The Pinkbike Podcast: Episode 48 - Rides That Went Horribly Wrong... & Why That Made Them So Good

 In March of 2016 my university's cycling team went down to Brevard NC for spring break. A few of us wanted to go on a big mtb ride, so we went to The Hub, where a nice fellow named Dan gave us the route for his classic soul-searcher. While we were out on the ride, a number of issues slowed us down, namely some poor navigation on my part, and a handful of mechanical issues.

Things were still going relatively fine until halfway up the Laurel Mountain trail, where we got a call from the team roadies to tell us that the owner of our AirBnb had learned we were housing twice as many people as we had promised, and kicked us out. This put everyone in a mildly panicked state that allowed us to completely miss the turn for Pilot Rock. In the mile that followed, we found ourselves carrying our bikes over long stretches of snowcapped ledge, grabbing onto the trees above to keep from rolling down the hill below. Every time someone would ask if we were sure this was the right way, I'd strategically shift the responsibility. "Idk, this is where Dan from The Hub said to go.". In the hours that followed, every crash, mechanical, and flat tire was followed by the exclamation "f*ck Dan from The Hub!".

I've since clarified many times that this ride going south was mostly my fault, along with a number of additional factors, and 0% Dan's, but the phrase "FDFTH" remains an unshakeable slogan from that day.

Anyway this isn't a super good story, but the reason I'm compelled to share it is because I believe Dan works for this site now. Hi @danielsapp! And I'm sorry!

 Worst ride was: easter, snow, all day xc ride, crash in a washed out rut, burnt my hand trying to warm it up at a fireplace at a café, made it back to the car, stopped at a McD for food, shat myself trying to fart, fell asleep at the wheel (microsleep, luckily nothing happened, drifted to the other side of the road but came to). Not a great day.

 A buddy and I tried to ride Downieville last April on the presumption that the eastern Sierra(Reno) was fairly melted out. Got shut down by snow about halfway up the shuttle road and decided to hike up a bit to see if it cleared out at all. Long story short by the time we realized how bad we f’d up we were to far in to turn back and ended up logging 4-6 miles of carrying bikes through feet of snow. We finally found butcher ranch, and continued pushing/ riding through snow until the waterfall, where a moto had ridden up and left a rut for us to follow. Got back just as it was getting dark, and we both agreed while we didn’t regret our decision, we’d never do anything like it again.

 I think my most memorable rides all happened in the early days of mountain bikes... I especially remember a couple which have some similarities... one where a mate was on his Marin Eldridge Grade (yeah, really old skool orange & black one) and his gears were just jumping like every other pedal stroke. He stopped and tinkered quite a few times to try to sort it; until after one almighty slip of the chain he absolutely... Lost. His. Shit. He jumped off the bike, ripped the back wheel out of the frame and hurled it off the side of the trail. Unfortunately we were on the side of a pretty hefty hill, and watched as it bounced off out of sight. I did what all good mates do and pissed myself with laughter while he seethed before trudging off for 15 minutes to retrieve his wheel. The second one was on a bike holiday in Austria with a couple mates (one as above!) and we were doing an Alpine switch back descent. I was leading, and all of a sudden realised that there was no one behind me. Had a radio and called up and heard back that one mate had crashed. I walked the 2 mins back up the hill to find him sat on the upside grass bank of the track and the other buddy peering over the edge just past the switch back. Turned out he'd over cooked it, thought "I know, I'll quickly slow down by heading up the grassy hill" but didn't see the drainage ditch in front of said hill. Bike nose dived in and he went otb head first into the ground while the bike cartwheeled, yup, down the side of the mountain. He was pretty dazed but we carried on 30 mins later, then did the next 4 day of the holiday riding bike parks and canyoning. When we got home however he had to go to hospital and turned out he broke his neck. Bullet dodged on that one somehow.

 Looped my BMX out at the bottom of a 12 stair rail back in the mid 90s, cracked my head and arse at the same time, came too and couldn’t feel my legs or feet... feeling slowly returned as did my sense of smell, since I’d actually shit my pants on impact.

 I attempted the Monarch Crest trail in CO (6k' descending, 2k' ascending, 36 miles) by myself, never been on something like that before as I live in the 'hills' not the mountains. I headed out about 12 hours before the first cold front/ snow storm of the season was to arrive. The guy that dropped me off told it was the last day of the year he would drop anyone off at the Continental divide.

