wow. just wow.

September 29, 2007 3:28 PM

Benito Ross, Vince Hermance, and Kenny Belaey make the insurmountable look insignificant: watching bike trials will make your toes tingle.
posted by anotherpanacea (16 comments total)

I kept saying "Well, that's enough of this jackass shit", and watching some more anyway. It's amazing how old this doesn't get.
posted by dhartung at 3:46 PM on September 29, 2007

Those guys are nuts. I remember watching Hans Rey do his thing back in the 90's. While jumping off shit, he was wearing a beard on only one side of his face. crazy.
posted by Ironmouth at 4:02 PM on September 29, 2007

awesome. I just got home from a cyclocross race where I was having trouble riding a fast high berm without washing out my front wheel on the exit. These guys kill me.
posted by lonefrontranger at 4:07 PM on September 29, 2007

While some guys stay in the cyclo trials world, most of the current world motorcycle trials competitors (including current world champ Toni Bou and ex-word champ Adam Raga) are ex-cycle trials champions.

Trials is the next big "extreme" sport to take off, I'm convinced of that. I can't believe it's still one of the least commercial professional sports on the planet.
posted by NeonSurge at 4:22 PM on September 29, 2007

Mountain goats on wheels. Of course I've seen and tried the motorized version, resulting in my worst motorcycle injury ever, but doing it solely on leg power? Wow.

You know you're getting old when all you can think of while watching crash vids is how many months it would take to recover from each crash.

Great post.
posted by snsranch at 4:24 PM on September 29, 2007

I have never been able to watch that kind of bone-splintering injury stuff.
posted by wsg at 4:25 PM on September 29, 2007

i can't stop watching... seriously, some one of you that lives in L.A. come over to my house & unplug my computer because I can't look away and I so desperately want to look away.
posted by jonson at 4:39 PM on September 29, 2007

I was so into Evel Knievel jumping snake river canyon,etc. as a kid. He was the coolest.
These guys are super precise.
posted by greenskpr at 5:09 PM on September 29, 2007

Those nasty men should be in jail for treating innocent bicycles like that.
posted by blue_beetle at 5:09 PM on September 29, 2007

Some day, people are gonna be buying expensive athletic shoes because of advertisements featuring these guys.
posted by ProfLinusPauling at 5:37 PM on September 29, 2007

Ryan Leech is the hero in my house. The Kranked 6 segment is one of the greatest bit of mtb action ever filmed.

By all accounts, the nicest guy too.



Trials is a wonderful thing to watch with your kids. You may not agree with them about much but you can all agree that was a fucking INSANE move.
posted by unSane at 9:25 PM on September 29, 2007

Did that Ryan dude just ride across a fucking chain?!?! IMHO proof that there are aliens among us. nice post!
posted by HappyHippo at 10:35 PM on September 29, 2007

I've always wanted to get into trials, but at this point, I think I am too old/fat to do any of that stuff, so I will stick with downhilling

Leech is unreal. this is one of my favorite clips of him, the part where he rides across a rickety top of a gate is insane.
posted by brent_h at 11:13 PM on September 29, 2007

Most of those videos were taken in the city centre - yes, Canberra really is that deserted.
posted by Lucie at 11:26 PM on September 29, 2007

the 'watching bike trials' links, anyway.
posted by Lucie at 11:27 PM on September 29, 2007

Today's kids always think they invented this stuff. Watch Ot Pi jump over things in 1991.
posted by ardgedee at 7:52 AM on September 30, 2007