The Ultimate Mountainboard How-To Video Guide!

Sometimes it's easier to copy than to describe, so 'do as we do, not as we say', is the premise here.  There a quite a few videos on-line where people have taken the time to produce quality short films showing you exactly how they would repair their mountainboard or tweak a shifty or something...  All that I've done is compiled a list of some of the better ones and linked to them below.

I'll update this post as and when more videos are found so hopefully it should be pretty comprehensive.  Feel free to suggest further links either covering more subjects, or if there are ones that are better than the ones below.  Alternatively, feel free to make your own and show the others how it should be done.  If there are videos that you would like to see, but can't find, then shout and we'll see what we can do here!


Set-Up / Maintenance

'Bindings Tutorial'  by JDiurba
'How to change a tire' by munroboards
'Changing Griptape' by munroboards
'Painting Your Board' by Terrainriders
'Filling and Bleeding a HS33 Rim Brake' by Magura 

 Egg-shocks
'The 'easy' method' by AdeMcC
'Second Spring'  by enotramone
'Changing Truck Springs'  by munroboards


Riding Technique

'How to Tic-Tac' by Jasper James
'Scrubbing Speed' by Jasper James
'How to Drop In on a Hill' by Jasper James
'Nose Control Tutorial' by JDiurba
'Jumping Tutorial' by JDiurba
'One Foot and Backflip Tutorial' by JDiurba
'Frontside 180'  by agline27
'Noseroll 180'  by munroboards
'How to Drop In' by munroboards
'Power Slide' by boardoffroad

MBS Through the Ages: New and old MBS from mountainboard.ru

Whilst researching a couple of old boards for a mate of mine, I can across a nice article by mountainboard.ru listing the range starting from the 2001 Comp 16,

all the way through to the 2009 Core 90:

It doesn't list this years TK or LD models, but is still a useful tool, especially as many of them look similar and use similar names.

Anyway, the list is here, and is handily translated into English thanks to Google.

This has got me thinking though, perhaps a 'identify that board tool' could be fun.  Watch this space....

Incidentally, the board turned out to be a 2003 Comp 26X in excellent condition.  Nice find Phill!

Downhill Action: Bardonecchia mountainboard downhill 09 Video

One for the wishlist of places to ride, nice downhill on-board vid from the headcam of Daniele Avanz with a good indications of the various track surfaces and conditions.


Bardonecchia mountainboard downhill 09 (prove) from Daniele Avanzi on Vimeo.

Lazy afternoon session at Darley Park

So, when the wife says that she's meeting her mate down the park to walk the dog and push the pram round for a bit, and I was welcome to bring the board and just ride for an hour or so, there seemed no good reason not to.

Darley Park, for those that haven't been is a great place to learn to board.  A large open grassy space with a reasonably shallow 100m decent with the occasional tree to slalom should you desire along with the odd undulation here and there.  Popular with people to sunbath, fly kites, play football, push the pram or jog.
Now this is fine spot for beginners but a bit boring for anyone who's been on a board more than a couple of times.

This got me thinking about how best to spice up a tame slope or your regular spot that you know far too well....

1: Ride switch!  Always a useful skill and another thing that I am totally useless at.  Something that I plan to write about in the future under the title: 'Riding Switch - The wii fit method for success!'.  Watch this space...

2: Take a ramp!  I used to have a nice little ramp that I found one day in the grounds of an abandoned Harry Ramsdens Fish and Chip restaurant.  I figured that as the site was recently sealed off, that whoever had left it was unlikely to come back and it was mine for the taking.  Donated the ramp to KMC as I was there most weekends and didn't have the space at home at the time.  KMC closed and I forgot to take my ramp : (  I might have to build a ramp at some point....

3. Take some cones and set up a slalom course.  I saw some mini ones once in a supermarket for sale for kids to dribble a football round.  Intended to buy some.  Forgot.  Admittedly not the best anecdote ever.

4. Ride someone else's board.  We did this at Hemlock Stone the other week and I got to ride both Marvins board (Comp 16 with loose trucks with white egg shocks front, green trampa dampas rear IIRC), and Jaspers board (Comp 95 with F2 bindings IIRC) and scared myself silly.  Good suggestion Roger!

