Biking

Welcome to another one of my geek out blog posts! Today I’m going to be doing 4 things you should know about mountain biking trail etiquette. I would recommend reading this if you are new to mountain biking because if you don’t know this, it could make some people really mad.

Thing #1

The first bit of etiquette that you should learn is to get off the middle of the trail. Say you are waiting for someone to catch up, or you are stopping to look at a feature, you should always make sure that you, and your bike, are off the trail as much as possible. This is because if someone was coming down the trail, you don’t t want them to crash into you. Even if you crashed, unless you can’t, you still want to try to get off the trail as quick as possible so you don’t cause more people to crash. 

Thing #2

The next bit of etiquette you have to learn is on two-way trails. These can be tricky, especially when they are skinny, so to make it a bit easier the person that is going downhill should always go slower then normal and let the people going uphill have the right of way. The people going uphill can do their best to help get out of the way, and they shouldn’t take up the whole trail, but it is really up to the person going downhill.

Thing #3

The third thing you should know about bike etiquette is not to snake. This applies a lot more to jump trails and dirt jumps, but it is good to know no matter what. Snaking is when you cut in front of the person in front of you. This will really make people mad. The best way to avoid this is to ask the people in front if they are going. This is a really easy way to avoid making anyone mad. 

Thing #4

This isn’t really biking but it’s definitely something that you need to know. If you are hiking on a trail that’s made for mountain biking, you have to get out of the way. People on bikes are going to be coming down there fast, and you don’t want to get in their way. If you are hiking on a biking trail, stay off the trail as much as possible. The best way to avoid this is to just not hike on trails that are meant for biking.

Well, there you go. Hopefully, with this knowledge, you wont make people mad on the trails. If you want to see some more things on bike etiquette you can check out this website. 

Welcome to my geek out post #3. Today is a bit different because I’m not going to be talking as much about biking. Today we had to take a photo or drawing of our thing that we did and talk about it. 

The photo I’m using is a drawing that I did of mountain biking. It’s based of a photo of my on some local trails. One small thing to note with this is that the bike I drew is actually my old bike. My current bike is a newer version of a Santa Cruz nomad, while the bike in the photo is a Rocky Mountain. The trail is one of the many, many local trails that are not on the map. It’s a trail that has many rock rolls and steeper sections. If you want to see some of the other local trails, then click here! 

The Original Photo

I’m pretty sure that for my next post I’ll be able to get back to talking about mountain biking. I’m most likely going to do a post about some sort of comparison or maybe even a Q and A.  

Welcome to part two of my geek out blog post! Today I’m going to be doing a bit of a comparison. As you may or may not know, there are quite a few different types of biking. Every different type of biking has a different kind of bike, style, and terrain that goes with it. In this post I’m going to cover the main ones that you should know about.

The first kind of biking, the kind that I do, is enduro. Enduro riding is where you ride your bike up the mountain then ride down technical trails, sometimes with more climbs thrown in there. In a racing scenario the starting uphill is not timed but the second you start the actual trail it it timed, every if there are uphill parts on the trail. In every enduro race there are multiple stages with different climbs and trails. You do not get timed in between the stages. Enduro is a pretty common type of riding, especially in places like the North Shore where there are little to no shuttle services. This forces riders to climb and ride in a more enduro way. The kinds of bikes that you use for enduro riding is pretty cool. Enduro bikes are very light and easy to use on uphill but they are also made to go fast and take big impacts on trails. 

The next kind of biking is downhill. Downhill biking is actually pretty similar to enduro except for a few main differences. The biggest difference is that with downhill, you don’t climb. You get shuttles up or you can take chair lifts, if the mountain you are riding on has one. With races, there is no climb at the start, or on the trail, and you only get timed on the downhill. The downhill bikes are the strongest and heaviest of all the bikes. Downhill bikes are built for pure speed downhill. 

The final kind of biking that I’m going to talk about is slope style. Slope style is very different from enduro and downhill. Slope style is a kind of biking where you only do tricks. The trails will normally just be a series of big jumps and drops where riders can get a lot of air time and do some very insane tricks. Instead of races there competitions where they are not timed, but they are given a score and rated by judges. The bikes are very small and are built so you can do bigger tricks, like backflips and tail whips, a whole lot easier. 

There are still many kinds of biking that I didn’t cover, like cross country and free ride, and I’ll try and cover them as soon as I can. I love the fact that there are so many different kinds of riding so there really is something for everyone. 

Hi, and welcome back to my blog! After an extended winter break, were right back at it with new projects and, of course, new blog posts. The current project that I’m working on, this one, is going to be quite a bit different. Instead of doing a project then a post, this project is to write blog posts about something that we “Geek out” about. Over the next few weeks, you will be hearing a lot about a thing that I really love. The thing that I geek out about is mountain biking.

For those of you who don’t know what mountain biking is, it is more or less the most fun adrenaline rush that you can get. Mountain biking is when you ride a special kind of bike, that is built to withstand rocks, roots, and big impacts, on different kinds of trails/terrain. The trails can be steep and technical, smooth with jumps, and everything in between. The kinds of trails that you ride can also depend on the kind of riding you do. 

You may be wondering how I got so into mountain biking that I’m now writing blog posts about it. Well, about 4 years ago I moved from Toronto to Vancouver. Before I moved, I had never even seen a mountain and I could still barely ride a bike. My dad has a friend out here that he hadn’t seen since college that is an extreme mountain biker. So, when we moved here my dad and his friend reconnected and my dad’s friend took him on a bike ride. When my dad got home he started telling me about the crazy trails and how fun it all was, then proceeded to buy a mountain bike. With how much that my dad was talking about it, I knew that I had try it. So I started saving money and soon enough I got my first bike. From the second that I took it to my first trail, I knew that I was hooked. Ever since I’ve been biking every chance and I just recently sighed up for my first bike races. 

That’s the story of how I was introduced to mountain biking. Over the next few weeks more posts like this will be coming out with more information on mountain biking. If you want to see what some of my classmates are geeking out over, then press here and select a student in grade 8.