Interrupted my working weekend by bunking off a few hours early yesterday and headed up the hill. A few runs down some badly overgrown trails and I was feeling nicely warmed up and loose.
Filled with confidence we headed down a great little high speed section of trail that is much more open - you can actually see the trail, which is always a bonus. About half way down said run, just as you reach maximum velocity (25-30mph at a guess), there is a natural feature that always gives me that 'coulda hit that better' feeling. In isolation, the obstacle isn't hard to ride - kinda like a tabletop from the front, maybe 4' tall with 8' platform which gradually drops maybe 15 feet to a rooty flat bottom. I've thought about just hitting it flat out, but i would likely be killed. Instead the typical method is to brush off a chunk speed, suck it up and pump the downside to try and get that speed back.
While in work yesterday, i passed the time by watching some pinkbike videos. A few hours later, i'm bombing towards the above feature and thought 'i'll just scrub this bad boy'. I've only a faint idea how to scrub - I saw a few dudes do it on my computer, looked easy enough.
So. I brake much less than usual and as I approach the mound I start to carve across the take off. 'I hope this works out' i thought. If it doesn't i'm launching myself at considerable speed straight towards that hulk of a tree.
What happen next was not what I was expecting. I missed the tree, made it safely over the feature and it felt faster than usual. The rider following was more animated than usual at our post-shred chat. Apparently I pulled a high speed nose-wheelie over, across and down the mound with back of my bike banked over and at 90 degrees to the trail. Word on the street - it was awesome 😆
Please share your unexpected awesome moments. I've 8 hours of work left...