Erm....Can't think of anything else right now.  Feel free to add your comments below on how you spice up your local spot!

So, in conclusion, how did I spice up riding Darley Park yesterday?  Did I use this excellent opportunity to become proficient in either regular or goofy stance?  Did I bollocks.  I did what I always do when there's a crowd of impressionable teenagers at the park - bomb the hill as fast as possible rather than do anything that'll leave me landing on my arse and looking a right wally.  Why????  God knows.  Still, it's all good exercise and pint afterwards went down lovely - Cheers!

Stuff, and things!!

Haven't blogged in a while due to work and things, which is a pity as there's plenty of goings on in the world of mountain boarding.

The Cheddar ATBA-UK Downhill Championship!

...course was visited recently by GM, Mutley and LB4UL.  I know this because GM did a sweet write up of the session on the Surfing Dirt forums here.  He finishes off the piece to say "So if your not sure if your experienced/skilled enough for a comp why not give it a go - it can only make you a better rider." and sure enough it generated interest through the forum.  With any luck, more people will read it and decided to take part and it will end up being rather well attended and we'll be able to have a big old meet-up with members of the forum and put names to faces.

So, that should have been the end of the storey, but was (un)lucky enough to be working in Cardiff last Wednesday, so headed down Tuesday afternoon to have a gander.  [I work with heavy testing equipment and Cardiff is not the easiest of places to park so lugging equipment across the city centre is a ball-ache.  Otherwise, Cardiff is a lovely place!]

After wandering round the rough area and finding lines all over the place I knew that I was going to need more specific directions.  Phoned LB4UL for assistance who is fortunately very good at giving directions!  In addition to this, there are very specific land marks at the start, midpoint and end of the course so at least I knew that I was in the right area.
Whilst 'leaping before you look' is a good idea when in a group, I was up on this hill alone and didn't fancy dragging myself back to the car in case of an accident. I also didn't think that an ambulance man would be very quick, so put my sensible hat on and walked the track.
All looked reasonable with many different line choices.  Not too steep, but as GM stated in his report, running fast enough with tree packed together densely enough to certainly keep things interesting!
So back then back to the car to grab the gear and humping back up the hill to the start.  Only started strapping in to find that I'd forgotten an allen key and I'm in the habit of lossening off the springs at the end of each session.  'Hey, it'll do me good to practice riding loose trucks', I think.
That's the really bad decision of the day as I don't go far before hearing the front truck dissemble.  Luckily all the bits were found and it was straight back down to the car, quick truck  reassemble (with allen key this time!), and ascended back to the top just in time to see the sun setting.....
I promised myself that if I could make it from top to bottom without unstrapping, then I'd enter the comp. Well, it wasn't pretty, but got to the bottom, riding each part in sections in a combination of falling leaf and 'sod it, lets ride and see what happen'  with just enough time to ride the bottom steep section in the last of the light.
Yes it's a technical course, but it is certainly ridable and I too encourage anyone with a board to take part. If nothing else, I think watching some of the top riders tackling this course at full pelt will be something spectacular to see.

Mountain Boarding on Radio 2

Woke up last week to a mysterious text that read "Mountainboarding on BBC Radio 2 today at 6.45pm."

An explanation and most excellent write up of the whole matter can be read on the Remolition Blog here.

All I can say is most excellent choice of tune!


New MBS Matrix Pro Trucks

...was just going to be a couple of lines and a picture, and then got a bit longer.  Read all about it here.

General Riding

As 'original artwork' seems to be the in thing right now, erm...

Cannock Chase, the official write-up...and more!

It seems to be these days that if you throw enough boarders together in one spot, that at least one of them will publish an on-line a write-up, pictures, a blog post, a forum post or facebook comment detailing all of the fun that took place that day.

After last months visit to Cannock chase, I did a quick write up of the event, but don't take my word for it - now Smilie has done the same but with more content, more pictures and with the bonus of an extra weekends write-up for the meet in Bradenham - sounds an excellent day was had by all.  Read all about it here on the excellent Remolition website.

In other news, for those curious in regards to this years ATBA downhill event, the route is now to be found on Roger S' most excellent mountainboard trails map.  Hint, it's near to Cheddar.  If you're in the vicinity you can probably help out by clearing some of the alternative lines out prior to the event.

