All

Woof... these are tough calls. Going to put away my participation trophy, all inclusive mindset for a moment and put on my 27 year old self mindset that is 5 beers in and screaming 'yardsale' at people from the chairlift. Party shirts are kook, unless you're wearing one and hitting 90% of the following checklist: 7mesh/dharco pants, full face helmet, mirrored goggles, sick dh bike build or at least well loved, no water bottle in hand and drinking directly from the water bottle fill in the lift line and most importantly shredded elbows/forearms with either old or fresh wounds. As...

team pup n suds > team X bladeZ i CHOOSE to ride for kibbles n bits

damn, i just came to the realization my brains definition of core / kook was formed via Brink.

I remember Semenuk being quite specific about MTB not being very core in comparison to skate or BMX: https://youtu.be/rncB849eguA?is=joDDAfjFMJo2sWPR Which makes me wonder, in terms of core, Semenuk: The rider: very core The edits: pretty core People who say he is their favourite rider: usually not core

If someone thinks of themselves as being a mountainbiker first and foremost, regardless of how many sports or hobbies they engage in or if they log more hours in another activity, does that make them core?

This conversation is getting VERY not core. In order to retain maximum coreness of the Vital community, I will be handing out jorts to everyone. Please state your size when you get to the table. We will be adding 10 to the number you give and handing you a complimentary shoe lace to use as a belt. Thank you.

I think you could extend this to any biker who is still looking for personal improvement. Any one who is dedicating actual effort into getting better, whatever that may look like, is core. I don't think you have core without progression. If you've lifted weights, done an interval, learned to wrench, gone to a yoga class, drank a nasty ass protean smoothie or any of that for the raw sake of "getting better" at biking, you are core. Core doesn't as where you are, it asks where you're going.

Finished the pod on my drive home. To define what is core, I propose the following: If you have a vision of what mountain biking is in your head and that shapes the sport for you in a way that you are executing on that vision, then you are a core mountain biker. That leaves room for a large variety of visions within the sport that may not be your thing, but are most definitely rad. For example, I would argue that Nino Schurter, Ben Hildebrand, Jesse Melamed, Phil Atwil, Braden Billinghurst, Payson McElveen and Wyn Masters are all core...

a lot of younger kids try hard to look like they're not trying hard. then you get older and you actually really don't care what anyone else thinks.

I've been dropped by that guy a lot. Rude.

Lol, here is a screen shot from our team manager Pich's segment in Earthed 3. Any time Police Truck by Dead Kennedys come on in the pit we have a good laugh.

Here is what survived...I had every Digger and Kranked but a friend never returned them along with some others. All the later Anthill stuff I have on a hard drive.

and Between the Tape!

The tipping point was incredible too. Clay Porter is in a league of his own for sure!

I will preface everything I am about to say by mentioning that I work for a wheel company, and as such I have an unusual capability to replace wheels. I am very very lucky to be where I am and as such this can be taken with a grain of salt. With that being said... Inserts for alloy rims are a tough sell for me. I am not an exceptional rider, nor am I particularly heavy rider(165lbs with kit), and I have destroyed an aluminum rim despite running a heavy Cushcore insert. Somewhere on this website there is an excellent...

Getting older and dealing with longer recovery times sucks. Hopefully it’s just a small bump in the road for Loïc.

Quick update from Bruni (first vid in French, swipe to second vid for English). It's looking unlikely that he'll be back for Les Gets or Worlds as his wrist injury is taking as long as predicted, but not any faster, to recover. Tough year for Super Bruni!

that's the plan but on a Sunday afternoon when all the shops were closed, might as well have been the end of the world