The Freeride Thread

Ian F

Well-Known Member
Curious how this stuff compares to "modern" trails. Stuff that was freeride in that time is pretty much normal features you can find on many trail.
Yeah... It would be interesting to go find them and look at them again. A lot of the trails were just connectors between big drops they built. A couple of the drops were pretty healthy even by today's standards at 10'+. While the bikes are way better, the mental challenge of riding up to a cliff and hucking yourself off it hasn't really changed much.
 

Captain Brainstorm

Well-Known Member
Yeah... It would be interesting to go find them and look at them again. A lot of the trails were just connectors between big drops they built. A couple of the drops were pretty healthy even by today's standards at 10'+. While the bikes are way better, the mental challenge of riding up to a cliff and hucking yourself off it hasn't really changed much.
The mental aspect is still there, but the capability of bikes today erases much of the anxiety. For comparison, there are things I routinely ride in Ringwood now, that I remember tacoing front wheels and blowing cartridges in forks I first attempted. Back in the day, a jump line was more of a rogue affair, while these days the transitions are much better, things are built better, and riding features is more generally accepted. Things are even integrated into the trail in a lot of places. A lot of folks also spend time in the bike park playing, where as in the past the bike park was primarily the domain of DH'ers and big bikes.
 

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
The mental aspect is still there, but the capability of bikes today erases much of the anxiety. For comparison, there are things I routinely ride in Ringwood now, that I remember tacoing front wheels and blowing cartridges in forks I first attempted. Back in the day, a jump line was more of a rogue affair, while these days the transitions are much better, things are built better, and riding features is more generally accepted. Things are even integrated into the trail in a lot of places. A lot of folks also spend time in the bike park playing, where as in the past the bike park was primarily the domain of DH'ers and big bikes.
Jumping on a modern FS bike minimizes casing so much that the risk goes wayyy down, also.
 

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
if you case a sketchy backwoods double you are going to have a bad time on any bike lol
Coming from BMX and riding real doubles, i agree, but a bad case on HT is OTB or slam to the side. When you have 5-6" to suck up that hit, you can ride away more often. FWIW, outside of the bike parks, most of the stuff I have seen on the trails is ghetto-ass-shit and half of it has a log as the top of the landing. So yeah, casing that is death.
 

Soundguy

#SenditGuy
Team MTBNJ Halter's
half of it has a log as the top of the landing. So yeah, casing that is death.
lol exactly. There's a new double over this gully at Dickerson Mine I hit a few days ago that isn't really big at all, maybe 10' gap, but all I could think of was hanging my rear wheel up on the railroad tie or whatever the landing was built up on. And the day before I was hitting the biggest features at Mountain Creek without a care in the world...
 

Captain Brainstorm

Well-Known Member
Coming from BMX and riding real doubles, i agree, but a bad case on HT is OTB or slam to the side. When you have 5-6" to suck up that hit, you can ride away more often. FWIW, outside of the bike parks, most of the stuff I have seen on the trails is ghetto-ass-shit and half of it has a log as the top of the landing. So yeah, casing that is death.
There's only one back-woods gap where I ride, and its built like shit. It has the stupid and pile of rocks and log lip for a transition, but the transition is so small that I over-shot it by a mile. Obvious stunts like that also invite trouble from the trail-police.
 

don

Well-Known Member
lol exactly. There's a new double over this gully at Dickerson Mine I hit a few days ago that isn't really big at all, maybe 10' gap, but all I could think of was hanging my rear wheel up on the railroad tie or whatever the landing was built up on. And the day before I was hitting the biggest features at Mountain Creek without a care in the world...

What I like about real doubles is you can see where the landing is (unless it's a big step-down). I feel like (on say Lower Dom) I'm not as consistent with landings. But like STB222 said when you have 5-6" of travel you can get away with a lot more. I wish the tables at Creek were built as step-ups and there were more of them!
 

don

Well-Known Member


Freeride terrrain with freeride skier.

I have a few friends that love skiing and skiing woods at that. I for the life of me do not understand why they don't ride mtn bikes.
 

gmb3

JORBA: Sourlands
JORBA.ORG
Squamish is on the bucket list for sure. I watch Remy and Yoann more for the trails than the riding (well, the riding is awesome too).
 

Soundguy

#SenditGuy
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I for the life of me do not understand why they don't ride mtn bikes.
I’ve only had the chance to back country snowboard once and it was fricking amazing. There are definitely similarities, but i think most people outside of our world still think mountain biking is only what we consider XC... When I tell people at work that I have a race they think I’m wearing spandex and doing laps around a track and that is so so very wrong lol.
 
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Cassinonorth

Well-Known Member
lol exactly. There's a new double over this gully at Dickerson Mine I hit a few days ago that isn't really big at all, maybe 10' gap, but all I could think of was hanging my rear wheel up on the railroad tie or whatever the landing was built up on. And the day before I was hitting the biggest features at Mountain Creek without a care in the world...

The doubles on the new trail?
 

Soundguy

#SenditGuy
Team MTBNJ Halter's
The doubles on the new trail?
Yep, I only saw this one.... there was a “gap jump” sign like 100’ before it.
1604093226569.jpeg
 

a.s.

Mr. Chainring
I rode some of those trails in Ramapo with some of the builders, but it was a long time ago (about 2002?). At the time, they were built to replace the trails at Mtn Creek when the park closed for a few seasons prior to the Diablo crew restarting it. Some of them had somewhat "hidden" trail heads, so if you didn't know where to hike off the main trails, you'd never find them. They were built to be DH training runs, so some of them were pretty spicy.
I’m sure we’ve ridden together. I helped maintain those trails you speak of. They were built by some local DH guys who wanted a place to practice during the off season. One of the biggest drops was called “World Cup.” At the bottom you had to cross a stream and walk across a small rock damn to get to the parking lot. One time they opened up the Wanaque reservoir spillway. When we got to the bottom the stream was almost 2’ above the damn. We had to take our shoes and socks off and cross holding our bikes above our heads. That was one for the books!

The place fell into disrepair. About 12 years ago me and a few buddies went in and revived it. Place lasted about a month before Rangers came in and dismantled everything. That ended my (short lived) rogue trail building career.
 

ebarker9

Well-Known Member
lol exactly. There's a new double over this gully at Dickerson Mine I hit a few days ago that isn't really big at all, maybe 10' gap, but all I could think of was hanging my rear wheel up on the railroad tie or whatever the landing was built up on. And the day before I was hitting the biggest features at Mountain Creek without a care in the world...

Nice, good for you. Admittedly I'm mostly a "stay on the ground" guy, but that double at Dickerson is scary.
 
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