New blog of the week: Dirt doesn't Melt! - Original art and videos taken in the Derby area in the more popular areas used by mountain boarders. 

If you go down to the (Allestree) woods today....take a saw

Good session Sunday morning. Really quite slippery - the kind where when walking back up the track you can see the exact point where tyre marks turn into arse marks, but not surprising given the recent wet weather.  Top of the hill ran the quickest due to better drainage and with the predicted bad weekend weather there weren't too many dog walkers.  Unfortunately, recent winds seem to have blown over a few trees here and there including one across one of the main woodlands downhill tracks.

Fortunately, it was the upper end of the tree but it will still take cutting through around three 9 inch trunks and a load of shifting to clear, or at the very least a whole load of smaller branches to chop back so as to not get snagged on when bunny hopping the larger parts.  I'm hopeful that with a load of recent ranger development in the area that one of them will cut it down into manageable parts sometime soon, but since there has been signs going up around the top discouraging people from leaving the main paths, perhaps they will leave it alone.....Hence the need for a saw!

An upshot of all this was the new requirement to take a couple of slower, but more technical lines around the edge, which with the amount of woodland foliage led to some lovely deep drifting carves and as an alternative was arguably is more fun to that of the (would be quick but actually slow this time of year) line straight through the centre.

Still got a couple of runs in mind that I think will be running great given a bit of time and sunny weather, but in the meantime you've got to make the best of what you've got, and thankfully it's all good stuff.

The Explorers @ Remolition

Must have been approximately 3 months ago that Roger approached me with the idea of putting an article together for Remolition to do with the idea of exploration.  He thought that one of my previous postings entitled 'The Joy of Maps" could be quite useful as part of the piece, and would it be okay to nab bits here and there?  I've never got a problem with people using bits and pieces, [with permission of course and the obligatory 10% of all profits : D] so agreed and promptly forgot all about it.

Till earlier this week and the following got released:

http://www.remolition.com/features/articles/236-the-explorers.html

Wow! It looks like loads of other mountain boarders like maps too including Joe Gatley, Evil C, Spud, Ian Hufton, Roger Swannell and the ever mysterious Ade McC.

The original TDB post still seems relevant with the original mapping services supplied by google, bing and others continuously updated.  A handy one to note in google is the option to Drag 'n' Zoom enabling zooming in on a specific part of the map fast and easily.
"Simply click the Drag 'n' Zoom button, draw a box on the map, and zoom! You're there!"
....once you've enabled the function within the beta menu (New! next to My Profile)

Tyre choice....

 
So originally there was the 8 inch T1 tyres sat on the MBS.  And that was all well and good until the 10 inch diamond treat Primos turned up.  And then the 9 inch Primos arrived and the range of choice was huge!

But which one is best?

Seriously, it's a blog post for another day to compare tyre choice to terrain type and weather conditions along with tyre pressure and hub type and certainly some people take this kind of thing very, very seriously [at this point I was going to point to an article in Scuz Magazine where someone takes tyre choice very, very seriously, but that's for another day].

But that's for later.  In the meantime, lets just sum up the choice with a lovely graph:

 Perhaps I should finish with some sort of analysis?  Erm.....when choosing which wheels to put on a mountain board, bear in mind that 10 inch tyres are heavier than 9 inch tyres which in turn are heavier than the 8 inch ones?  That sounds fair enough.

Making Tracks, Riding 9 inchers and Cycle Derby

Everyone seems to be getting sick of the snow round here, but I love it!  Not only does it completely alter the landscape in a way no other British weather can, riding at night torch-less with a full moon lighting up the snow lined tracks is great fun!

Thursday night / Friday morning brought down a dumping of snow; too much to play golf in, too little to sledge on, just right to ride on.  Slapped on the new Primos onto the MBS and off into the wilderness.
On the open fairways the going was good with no so much speed, but enough of the back end twitching to get the heart rate raised a little.  Further fun on the regular wooded runs where despite quite a lot of rain in the last week was drained sufficiently and running well enough to keep things interesting with only the worst boggy areas killing speed.  Found a couple of new lines that on their own don't amount to much, but when linked together (and in good, dry weather I'm sure they will) should amount to a nice varied run with a few ways to mix things up.

