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Is riding skinnies passe'?

3K views 20 replies 16 participants last post by  wipp 
#1 ·
Had a few people tell me how bad they were at that lately and that they should practice. But, they just don't like riding them. Seems like the Duthie ones get enough use....

I love 'em. The longer and skinnier and higher up, the better. But, I'm still old school enough to.

Thoughts?

P.S. Curbs are a great way to get practice in... 4-6" wide and pretty safe. makes that 12-20" one at Duthie look like a freeway.
 
#2 ·
When I first started mtn biking in Chicago area, there really weren't any man-made features like you'd see in the vids, so I'd practice on curbs, cement planters, parking blocks, and the like too. Then when I finally move out here and start riding skinnies for real, what do you know, riding curbs is harder.

Well, unless they are wet.

Or that rounded tree log thing at outside at Collonade (!?!?!!?%!%!%!).


It's fun when they are incorporated into the trail as a nice alternative, like WLLR at Duthie. Or even some of the small ones at Paradise Valley. But I don't really feel the need to go out of my way to ride them anymore.

Kind of like people rolling over log piles. I will never understand why that is fun or even difficult for people.

Balancing was a skill I worked on pretty early on when I started riding, and while it definitely makes you a better rider, past a certain point being able to ride down 8 2x4's instead of 6 has deminishing returns on the trails.
 
#3 ·
I LOVE a good skinny! My buddies are probably 50/50 about them. I think it is a great skill that translates to everyday riding. sometimes you have to balance thru a tight section, or get near an exposure and being able to keep your cool and work your way thru it isnt much different that riding a skinny.
 
#8 ·
I knew that would come up and couldn't disagree more. Many of us would pedal as fast as we could across the Bog Log in the old FT3K video just to hit that little hipper at the end. And, that thing was 9" wide at it's narrowest and 3-4 feet off the ground. Flow is where you make it...
 
#10 ·
It's not dead but not nearly as popular as it used to be. I see BC style trails having fewer and fewer wooden features and more natural features. And Shore riding was known for suspended wooden features. Whistler is a good example. They have been slowly taking out wooden features in favor of dirt and rocks.
 
#11 ·
Wood is dead. Literally. Dirt can adapt and change. Once you master a skinny, well, then what? Go higher until the risk outweighs the fun factor.

Besides, I got tired of funding Mr. Shimano's yacht. Actually, it was Mr. Rocky's yacht with the number of derailleur hangers I bought.

Bob, I think you might be overstating the speed with which you hit the Tokul bogride. I certainly never hit it at near the speed that I ride dirt. Didn't the wood at Tokul almost get us kicked out of there? Remember those signs?

Oh gawd, did I just get sucked into a pointless internet debate? Ohhhhhhh nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!
 
#12 ·
Good points. I just found it kind of odd that the "shore" craze really involved woodwork and that portion of the style seems to be falling out of favor towards speed and "flow" versus slower speed technical moves. It's true that dirt holds up longer and land owners/managers like dirt better than wood for the liability reasons. (The Hancock reason all that was cut out. Liability...)
We "master" other dirt trail moves so just not sure why that doesn't become boring as well I still like riding the WLLR at Duthie becasue I know I won't clean it every time and it's more fun than the portion of trail next to it. Will be interesting to see if the current pump track craze will eventually go away as well. I hardly use mine any more because it got boring.
 
#13 ·
Good question, BBQ.

I'm not much on skinnies anymore. The risk to reward ratio tends to be not worth it. Like JVP, I hate blowing up a derailleur or bending a rotor....not mention hopping off of stuff is always a crap shoot with potential injuries.

These days, I only build bridges to span a creek or wet zone if I can't possibly route around it. When that's the case, I try to make them as innocuous looking as possible (putting my land manager hat on) - wide and low and overly built. Let's face it....it is rewarding and fun to build really solid wood structures (the entrance moves to Scorpion and U Line were my projects), but it comes down to two things for me:

1. Maintenance. Even a super well-built structure with de-barked cedar posts/strings and fat rungs will eventually deteriorate and need either repairing or a full rebuild. Dirt can easily be manipulated and moved around for quick fixes.

2. Land manager issues. Unfortunately, I've been connected with two chainsaw massacres and when you've seen hundreds of hours of your crew's work cut into chunks and thrown to the side of the trail (or just laying in a creek that it used to span), it really leaves a pit in your stomach.

We have a trail in the hinterlands that has a bridge that that was, by far, the biggest wood project I've built. So many man-hours debarking stringers, splitting rungs, benching into and out of it. You basically could drive a truck across it, it's that wide and overbuilt. Thinking about that getting cut out really makes me wince. In hindsight, I would not have build that bridge like that. It would've been half as wide, way lower and wouldn't have been as long.

Cheers,
EB
 
#14 ·
Ditto on the popularity of skinnies waning. I used to be soooo into 'em. Not so much any more. However, I still think they are a great skill building or skill maintenance feature. I remember the first time I did the Portal Trail in Moab and walked it scared skyte-less! A few years later after mucho skinny practice on the Shore and at Colonnade and it was like nothing. (OK, except for the short techy section past the sign :)).

I still promote building skinnies in a few cases:

1) Skills parks or skills zones. They are in the list of features that could be built at Swan Creek in Tacoma.

2) Skinny log-ride wet crossings, low to the ground, no rungs... where we are allowed.

Mountain bike Bicycle wheel rim Bicycle wheel Soil Bicycle tire
 
#19 ·
I am with the consensus. I don't mind them when they are needed, but to have them out there just as a feature is not for me. I think the ones at Duthie are pretty cool and I get out of my comfort zone to hit them, but I could take them or leave them. Maybe it is age and more of a fear of getting hurt, or having expensive equipment on the bike I don't want to break. The trade off doesn't compute the way it used to.
 
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