to register certain qualities of the environment.
They include place cells, which fire when an animal passes a certain landmark, and head-direction cells, which track which way the face is pointing. But the new study also found strong evidence of what the scientists, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, called border cells, which fire when an animal is close to a wall or boundary of some kind.
All of these types of neurons, which exist in some form in humans, may too have assisted T. N. in his navigation of the obstacle course.
In time, and with practice, people with brain injuries may learn to lean more heavily on such subconscious or semiconscious systems, and perhaps even begin to construct some conscious vision from them.
Its not clear how sharp it would be, Dr. Held said. Probably a vague, low-resolution spatial sense. But it might allow them to move around more independently.
Sure Neko hasn't had 10K hours, but If you've ever talked to him or his dad - Neko used to race 100+ BMX races a year before he entered MTB. Granted that's not 10K hours, but if you crunch the numbers, that density of riding will put you at 10K riding hour's faster than most people even in they're trying.
His dad is pretty much what drove him to success... no pun intended lol. Neko's definatly got the skills and is a sick rider, but come on, Logan's not far behind and is a few years younger... my money's on him lol. Either way they're both great riders, and pretty damn moddest about it compared to some of the kids out there at Diablo lol.