Was about to leave for the morning, happy with a good 3 hours in the woods when met a fella called Pete on his mountain bike doing an afternoons off-road ride with local kids on behalf of Cycle Derby, a group set up to encourage cycling around Derby (funnily enough).  Two bits of interesting information emerged; that he was keen to work with Derby City to possibly set aside an area of woodland specifically for a bit of biking (fingers crossed for downhill), and that his misses was a mountain boarder.  Left him my business card so hopefully if anything emerges from this, or if s/he knows any good downhill tracks, to let me know.  Watch this space.

In a last bit of good news, I'm in a bit of trouble with work for not taking enough holiday this year!  Will have to get my thinking cap on as to how best use this time and where.....I know I've got a list of destinations that need ticking off and they're all quite hilly!

Russian Freeride Films:Download links and Review

Proving that once again 'The Dirt Box' is slap bang up-to-date with news and features......we present to you a couple of film reviews from the Boarderz.ru website from 2007.  Both are downloadable, so don't take my word for it, take a look and see what you think.  In the meantime please keep reading for the reviews in the tried and tested (note: not tried and tested) TDB standard (i.e. likely to change) format:

- % of film featuring park riding
- % of film featuring free riding
- choice of tunes - would I have the soundtrack on my generic mp3 player?
- 'fun' nes
- camera proficiency
- % of film featuring AJ Lawson*

* - Nothing against AJ, it's just that he crops up everywhere : D

The Blog

"About year ago we finish our first full-length mountainboard freeride video The Blog. And now we post it on line. The film is about Chukota - one of the freeride spots of the Russia. Video - remake of the same name web-series wich were published in summer 2006."

If you've ever watched a film and spent more time looking at the mountains and the scenery in the background thinking "why aren't they riding and filming up there?" then these are the guys who are up there, doing just that.  Freestylers will be disappointed, but freeriders rejoice, this is all about boarding the earth in its pure state.  Bar a small section featuring a car tow, wooden rail (that made me laugh out loud as it comically collapses) and wooden box towards the end of the film, this is as natural as it gets with riders taking direct lines down some crazy mountainous slopes.

Yes, they land on their arses a lot, but that's what happens out in the wilds with undulating terrain, random rocks and bushes and in several sections you have to admire the size of their bollocks as one after another they drop off a collapsing ledge on to their head.

If you ever watched "Hard Times" and wished for Phil Milovanovs section to extend for longer, then this is the film for you and certainly a couple of the shots looked very familiar.  Music was not all to my taste, but didn't detract from the action.

Only thing missing was perhaps the human element with no talky bits, voice overs or sections of anyone not boarding.  But then, it would have been in Russian, so perhaps it wouldn't have of benefit to me!

216 Meg for just over 25 minutes of film, so not an unreasonable download with a half decent connection.

Download Link:
http://www.boarderz.ws/Mountain/videoz/Art1421/?currentlang=1


Region 87

"Finally we did it. Summer 2007 in video Region87. Mountainboard freeride, climbing with mountainboards and travels around Russian region Chukotka."

Like 'The Blog' but with added guns, girls and trampolines!  And a bear! And front flips.  So many front flips - please make it stop!  More human interest shots, less riding, far more WTF moments!  This is great until around 10 minutes in when I realised that this is how the whole film is panning out: plenty of pissing around, far less actual riding.  Which is fair enough, but I've got my own mates to piss around with.

Personally I'd be happy to watch this the once had it been heavily edited (down to around 10 minutes maximum) would have been fine and yes, whilst they visit plenty of places around Region 87, riding wise its all the same sort of stuff really, non of the variety shown in The Blog.

I guess after watching The Blog, I was just a bit disappointed, more of the same would have been fine, just as Hard-Times and Still Friends are very similar but equally viewable.  But hey-ho, you can't look a gift horse in the mouth and bar a reasonably large download (367 Meg) and half an hour of your time, that's it really. (or maybe just watch 'The Blog')

Download Link:
http://www.boarderz.ws/Mountain/videoz/Art1623/?currentlang=1

Almost forgot,  Joint review of both films:
- % of film featuring park riding: 0
- % of film featuring free riding: 100%
- choice of tunes - would I have the soundtrack on my generic mp3 player? Nah
- 'fun' nes: meh!
- camera proficiency: It's in focus and the riders are in shot
- % of film featuring AJ Lawson: 0

9 inch tyres - choices and availability???

