Hot and Miserable on Double Black and Double Down
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ส.ค. 2024
- / voiceovertrails
Double Black and Double Down are two perfectly acceptable trails located on Chuckanut Mountain near Bellingham, WA. Typically shuttled, these to advanced to expert level trails are heavily used and rather unremarkable as far as advanced trails go. They're probably a great shuttle option if you live in or around Bellingham but if you're willing to pedal, there's better options over at Galbraith.
I love your channel but you missed the point of those trails. Sure it's a little loose right now, everywhere in the PNW is, but those trails are meant to be gnarly and raw with a little flow mixed in. They take two or more rides to learn the features and get the rhythm down. Once you do, these are two of the best trails in the state.
I love your videos man but this take is not it. I think youre either not going fast enough or were maybe off your game that day. Its a great trail pretty much any time of the year and definitely has flow if you ride it right. If you ever want a round two Id be happy to show you around w/ my ride group and likely leverage a shuttle bc part of what makes this trail awesome is riding it a few times and not exerting too much energy on the climbs, that way you can learn it on the first go and really put your foot on the gas the following laps. Its a true gem of Bham riding, giving it a second chance may show you the light or more precisely in your own words be "canonical".
I'm generally a fan of your content, but you are way off the mark on this one. You complain about safety trails while showing video of yourself clearly being not up to the features on the trail and riding said safety lines. I get your point that if there aren't safety lines in the first place then you'd be less likely to accidentally ride them, but experienced riders who are good enough for these trails can read the trail and ride the main line most of the time anyways.
You can't feel the rhythm of the trail because you are poking your way down at 25% of the speed of the trail. Fast trails are meant to be ridden fast! To continue your analogy, it would be difficult to feel the rhythm of a piece of music if you were playing it at for the first time at 25% speed. That's why people practice music to play it at the correct speed or are good enough to sight read it the first time. You are the beginner saying they think something is bad because it is hard enough that you didn't do it right the first time - which by itself is OK, but sharing that view is shortsighted in my opinion. I hope you can ride them again following someone at trail speed because you'll have a much better time.
I took the time to write such a long comment because you seem like someone smart enough to learn from the views of others even if they are in youtube comments, so hopefully this gives you the push to reconsider.
Oh it's the same out here in Colorado too. There's a famous pair of trails in Golden called Enchanted Forest and Apex. EF is supposed to be a PNW style rooty trail, but is incredibly blown out. Apex (aka "the gut") is a steep janky rock garden that is scary enough that a lot of riders walk large parts of it and end up kicking loose babyheads into the main line. This pair of trails is also where Yeti does their bike testing, the famous Yeti "lunch ride" is basically these two trails (and the Yeti SB130 Lunch Ride was literally designed for them specifically).
You can only do that PNW Rooty style trail if there is enough moisture and the right kind of soil to hold it in place. That's actually a rarer commodity than folks think, even here in the PNW. It only works on certain mountains.
@@VoiceOverTrailReviews Yeah that spot in Golden is kinda unique, north facing slope with good tree cover, so hold moisture better than most areas in the foothills. Front Range foothills are usually very dry and fairly open with just some ponderosa pine
I love both these trails but they defiantly are designed to be ridden at DH bike speeds or you get hung up and feel out of the flow, IMO. It took me a few shuttle days to get them dialed and have fun, and they are very fun once you know what's coming and when to use the brakes. Not my primary type of ridding, prefer more XC/Trail type stuff but a good change of pace at times to practice opening the throttle. Also it seams a lot of our faster steeper public trails get worn in like this even if they're not shuttle trails. I don't know if that's by trail design or not but they do seem to all evolve as they go even with regular maintenance. Thanks for the review and honest opinions.
I’ve since ridden it again. I did just as poorly, and I agree with everything you’ve said. But I had a lot more fun the second time, even though I didn’t perform any better. I’ll talk about it more in my next video.
This trail was too difficult for you. You missed the mark on this review.
It was hot. I was tired. I made a follow-up vid.
Thats the future of mtbing, trails worn down to the bone. See coldcreek, thrillium, sandyridge etc.
Good video, you talked about what I been noticing with popular trails, shuttle trails on bikes that are over kill. Thats one of the reasons I like to ride a down country or beefed up xc bike
I'm not really against trails getting worn down, but trails that get heavy traffic need to be built and maintained to withstand it. Both NWTA and EMBA put a lot of time and effort into maintenance on trails that were built to reasonably handle the traffic. DB and DD, on the other hand, aren't really on the kind of terrain that can handle the heavy use.
@@VoiceOverTrailReviews I ve seen a noticeable change in busy trails like coldcreek just in the last 4 or 5 years sunce I got back into biking. You cant really replace dirt in any economical way, and the roots and imbedded rocks just keep getting bigger very rapidly to my eyes. I dont know what you do about it. You can see it in gps times on trails, they get slower. Try matching a time you got 5 years ago on coldcreek.
Had your bottle full of hateraide on this ride huh
It was hot. Here's a follow-up video where I basically take back almost everything I said: th-cam.com/video/rPfjlp9q5Po/w-d-xo.html
@@VoiceOverTrailReviews I’m surprised I haven’t seen this one yet. I have a similar opinion to your original vid about these trails, I just loved your sass in the first video 😂
@@JeremyFacer Thanks! 🙂
Dude i'm sorry but how can you criticize a trail for being "unrideable" when you literally cant even ride it? Seriously so ridiculous.
Huh? I don't know what your criticism is here. Are you saying the trail isn't ridable? Are you saying he can't ride the trail? Are you criticizing the situation? The rider? What's ridiculous? I'm honestly confused by this comment.
I read it as saying he can't ride the trail, which seems to have at least a little merit based on pretty much walking into Double Down (which isn't nearly as one dimensional as he makes it seem).
As much as I love the channel, I can't say I agree on this one. I love those two trails so damn much.
That said, from the trail building perspective I have to admit you're right.
I didn’t say the trail was unrideable. I said some of the features are almost unrideable. I also acknowledged that if I had more runs down the trail and wasn’t alone I’d clear more of the features.
@@SnowIsMyTerrain I look at everything from a builder perspective. As Yogi Berra once quipped “No one goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Based on usage, you and a few thousand other people also disagree with me. 🙂
@@cobyhoff To say a section of trail is becoming unrideable as you skip it is ridiculous. Nothing on those trails DD or DBD in the Chuckanuts is anything most above average riders can do. Just my opinion.