Met-Adrenalin

December 9, 2018 5:49 PM

Rémy Métailler rides Mountain Bikes with a mounted GoPro.
Here he is taking the Medellín Challenge in Colombia.
Photos from the same race.
Here he is @ The RedBull Valparaiso Urban DH 2014
posted by growabrain (17 comments total)

Yikes. The hay bails at the end there seem cruel and unsporting.

Interesting how the infrastructure goes upscale as the rider descends.
posted by notyou at 6:29 PM on December 9, 2018

Normally, even the slightest thing makes me motion-sick. Theee videos were surprisingly easy and fun to watch. Cool post.
posted by 4ster at 6:32 PM on December 9, 2018

Holy cow the Medellin Challenge is insane,
posted by darkstar at 6:53 PM on December 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

This is just to say
I plum can't watch
Those go pro videos
In the blue box

Of Icarus
while he still
Had his wings
posted by Oyéah at 6:58 PM on December 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

Here's another Remy video: https://www.pinkbike.com/video/376910/

The comments have one of my favorite descriptions of seeing people who are good at things do them:
"I know those trails well, but my ideas cannot even come up with the vision of riding it the way this guy does or the lines he takes. Like, the way this guy rides a bike is even better then how I could imagine riding a bike. He rides a bike better then I could lie about riding a bike."

Also a note: as insane as those things look on a gopro, they are significantly more insane in real life. Gopros have a tendency to make things look flatter (due to the fisheye? don't know).
posted by yeahwhatever at 7:26 PM on December 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

Completely mad.

At the end the driver collapses to the ground. I'm with you, I thought.
posted by doctornemo at 7:53 PM on December 9, 2018

Love the hay bales, love the escalators! My favorite passing sound is the Norteño fragment at 1:50.
posted by rhizome at 8:44 PM on December 9, 2018

So fun to watch. My buddies and I did a lot of mountain biking in school (it was one of the few things available to adrenaline junkies in the DC area) but this was when suspension forks were the latest new fangled thing and no one had dreamed up rear suspension or disc brakes or drop handlebars then and the idea of taking a ski lift up was beyond comprehension. We’d still have a great time on some single track. The last time I tried to go mountain biking maybe 12 years ago we looked up some two star 8 mile trail a short distance out of Seattle. We spent an hour climbing 2000 ft up some fire road and got to the trail head and took one look and noped the hell out of there. We spent the trip down the fire road rationalizing that there is no shame is choosing to stay alive. The things people can do with modern bikes — holy crap. Knowing how to ride a bike and staring down one of these trails is akin to knowing how to walk and staring down a double black diamond run on skis. I’d ridden down like 8-10 stairs before but a hundred stairs at peak velocity with a hairpin turn then a hundred more stairs is just a whole other level. I wish I was young and healthy enough and had the right equipment, but it’s just not going to happen at this point.
posted by Slarty Bartfast at 8:55 PM on December 9, 2018 [6 favorites]

most of the people who try these runs die right?
posted by mullacc at 9:57 PM on December 9, 2018

He rides a bike better then I could lie about riding a bike.
A great way to identify a lie is by noticing the perspective it's told from.
posted by ethansr at 11:35 PM on December 9, 2018 [1 favorite]

He would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those Medellín curves.
posted by chavenet at 1:23 AM on December 10, 2018 [5 favorites]

He sure must know that track well as some bits appear out of sight, like you're REALLY committed at about 53 seconds, wow. I thought I's done some craziee things on a bike but that's really out there.

I know tech helps us push boundaries but human performance seems to be ever-rising too what with e.g. this and parkour. Or is it just creative minds no-longer bound up in the group-sports group-think - how many folk who do this would be into ballsports?? I long for the demise of ballsports and more Métailler.
posted by unearthed at 3:43 AM on December 10, 2018

The first link is of the Red Bull Rampage run, but as he was denied entry to the US after being stopped at the border on his drive down from Whistler to Utah the ride was filmed after the event.

Incidentally, there some worry with the Red Bull Rampage event:
Every year the stakes get higher, the gap jumps get wider and deeper, the risks that must be taken to win become ever more harrowing. The situation reminds me of my former life in the corporate world, where publicly traded companies are under constant pressure to grow profitability every single quarter. Being stagnant or even experiencing the occasional loss is absolutely taboo, quarterly profits must always improve, and anything less is unacceptable.
posted by Kiwi at 5:35 AM on December 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

He sure must know that track well as some bits appear out of sight, like you're REALLY committed at about 53 seconds,

You can really see this at the top of the course when he sets up for lines that are out of view behind a wall or whatever. It’s uncomfortable to watch in those moments (“Dude what no! Oh, yeah okay!”)
posted by notyou at 5:54 AM on December 10, 2018

So nice to see that Hardcore Harry is into motocross now.
posted by Lipstick Thespian at 7:14 AM on December 10, 2018

Oh I remember that last video! When I first saw it, I couldn't stop leaning my head back in a ridiculous attempt to see further up the road. I even wasn't aware I was doing it until I felt the strain in my neck. It had exactly the same effect on me this time (and, indeed, the neck strain is what made me remember watching it the first time).
posted by treepour at 5:01 PM on December 10, 2018 [1 favorite]

So very, very same, treepour.

This one. This one I feel pretty queasy after watching TBH. It’s awesome, but I think I’ll look away when I show it to my kids.
posted by Songdog at 3:22 PM on December 11, 2018