Been keeping an eye out for a while for some freeriding 9 inch tyres, to slot nicely in-between the 8 inch (not running great in my local soggy woods) and the 10 inch (bloody heavy but fast) diamond tread fat tyres.

Was hoping for a set of Primo Strikers (£39 with tubes) with Primo Composite hubs(£30), but talking to ATBSports earlier revealed these to be indefinitely 'out of stock' with Primo 'not really doing these any more'.

Alternatives seem to be MBS T2 (£49 without tubes, £71 with tubes) or a tyre produced by scrub (£32 with tubes).

Assuming that I'll need inner tubes and hubs (these tyres won't fit my old Rockstars apparently) do I go for the Scrub or the MBS? Hold out for some Primos from somewhere, or is there an alternative?

Please feel free to post below and let me know!

Couple of new ATBA vids

Couple of new ATBA videos available on line:
Number 1: ATBA-UK Mountainboarding promotional video looks nice and professional with some decent footage and cheesy voice over.  Looks just the thing to send out to companies looking for sponsorship.  Further musing on the vid here on Remolitions Blog.

ATBA-UK Mountainboarding promotional video from Woodie Wright on Vimeo.

Oops, video disappeared. Fortunately, someone commented on Rems link and provided the following:

ATBA-UK Promo (2010) from ATBJunkies on Vimeo.

Number 2: ATBA-UK Downhill exploration as first detailed here shows the potential kind of terrain that is to be encountered for this years Downhill Championship on the 12th and 13th of June 2010 in Cheddar, Somerset.

ATBA-UK Downhill exploration from Woodie Wright on Vimeo.

A load of us went to check out a track the Roger had spotted for a potential ATBA-UK downhill championship track. It didn't disappoint! We had a great weekend defining a line from the top of the hill to the bottom (around 500 metres no less) and then riding it. Still needs some tweaks, but its going to be shweet and a lot fast come the drier weather. Keep in the loop by visiting atbauk.org and signing up to the newsletter. 

The approximate location has been given as:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=cheddar&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=11.875381,28.256836&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Cheddar,+Somerset,+United+Kingdom&t=h&ll=51.297001,-2.794261&spn=0.012022,0.038409&z=15
as provided by RobH in the ATBSports forum here.

First impressions seem to be that Allestree Park in the woods could provided a good training location to deal with this sort of terrain, particularly on the single tracks avoiding the trees and speed checking in the rough.

Either way, see you on the slopes this June!  Reminds me, must find my cheque book, sort out ATBA membership.....

Drum Hill Recce

 Friday afternoon, wife had visitors, baby fast asleep, me itching to stretch my legs, didn't want to go far, thought I'd go for a scout* around Drum Hill.

Otherwise know as Breadsall Moor, just up the hill from Little Eaton, Drum Hill is nice in that it retains the snow long after it has disappeared from the Derby streets.

 

Couple of routes I wanted to check out, the first marked in red arrow is a nice decent with couple of wiggly bits to negotiate and a lovely pile of rocks approximatley 2/3rds of the way down just to spoil things (prevent the 4x4s too much access).

 I reckon with a bit of soil, this'll make a nice little kicker for someone who can be arsed.

Main part of the woods and that with the most possibilities is marked on the map as 'Here Be Mountain Bikes' as there is absolutely loads going on.  Unfortunately a lot of it is very mountain bike oriented but I'll have to return for another visit as a quick search for 'Drum Hill Mountain Bike' on youtube throws up plenty of vids showing the potential, for example:

Almost, the problem is that there is too much choice of routes and trying to work out ones that don't just finish in a bush, or have massive gaps that would require peddling, or huge north-shore style drops.

I'll try and report some more in the future as I'm convinced areas are ridable, but if anyone in the area fancies a look, parking off Morley Lane and trekking across the golf course along the bridle path is a good place to start.  Note that whilst there are closer roads marked on the map, much of it is 4x4 access only with deep ruts and potholes. 

