So today, Matt (Dudewithasock) and I, and one of our friends named Sam, who is still a beginner (but isn’t on the forums because he won’t have internet until Tuesday-ish), decided to go out somewhere different to ride. We chose our highschool campus, because we’d noticed lately that it has a lot of good places to ride on (stairs, ledges and such), because it’s old, and has had multiple add-ons.
So we get everything set up, and go drive out there. Near the parking lot we parked at, there were some sets of two stairs (I know, I know, all the good people are already rolling their eyes)…Matt and I had never had the opportunity to try just riding down stair sets before, so we both went for it, and we both made it. Sam (who has only been riding since late June, and not able to go down curbs well until about 2 weeks ago) decides he wants to try it. Not wanting to discourage him or anything, we let him go, but we both had our doubts about it. He tries it, and gets it on his third try. He’s riding my old 24" CX, with it’s 1" width tire. Needless to say, we were surprised, and impressed.
After that, we rode around to the other side of the school, and find some three sets, and some ledges, and some fairly normal stuff, and we stay there for a bit, getting some good clips for our vid (coming by next week). We head over to an area ledge that’s just about 5 inches wide, and about 3 feet off the ground, and that has about 4 inch drops every 9 feet or so.
I realized I had left the stuff across the parking lot, so I headed back over to get it, and I turned around and saw Matt on top of said ledge, hopping in place. I almost fell off the uni in shock. This may not seem huge to some of y’all, but to us, it’s definitely a big step. He was later able to ride the entire length of it, drops and all. There was a good amount of progress made towards rolling 180’s into backwards riding by both me and Matt, and Sam got a good bit better at static hopping in place. He can now get one hop almost 100%, and normally he can get two or three if he tries to do it.
Right before we left, we headed back to the three set, because Sam wanted to try it. Still using the 1" wide CX, he tries a few times, and almost gets it every time, but always falls pedaling away. So, after making him put on shinguards, we let him try on Matt’s 24" DX…he gets it on his first try.
All in all, it turned out to be a very successful ride, with many good clips for our vid.
There ya go…it’s no Mikefule write-up, but it’s the best I can do.