this x3
What was your turning point?
- Thread starter BigBoi
- Start date
this x4 AND bender's madness!!!!
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I only ride bicycles because I dont have the money for the kind with motors.
Mt Snow 1989 or 90 this was my 2nd race ever I think. Sport. The friend I drove up with was roomies with HB's teammate in college and maybe ski patrolled with him at Purgatory (Ivan was his name I think). So basically, my first ever lift-served MTB experience was a week hanging with HB and all of the NORBA pros. We were parked next to Tinker Juarez and his GF. There were the crazy-ass RetroTec/Cool Tool guys riding on their Trimbles. On top of that, I got to see Johnny T crush everyone in his path. What's not to like? Granted, I have no talent, and have never been anything more than slightly mediocre, but I do know a good time when I see it.
Hmmm...my first mountain bike was a Diamondback V-link 1.0, which came after years of riding huffys. The fork shot its elastomer guts right into my chest when crossing a curb. They replaced the entire fork...those were the good (bad) days.
Took it to Song Mountain out in upstate NY for my first lift day. Was crazy fun, but cantilever brakes blow. Took a massive digger in an unmarked drainage ditch. Around the same time, the "velo-schussing" article came out in MBA (1997 I think?). Even though the name was awful, the idea was so cool.
Two years later, I bought my straight six and took it to plattekill. Was scary as hell. It rained. Hayes brakes didn't work too well. Plattekill's trails were at least as steep then as they are now. The race course went over bus stop and down the road into the woods, and it was insane to my then 18 year old brain. A lot of those sections are actually a bit shallower due to erosion. I wreck twice in my race run, yet somehow managed not to come in dead last. The parking lots were so full I camped in the lower of the three.
Here's a shot of me (pre photoshop era) the second time I ever went to platty:
Haven't stopped riding since, but it's always been for pleasure and not for competition. What a great sport.
Took it to Song Mountain out in upstate NY for my first lift day. Was crazy fun, but cantilever brakes blow. Took a massive digger in an unmarked drainage ditch. Around the same time, the "velo-schussing" article came out in MBA (1997 I think?). Even though the name was awful, the idea was so cool.
Two years later, I bought my straight six and took it to plattekill. Was scary as hell. It rained. Hayes brakes didn't work too well. Plattekill's trails were at least as steep then as they are now. The race course went over bus stop and down the road into the woods, and it was insane to my then 18 year old brain. A lot of those sections are actually a bit shallower due to erosion. I wreck twice in my race run, yet somehow managed not to come in dead last. The parking lots were so full I camped in the lower of the three.
Here's a shot of me (pre photoshop era) the second time I ever went to platty:
Haven't stopped riding since, but it's always been for pleasure and not for competition. What a great sport.
My dirt bikes are cheaper than my DH bikes...by a LOT.
rented downhill domination from blockbuster, 9th grade. by far the biggest effect any video game has ever had on me. the week after i returned the game got my first mountain bike, a 2003 fisher tass and we hit the local fireroads, hooked since then. a year later i got a bullit, and now seven years later i live in vancouver and keep coming up with crazy ways to ride as much as i can. people give a lot of hate to video games, but damn am i glad i picked that one up. changed everything.
isnt that the sad truth? I just got into Moto and im realizing how nuts the money we all spend is.
This!
When friends find out how much I dump on bikes, their jaws drop! I can pick up a 2012 YZ for the same price as my TR
Being comlpletely bored in northern Idaho for a few years while wife went to school, dad sent me a bike it had a shock there was a drop in the wood so being a mxr it made sense. (Didn't occur to me it was not for drops it had a shock)
Klein mantra + drop + ignorance = broken bike and a whole new arena of entertainment.
Raced beacon bomber for my first dh race and thought that was what dh racing was loved it, drops, step ups rock, waterfalls etc...so maybe that was more a free ride dh race but that was what put the nail in the coffin...
Klein mantra + drop + ignorance = broken bike and a whole new arena of entertainment.
Raced beacon bomber for my first dh race and thought that was what dh racing was loved it, drops, step ups rock, waterfalls etc...so maybe that was more a free ride dh race but that was what put the nail in the coffin...
Ya I just bought a 04 YZ450 with brand new top and bottom end for $1700 last month. Which is almost exactly what I paid for my DH frame...without shock...at wholesale prices.
I am pretty sure I am disposed to liking bikes at a cellular level. There was never really a turning point, I popped out this way. Maybe when I took off the training wheels? When I got my first P.O.S. 20"? Popped my first wheelie? Built dirt jumps behind the grade school? When grandpa bought me my first real bike, a brand new Rampar R10? All of this was more than 30 years ago... 
The stoke has only gotten stronger.
The stoke has only gotten stronger.
I've always loved the fun part of mountain biking (riding downhill, not pedaling) and so when I discovered downhill, it seemed perfect. Oh seeing some sexy DH bikes in a shop one time, and thinking to myself "I want it."
I've been riding bikes all my life, and mountain bikes since I was 15. I always liked down better than up, but wasn't ever exposed to real DH until my main riding buddy moved back from Colorado and brought a Yeti DH-8 with him. He convinced me to go to Diablo with him. I rented a helmet, borrowed pads from him, and rode my Chameleon with a 130mm Sherman, BB7 in front and V brake in the back. I had fun, but didn't love it.