* -This is a poor pun.  Half of Drum Hill is off limits as a Scout Camp.  Though I'm not usually one to stick to the paths, getting caught in the bushes in a scout camp looks decisively dodgy at the best of times...

noSno Snow fun!

Got out this morning with the noSno for a go at snow mountain boarding, a first since last February when I found out that 8 inch tyres and deep snow don't mix!  After the decent fall of snow 6pm last night till late, we had roughly 3 inches but this time I was armed with 10 inch tyres.  Let most of the air out to give me half a chance of any grip and to hopefully ride above the snow rather than ploughing through it.   First impressions, not bad!  This was only on the short slope round the corner from me, but gave me the push to try the golf course tonight, remembering that the snow really lights up the terrain, even when on the middle of a golf course.  Maybe the speed wasn't great, but with only perhaps 50-75% of the usual control, it really keeps the heart rate up.  Brakes sort of work too - surprised me! Looks as though the snow is staying for a few days, so more soon, I hope!  Just wish my bearings luck - they will definitely need a strip down with all this moisture!

Hot Action, plus Master of the Hill: Both in full and for free!

As posted on the ATBSports forum, One 5 Media have decided to release Hot Action for absolutely free (previously $5).
Go fetch, and enjoy from here!
Alternatively, if you still need a copy to have on your computer go to http://one5.tv to purchase a quicktime of the film or just go there to donate, I'm sure they won't mind!

On a similar note, an excellent video from this years Master of the Hill competition, Poland can be found here (or equally last years video here).  Looks like an excellent downhill location!

Macclesfield Forest Freeride Gathering Sunday 13th December 2009

The plan was simple, 7 of us had confirmed attending a gathering set in the North West of the Peak District for the not too ungodly hour of 10am.  I had an approximate postcode and an rough idea of the exact location and two hours to get there.   Threw the kit in the back of the car, three tyres good, one puncture - when did this happen?!  Pick brother Rob up along the way.  He's having breakfast still so a good time to strip the tyre down on the kitchen table and investigate things - discover a big old thorn right through the middle.  10 minutes later with the right tools and a bucket of water I'm re-assembling and we're on the way.  Looks like a cold but clear day and the run from Buxton across the peak is beautiful.
The rest of the day I could describe, but it's easier to view and fortunately both JC and Rob both took some excellent footage. I reckon 12-14 boarders turned up in the end displaying all kinds of crazy riding, even on the loose gravelly surface.  It may have been slow according to JC, but it sure was fun.

Enjoy!

ATBA Updated website, and Downhill Championship: first details

 New website overhaul from ATBA (All Terrain Boarding Association)

http://www.atbauk.org/

But, the really intreaguing part of it can be found in the 'Events' part of the website....

Downhill Championship

The all-new ATBA-UK Downhill Championship will take place on the 12th and 13th of June 2010 in Cheddar, Somerset. This exciting new discipline involves riders giving it their all to get their best time down a track that will push all their skills to the limit.

.....Interesting!

Surfing Dirt - Mountainboard Community

Surfing Dirt, uniting the mountainboarders of all nationalities under one forum.  Unfortunately under the weather right now (probably a victim of its own success!) so bookmark that link and check back regularly.  Fortunately the main page still works and provides a good insight into the kind of information provided by forum regulars.
Friendly bunch, so sign up, say hello and get involved!

Awww, luv you guys too! : D

Mountain Board Free Riding: Safety Guide

Injuries - a distinct possibility when mountain boarding and always worth having a bit of knowledge to hand just in case you, or someone with you has a bit of a mishap and needs patching up before getting to A&E or hopefully just a nice bath.

BikeRadar have a nice article about 'First aid treatment on the trail' which although is obviously aimed towards the mountain biker covers "soft tissue injuries, with the occasional broken arm or collar bone".  Sound familiar?

Along with some nice step-by-step repair your mates instructions, it also includes the usual advice given out about freeriding, i.e if you ride alone tell someone where you are going and for what duration; preferably ride in a group of two or more and carry a mobile phone and first aid kit with you.

All sensible stuff really and if it gets you sorted out and riding sooner, then so much the better.