Mountain Biking - I ride up vert..and I fall down it too\fun.

I made the mistake of seeing a bike run from a distance and finding it was WAY steeper than I though.
I ride past it commuting and some riders made a rut, I had not seen it close up.
I figure it's a down chute, so a week after scanning it passing -I foolishly decide to drop in. Kinda slow, no air -it ia a 10 foot to flat dirt shelf.

So i'm rolling to the lip...and man, the bottom curve isn't showing up..it's very close to vertical, and the transition on the bottom is low, tight into the cliff. Brakes!....no ..too late, I'm over and grabbing some dirt.

I'm o.k, stem is sideways, but I run the bolt (old bike, quill stem) not torqued so that I don't have snappage when this happens. Straighten out, kinda loose, but I'll just ride to town=close and have my mech friend hex me.

So this cliff, 6 feet of it is vert, well as dirt face can be, to flat, little tranny.
I'm looking @ it and I realize that it might be a climb rut....The stem will have to do.

So I went up it, the bike is ridden XC style seat up (uhh,I would have put the seat down for the entry if I had properly looked it over :rolleyes: ) and has a semi-slick rear tire.
The vertical went really well, hooked the lip with the tire, weight over the front.

Sweeet. Did it twice.
I'm not sure about going down it though.

I practice sometimes dropping into shallow ravines that have an emerging rock face one side, the rocks are vertical, but only 2 feet flat face then a ledge, so it's easy to hook the rear on with good speed and hop on top.
This was different. Dirt and more vertical face. Neat stuff, i'd like to build a trials bike.


I'm going to remember to look before I leap, up was good, down was a wreck.

Movie shot of man grabbing a tree limb, bike flies off a cliff in slow-mo.

The rut is most likely from riders going down and locking their rear brake to slow them down. If you can ride up, you should be able to ride down. Just lower your seat, enter slowly and keeo your arse low and back as far as you can.

Or you could just huck it ;)

:beer:

So this cliff, 6 feet of it vert, well as dirt face can be, to flat, little tranny.
I'm looking @ it and I realize that it might be a climb rut....The stem will have to do.

So I went up it, the bike is ridden XC style seat up (uhh,I would have put the seat down for the entry if I had properly looked it over :rolleyes: ) and has a semi-slick rear tire.
The vertical went really well, hooked the lip with the tire, weight over the front.

Sweeet. Did it twice.

so you can ride up a 10 foot cliff face with six foot shear vertical but you can't ride down?

How much speed do you hace to get to get up the face?

I can't imagine riding up a 10 foot wall with six foot vertical unless you had some real speed going in and actually getting over the lip. I mean it sounds more like a quarter pipe with a quick transition. Those are some skills to get out over the lip and ride out.

Very much like a quarter pipe, the lip didn't stick out so getting the front tire over was not too hard. Lot of speed, drive engaged all the way up.
I started sitting, stood up on the pedals going up and had my weight over the front tire when it rolled over the top.
The bars were very close to my chest, wheel over the lip and I gave them a shove to push the bike foreward -onto the flat.

I'm thinking now that a frame that is longer with a short stem would really work for lifting the bike when hopping up.
I'm sure I could drop into the cliff with the seat down, I don't have a quick release as they usually break, just a bolt.
I try stuff with the seat up often that might be a bit extreme, but it's a speed XC bike = really I need a different type of bike, not alter the setup of this one.

No front suspension and seat high made hucking not possible. 5 foot drop is my max.
Me or the bike would have been broken likely.