My new Garmin died soon in to the trip so I went off directions I had heard somewhere.

My trail brakes overheated badly due to extended high speed descents but I was having a blast. I could have swore a guy said make a certain turn if I wanted to do the steepest part of the trail and I had met 2 shredders and when we got to the turn that I thought was the steepest part I told them that I didn't have the brakes for it and was going to have to go the other easier route. Apparently I turned off the main trail at that point.

I was by myself and had not seen anyone else for 2+ hours. I had to hike a bike a lot as it begin going back up but I kept pushing thinking that surely this was the correct route. It began to get very cold as the cold front began to come in and I was wearing my grape smugglers for lower wind resistance. I had the distinct sensation that I was on a poorly traveled trail and it was bear country. I was so tired pushing my bike for so long at that altitude that I would not have even fought off a bear.

Eventually I was in a heavy forest, it was about 40 degrees, that clearly was not a trail and so I turned around realizing my mistake. Thankfully it was mostly coasting down and I figured I could out run a bear at this point. Never had a fear of bears before that day. I began to have fun again. I located the trail where I had separated from the 2 guys earlier and knew that this was the correct route down.

The Sun was getting low in the sky. So I started to ride about as fast as I could, then I got a rear flat. The problem was that the airline had confiscated my Co2 cartridges. Can't fly with them. There was no repairing the tire. I didn't have a pump. Fortunately I did have a tire insert and could ride reasonably fast on the flat tire and I already decided to sacrifice the rear wheel.

So I kept riding, not at a bad pace actually, just tried to be really soft on the wheels. The trail was a blast btw. Eventually I crossed a dirt road that a Jeep was off-roading at. The Jeep people were a sweet couple that were also bikers and were enjoying their wine. They took pity on me. We tried to repair my tire as they had a pump but it was shredded by that point. So they kindly hauled my bike and I the 20 miles or so to my rental car. Down dirt roads, stream crossings and what not.

From there I disassembled my bike, stuffed it in to a bike bag, and began a multi-hour drive to the airport to catch my flight with about an hour to spare. I was so mentally and physically exhausted.

Going to try this one again this coming Summer with better preparation this time.

 Woke up brutally hungover on day 3 of a Wales trip, after already rehydrating the evening before on a few gallons of beardy real ale. I just wanted to sit in the car and die, but got bullied into riding some crap trail centre, after about a mile it started raining so hard that my eyebrows stopped working and all the salty goodness from my helmet drained over my eyeballs. Got half way round and a pedal fell off so rode the rest of the way back on the axle, then had a 4-5hr drive home. I got so utterly miserable it went full circle and became funny.

 We rode porcupine rim from town, I was on a rigid singlespeed. It was late May, full sun, and over 100 at the peak of the day. I brought a liter of water and two cliff bars, my buddy was similarly prepared. We both hit full dehydration and bonk at the worst possible time, right before the somewhat exposed singletrack. He tried to sit down and almost instantly fell asleep, I had to shake him awake so that we could get a move on. That was the only moment I was actually worried about how the day would turn out

Some saint of a human gave us an apple to share, we made it off the trail (somehow without crashing) and bummed a little water at the campsite at the bottom. I had salt crystals in my hair the size of that boutique Himalayan stuff, and when we finally made it to the water pump at the road intersection we basically sat in the shade drinking water for an hour. Water has never tasted soooo good in my life!

It was an absolutely miserable experience, and I'd definitely never recreate it now (I have a bit more sense), but it's also the ride my buddy and I still reminisce about!

 It always involves some time of horrible, unpredictable weather that somehow makes the dry dirt turn into a slide mixed with hero dirt. Then one of your boys forgot that he stuffed two IPAs in his sack and all of a sudden you have a legendary day.

 @aaronlelevier: in the first episodes of the podcast Levy usually presenter him as "My other boss".... He just practices being an ass. Kaz and dogs being the other episode example.

On the subject I dont have a biking epic to tell, just a few long days.

 I'm with Kaz on the dogs

 Was totally rooting for kaz in the mike vs mike but then he shared his feelings about dogs. Levy, you’re up!

 Worst ride was having to check my dad for a pulse, atleast Jordan boostmaster came by and asked if we were ok. He ended up with a spinal fracture and had no recollection of the day.