The next year I had a Heckler w/Pike, and put DH tires on it. That was it, I was hooked. Shortly thereafter I broke the news to my wife that I was going to build a $3000 DH bike. She didn't take it well.
The next year I had a Heckler w/Pike, and put DH tires on it. That was it, I was hooked. Shortly thereafter I broke the news to my wife that I was going to build a $3000 DH bike. She didn't take it well.
Ditto.I am pretty sure I am disposed to liking bikes at a cellular level. There was never really a turning point, I popped out this way. Maybe when I took off the training wheels? When I got my first P.O.S. 20"? Popped my first wheelie? Built dirt jumps behind the grade school? When grandpa bought me my first real bike, a brand new Rampar R10? All of this was more than 30 years ago...
This, except even when I had training wheels, all I wanted to do was ride my bike. Sometime in grade school, my parents got me a subscription to Mountain Bike Magazine. That and going to local bike shops and looking around really got me into biking.
My Turning Point.
After not being on a bike for 20 years I took up mountain biking in 1998. Since I was really bad at 1st, I rode daily (in our short season) for a couple of years to get better and more efficient. I started off riding X-C like many, but soon turned to the challenge of downhill.
Whiteface Mountain is only 10 minutes from my house in Lake Placid, N.Y. so that is where I learned to ride dh on my Gary Fisher 2+ Disc. (between that bike and Whiteface, downhilling seemed impossible!) After a few more years of riding dh, getting totally addicted and becoming at least a competent sport level rider, I was told some terrible news; Whiteface Mountain was going to close their mt. biking operation! That was back in 2004 or 2005.
To make a rather long story short I convinced the State Agency (ORDA) that runs Whiteface Mt. and a few others to allow me to operate the bike park as a private business, and that was my turning point!
Total obsession, big fun and not even close to being done. I figure I have 15 more years to try to get Whiteface Mountain Bike Park to it's true potential.
After not being on a bike for 20 years I took up mountain biking in 1998. Since I was really bad at 1st, I rode daily (in our short season) for a couple of years to get better and more efficient. I started off riding X-C like many, but soon turned to the challenge of downhill.
Whiteface Mountain is only 10 minutes from my house in Lake Placid, N.Y. so that is where I learned to ride dh on my Gary Fisher 2+ Disc. (between that bike and Whiteface, downhilling seemed impossible!) After a few more years of riding dh, getting totally addicted and becoming at least a competent sport level rider, I was told some terrible news; Whiteface Mountain was going to close their mt. biking operation! That was back in 2004 or 2005.
To make a rather long story short I convinced the State Agency (ORDA) that runs Whiteface Mt. and a few others to allow me to operate the bike park as a private business, and that was my turning point!
Total obsession, big fun and not even close to being done. I figure I have 15 more years to try to get Whiteface Mountain Bike Park to it's true potential.
And we love you for it Mike! Stay Awesome, can't wait to see you and the fruits of you labor soon at Whiteface!!!
-PJ
At the grand old age of 9 I was at my friends birthday party and his parents had bought him the new Domnhill Domination for the PS2. If you have played the game you know the intro video. Needless to say after all night of that I couldn't get enough. But I didn't get a bike for another five years later. I got a cannondale f7 and almost destroyed it trying stuff. Then I went to snowshoe at age 16 and rented a kona stab for my first ever race. 3rd place in intro class and it went from hobby to addiction in a matter of minutes.
Living in the non-mountains of NC I was convinced to try the "Showdown at Sugar" ambc downhill in 1998. Drove up and rocked the 4" XC bike to a 2nd place in beginner. Immediately came home and got some 6" travel Haro single pivot (which was broken in no time hucking the loading docks)!
I have been on a wonderful journey with it making lots of friends and getting to travel to many new places! About 3 years ago I was pretty much out of downhill until the announcement came that Beech Mtn would be hosting the nationals for 2011. I could not sit by and let that pass so I found a cheap Astrix that would get me by. A few races later I was hooked again, sold the Astrix and picked up a One Ghost last fall. Jan. 7th this broke my collarbone so no more gap jumps but I am looking forward to some NC racing this year!
I have been on a wonderful journey with it making lots of friends and getting to travel to many new places! About 3 years ago I was pretty much out of downhill until the announcement came that Beech Mtn would be hosting the nationals for 2011. I could not sit by and let that pass so I found a cheap Astrix that would get me by. A few races later I was hooked again, sold the Astrix and picked up a One Ghost last fall. Jan. 7th this broke my collarbone so no more gap jumps but I am looking forward to some NC racing this year!
Sometimes I think mountainbikers like to get ripped off. When yt started to sell afforable and well specced bikes there were ****ing flamewars all over the biggest german mtb-board. Haters were obsessed with telling everyone that the frames crack (well that was true for the first series but they covered **** up quickly and then this also happens to brands like intense or trek which framesets cost more than a complete yt bike) and the company would be full of ****...
The fun thing is:
Would yt have priced their bikes just as everyone else there wouldn't have been nearly as much haters as there were.