The Feature That Broke the Curse?

Not all trail systems are the same, some have flat cross country style trails, others are all about rock slabs and if you're lucky you may have access to a trail system that has a Burmese flow trail with jumps , but the trail system we are going to ride today is not like any of those, it can be hilly and rocky at times or slow and technical or just plain steep and while those are all good

feature

s in the trail system, these

feature

s are not Really the main reason we've come here, is things like this, these huge wooden freeride style features are scattered all over the trails here, in fact, some of these stunts are downright terrifying and, as our journey continues, It is these stunts that have drawn us to the Canadian province of Alberta and how I must transform from BCPOV to Alberta POV for this video.

This particular trail system is located in an area called Elk Mountain and while there are many great trails here, we will focus on a single black line called tdub. I had seen a video of this troll. That sparks my interest in my friend Ryan's channel, the lone ranger, it was the first time he took this big step on the trail and since I wanted to do the same, I asked him to come since he had the experience and lived nearby and Of course, Yuka and I are also joined by our Van Life friends Antoine and Isabel, and to get us comfortably to the top of the mountain, Ryan organized a trip for us with Alberta 66 Mountain Bike, a local training business, guide and transportation, once at the top.

I unloaded the bikes and hopped on, as the trail is packed with features, it didn't take long for things to get interesting, oh there's the big one, oh that's a really big one, quite intimidating actually, yeah, It turned out there was a new one. The old section of the trail that had recently been opened was called the ravine and by this I mean that the local builders had resurrected an old section of the trail right down the middle a few years ago, the spring runoff washed away this section of the trail destroying it, but now It's back better than ever, I actually have no idea what it was like before but I think it's pretty cool anyway, there's an old feature here called the whale warning that seems to have survived the test of time and the flood, basically The idea is that you have to jump to the main platform of the future before falling to the other side.

What follows is your choice between long or short jumps and, as always, my friend Antoine decided to be the guinea pig. Will you try it right away? yeah, I think I will, okay sweet, he has them all before he puts on a show, it always helps to see someone else put on the show or better yet, get towed, okay, I'll try, but in this case I was confident. Enough to try, and that's a sign of a well-built feature. The speed you get with the first hit prepares you perfectly for subsequent functions. This was the first time Ryan rode the whale on my head too. and a little hesitation that was a little quick led her to success, yes, but yuka never wanted to miss the fun, she also really wanted to ride it, it's just that she was a little nervous, do you want to follow me, I'm nervous, honey, yes, she is good. normal, yes, is there enough speed you can have?

Yeah, maybe I'm missing a little bit, but you want me to go faster, so I have to do it, that's what you want, isn't it just a moment, what I want is That's really what I want, yeah, you want do it, it's easy, it's not bad, yes, it will be fun, I know, yes, just use the roller, you just feel the roll, so you just say you pump everything and then you just fly. from the end, from the end, yeah, you want to do it, ah, okay, you can do it, you can do it, go updated, yeah, it was perfect, yeah, did it feel good? or what I felt, okay, yes, but maybe yes, I needed more speed.

Did you land? at the right angle, yeah, I think so, I mean, for your first try, I think it would look really good, happy, happy girl, yeah, happy, I'm fine, let's do it, hey, hey, now, this next feature is the reason why we came here, oh, there it is, but also the one that has been giving me the most anxiety since the regular viewers of the channel will know the steps to follow and well, we don't get along, it's almost a

curse

, if you see, I've had a bit of a checkered history with him, definitely no speed, starting with the fade to block the pass at the Whistler bike park last year, oh that was stupid and more recently Dwayne Johnson's gap this year I didn't do it and since then I have been skipping most of the steps I encountered during our road trip, but now we had reached the big one and like all the others before, I was quite nervous about reaching it, but it was time to overcome my fears and send it.

Fortunately, Ryan had done it. Some tips that might help, so when we do it, let's crawl over here and the moment we press it, release the brakes, don't touch them and it will be perfect. It sounds simple enough. Ryan shows you. Easy. Antoine was next. oh that's fast yeah beauty yeah man my heart is in my throat as I'm gaining speed every time yeah that's sweet I'm going to get over this it seemed like no braking technique was working right and there wasn't much else to do. It's something else than just sending it, but that's another one of those things I'm not good at and there's no middle way with this feature, whether I just send it or go home with my tail between my legs.

Steps are my kryptonite, but uh. Hopefully, you made this look really easy, so yeah, okay, so with Antoine as my guide we went in, oh my god, shit, you went deep, oh, I went deep and I really boxed myself in, yeah, I got nervous, oh Man, I need to do that again. I immediately got very far, yes, it was very easy until you did it, that's not how it was supposed to be. Antoine told me earlier in the ride that steps tend to annoy you and this one certainly did, but it was the rider's mistake. mistake, I didn't compress the bike enough leaving the lip when the front wheel came off the lip and started its arc my rear wheel was still going up the lip, it's very subtle but this is what caused it to hit me, my bike also has less travels than Antoine and Ryan's bikes and absorbs less of the lip, which would explain why I went so much further, so my plan for the next attempt was to release the brakes a little later and get the lip out a little more, I think wanna. go a little slower, yeah, it's a little fast, yeah, okay, you go a little slower, no, sorry, yeah, that's better, oh yeah, that was a better speed.

I wrote it like a joey, as if I had absorbed it and so the feeling of anxiety and fear turned into relief. I had finally conquered a proper pace and to be honest it was pretty easy. The Future is so well built that I could probably push my bike down on its own and it would make it, but that being said, it's big. and it's intimidating but now that i've done it a few times cleanly it's very easy now yuka wanted to try it and somehow he still wanted to follow me despite my incomplete first attempt just let it go okay ah yeah i think i I created it. also yeah, cool, did they box you or something? uh no no, I think I was good, very good, yeah, okay, oh yeah, he's like in the middle of it is my wife Senda Yuka, she has the same fear and anxiety as the rest of us, but when it comes moment, she has the mental fortitude to send him off without a hitch, something she wishes she had.

I think I'm running almost to the bottom as we exit the trail. I have to thank the builders who have put in so much time. the trail going forward is so steadily built that it must have taken a team of people to move those logs into place and what's more, it works perfectly and the trail itself is packed with features and that's because the trail has It's been around for a while now they keep adding and refining making it the world class trail it is today and it's not just t-dub, there are many other trails in Moose that are full of similar features and those trails will be the topic of next week . video but until then thanks for watching and stay twisted