 @mikelevy I swear I saw a bike review of the spesh status on the pinkbike channel the other day...or was I dreaming?

 If you never ran out of food or water on a ride, you're either not riding far enough or not riding hard enough.

I was riding the McKenzie River Trail, 26 miles of lava flows in the rain forest, took a tumble down a lava staircase, broke a rib, broke a finger, and smashed up my knee ... I had twenty miles to go and no cell service. I got through it, but I was sore as hell. Sadly, the crash was on the first day of a ten day bike trip to BC... not much riding got done that vacation.

I love epics that are epic, gives ya something to talk about when you're old

 This was super entertaining till the very end where they started talking about the injuries. Getting older sucks because it takes longer to rehab from injuries but hopefully you get smarter so hopefully you get injured less often.

 Years ago we stumbled across (what came to be) Jackson's trail in Moab near the end of the day after a couple Amasa runs. We should not have ridden it as it wasn't open yet, so that was dumb and irresponsible. We had a great ride down it, reaching the bottom near dark and with no more water. This is where we realized why you don't ride a trail that isn't open. We reached the confluence between the Colorado River and the Creek (don't know the creek's name) and the Creek was high and flowing fast. There was a pipe crossing the Creek which we tried to shimmy across with bikes strapped awkwardly to our packs. They hung too low and were being pulled by the current. We hiked up the canyon until we got cliffed out. No where to go but try to throw bikes across and jump across. We were cliffed out on a little ledge that was about 2' deep, about 5' higher than the opposing bank which was 10'-12' feet away. My buddy jumped first to catch bikes. He kinda made it, landed in the water grabbing onto the bank. All three bikes were thrown one at a time and basically crashed into the bank and my buddy would grab them before they floated away. We all got pretty wet, but we made it, scrambled up the bank to the car as it got dark. Don't ride trails that aren't open!

 I bet RC has some good stories. Can we get another story time with RC?

 Levy, your a pretty decent podcast host. I laugh when I listen to you, and Kaz, I also get a kick from what you say. I’m with you, unless you ask everyone s opinion before the ride, leave your dog at home.
But, the amount of times the word “ like” was said by a certain member???? To quote the trailer park boys, “ holy f*** boys”
Listen to yourselves... stop saying like. Jesus man!
Sorry...

 Bad rides are good rides as long as the whiners stay home.

 an 8 hour ride that supposed to be a 3-4 hour xc-ish ridge ride; despite having a light rain jacket, after being rained for 3 hours, 2 x 10-15 minutes hailstone rain and temperatures that started at 23-24 celsius and end up being around 4 to 6 degrees for the most part of the ride. We try to get shelter at a sheepfold but the sheepherds asked us for money and when we said we don't have any(cash) they chase us away with the guard dogs. I, in fact, all of us, made the descent in the village soaking wet, in some early stages of hypotermia(I couldn't talk properly, the words were strange and had no meaning) and with plastic garbage bags beneath our clothes.
Of course, in 5 minutes after we arrived in the village, the sun came out, back to a warm afternoon(24-25 degrees), we washed ourselves and the bikes in the nearby small river and after that pedaled to the near bigger village, hop a train and had some cheap liqueur on the way home. And, of course, on a borrowed freeride hardtail. That was the moment I realized I really like mtb-ing. )))))

 mine was this Saturday. I built a gravel bike. And I really wanted to ride it. it was -22 here in Alberta. I got 8 blocks from home and the grease froze in the hubs. It felt like I was pedalling my tac x trainer. decided to turn around. Then my goggles fogged, then froze, off they came, it was great. I'll never ride in winter again below minus 20. however -3 today and i'lll be going out for sure!

 Regarding the discussion about telemetry and data analysis on suspension setup in the news section. @mikelevy, you totally underestimate your abilities to fine tune a shock and you totally overestimate the average rider's ability to do the same as well as the precious time we have to ride, let alone repeat the same section multiple time and tune the fork and shock. I understand the concept of slow fast rebound/ compression but do struggle implementing it to the feedback I get from my rides.
I think all this data and analytical software can be beneficial for a lot of riders in an indirect way. Let the pros and the dentists collect ride telemetry on shock setups and performances. Then have the bike industry develop apps that can assist riders tune their suspensions over time (weeks to months).
I was going to use a Formula 1 race car analogy on how the huge amount of telemetry data and performance analysis eventually benefits the whole car industry but then I saw a picture of your car... Hopefully your unpaid intern can help you understand.

