Phil and Hailey haulling butt on Burke Mountain

Here we have a rally watchable GoPro POV (Point Of View) video of Phil and Hailey doing a bunch of different trails at the Burke Mountain bike park in Vermont.  There's a ton of cool single track riding, much of it through the woods. There's a lot of jumping on this, Phil from this Skills with Phil channel definitely has some jumping skills.  He clears most of the jumps, and stops to work out and try several unofficial gaps along the way.  The part where Phil's following Hailey, and they're on parallel double tracks just looks really cool visually.  The big "wall ride" in the still above looks more like a wooden berm to me, but lots of fun.  It's barely noticeable in the video.  All in all this a good POV video of what looks like some really fun, and pretty burly, downhill, MTB trails.  A good video to watch and get psyched to go ride, and hey... guess what... today's Saturday!  And there's a cameo appearance by Red Fox.

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The other kind of street riding

When most of us think of street riding, we think of wandering around a city, ours or some new one, looking for obstacles built for some urban purpose.  Yet to a bike rider, those obstacles become an opportunity to learn something new about ourselves and our bikes.  An old trick on new terrain.  Once in a while, a new variation on new terrain.  And so we progress, as riders, and as human beings. 

So crazy fool looked at Valparaiso, Chile's endless steps and cris-crossing roads and thought, "What if we made the mother of all MTB downhill routes?"  Man, that guy has issues.  And that's why he rides.  Anyhow, that initial thought led to this freakin' amazing downhill event.  Hang on. 

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Seth builds and rides the "Murder Machine"

For those who don't know, Seth's Bike Hacks is a really cool You Tube channel I don't check out near enough.  Seth comes across as a very down to Earth guy, one who likes to try new bikes, weird bikes, unusual bike ideas, and then puts out videos about it all.  I ran across his channel a while back, checking out cruisers to find a good "next bike" to have fun and lose weight on as I get back in shape.  Seth is a good mechanic, a damn good rider, and funny as well.  Subscribe to his channel after you watch this.

For this video, he decided to rebuild his favorite mountain bike in to a single speed to try "bad ideas" on.  After a few little mechanical issues, due in part to trying to find parts on Christmas Eve, he gets the bike together, and the stars align.  Then he goes for a ride a few places. 

What many people, even old people like me, might not know, is that today's mountain biking began as a single speed bike activity.  In Marin county California, that fairly undeveloped place on "the other side" of the Golden Gate Bridge, people started bombing down mountain roads on old, fat tire, beach cruiser bikes.  That happened in the mid-1970's, and is one of the core roots of today's mountain bike riding. 

Those early cruisers were single speed bikes, and the hardcore types saw single speed bikes as the true mountain bikes for many years after. So while we think of highly designed, multi-speed bikes with shocks as "mountain bikes" today, the roots of the sport were in bombing down hills on single speed bikes. True to history, Seth hauls down some hills on his "Murder Machine" single speed.  Why does he call this bike the "Murder Machine?"  You'll have to watch the video. He tears up some single track, a skatepark, and an MTB park on this bike.  As always, this blog is brought to you by:

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