 Had a stupid crash when really tired and dislocated a finger, had some other wounds and probably a minor concussion. Got myself back to trailhead and remembered I parked about 5 miles away with some big up and down hills on rough abandoned eroded roads. That was a fun ride back to the car. Actually rode most of it at least.

 Been using "Sugru" for plugging frame holes for about two years. Way better than any factory plug. Seals up around internal cable routing ports (with or without cables inserted).

 I m done with the cold too! Worked in the ski industry for 14 years, no more winter for me, that one reason i live in AZ!

Unrelated Question :

why did the Status review disappeared after few hours?

 I was riding a downhillish trail through my local woods maybe 10-12 years ago. It was an open section on a hill and two huge stags were about 20 feet away or so. They got spooked and bolted just as I dropped in and for maybe 5 -10 seconds we were in sync going the same speed down the hill. Was pretty cool.

 Question following up on last week’s podcast on high pivot frames: what are some of the most rearward axle paths for non high pivots? Or “medium height” pivots? I like the idea of soaking up the square edges but want to maintain some “pop” too. You covered how to make a high pivot jump better (air shock, faster rebound) but which frames are best at keeping it simple by not using an idler but still get just a little extra rearward axle path? Thanks fellas!

 Early on you're saying no more than THREE for a group ride? I do some rides w/3 of us, but I have to say some of the best fun I've ever had is with 4. If you get FOUR riders together, friendly with each other of course, even somewhat similar experience level, and you're all riding for fun, that to me is the perfect number.
I just can't see with these hosts and their collective experiences why they can't have a great time with four riders.
~JSV

 This was in the late 80’s or early 90’s. Doing our weekly bike patrol duties in EBRPD California East Bay Lake Chabot/Redwood Regional Parks. We came upon a riderless horse on the trail. No, radio or cell phones. I had same basic first responder training. Anyway, we spent a good hour trying to locate the rider. Unconscious. Lucky it was in a urban area that we could ride to call for help.
Another time, a friend in the same park, was just riding along, we know what happens next, rode off a curb in the camp ground area. Fell and split his head open. This was near the park camp ground area. The guard at the gate saw this and called EMS, which called EBRPD helicopter and police helicopter. Both were fighting over who’s jurisdiction it was to haul him out. Kind of funny. We both worked for United in OAK. When he recovered, we ask him if he got a airline discount.

 Separated shoulder on my first ride on a mtb in 10 years. Guess I started back at rock bottom. Took two hrs to limp by bike back to my car and drive to hospital. It was a pretty busy trail and hikers would literally see that I was hurt and avoid me. Was rehooked by the time I crashed.

 I would have loved to hear RC's stories on this episode. I think he is hands down the best story teller in PB. I've also enjoyed listening to Dan Sapp on the podcast. I think he's a good story teller and brings valuable onions to the discussions.

 Oof! We rode Portal in Moab in the dark once (it's a long, not interesting story). That was uh, a unique experience to say the least...!

 75km ride, all off road, one power bar, one water bottle. Bonked so bad I couldn't even coast downhill, my hands would not hold the bars.

 “It's not an adventure until something goes wrong.” -Yvon Chouinard.

 The sweet is never as sweet without the sour

 My most enjoyable rides are definitely the ones where not everything goes right, I think the highs feel even higher when they're so closely compared to the lows haha.

 Also Colorado trail bikepack trip.... Alpine lightning storm... The four dudes spooned underneath the bush for warmth praying for our lives.

 Kazimer is still an intern!?

 Why dont you guys ever talk about the Druid anymore? Such a ridiculously capable trail bike. Throw a 160 and a coil on it and youd be fine racing DH.

Also kaz is souless. Support for Levy's "dog hospital"

 awesome episode and I love hearing from @danielsapp, but you guys gotta do something about his audio. Please!

 KAZ hates dogs. My soul is crushed. Yet ive tagged a friends dog on the trail sad day. Find yerself a sleepy cuddle dawg.

 I think Taj should add sides and a brim to the butthole doughnut. Thereby making it a butthole top hat. i.e. an ass hat which perfectly represents a portion of the comment section.

 You guys are a bunch of sissies.