Oldschool Downhill Video

The sport has come a long ways in 15-20 years. It looks like they are running really high pressure in their tires,and they are riding on top of their handlebars. Why are they not sitting over their rear tire coming down that hill?

WindWithMe said:

The sport has come a long ways in 15-20 years. It looks like they are running really high pressure in their tires,and they are riding on top of their handlebars. Why are they not sitting over their rear tire coming down that hill?

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I would say the bikes have come a long way in 15-20 years. There are still amazingly bad riders like that. But maybe most of them have died off.

Those guys were riding SO over their skill level. Beginner class?

There must have been some who did not crash all the time (???)

Does anybody remember a Wild World of Sports from the late 80's where they're showing a downhill race and some guy on a Fat Chance goes ass-over-elbows in a full face helmet? It's been a while so the details could be wrong...

perttime said:

There must have been some who did not crash all the time (???)

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Having raced through that period, that clip is far from an accurate depiction of early DH racing. Is this crash clip an accurate depiction of the beginner class on early bikes riding way over their head? Yes.

The old bikes don't handle like the new ones. It required much more finesse then. Something none of these riders show.

Z Man, yes I remember that. He had the JT Racing gear on IIRC. Full speed at Mammoth and lost it.

Retinas-seared-by-neon....

Don't these guys know they're trashing all that sweet vintage gear? The first guys got a $200 tire...

Great video... I got a laugh out of that... concerns some of my coworkers outside the office.....

Some recent footage:
(modern bikes and gear were also allowed, but with time handicaps)

Win...

doesn't exacly put vintage mountain biking in the best light does it?

Great! Brings back memories...

I always loved seeing guys throw their bikes in the woods, as if crashing was the bikes fault.

I like the Stairs of Death....

Hmmmm, kind of explains disk brakes...

Ha! That's awesome.

^ yeah... so cool... while we never had races quite that organised in my area, I remeber that era quite fondly... and if it was anything like our races, everyone did everything, the DH the uphill and the XC... so you had quite a few people doing DH... that maybe shoudnt have been

FB hit the nail on the head...

Watch the other video on that site, newer bikes, same lack of skill, plus slick muddy course!:thumbsup:

frog

link:
http://www.ghvideo.at/0080v2.htm

meanwhile hosted on youtube:

KDXdog said:

I always loved seeing guys throw their bikes in the woods, as if crashing was the bikes fault.

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Yeah, and the bike toss over the tape early in the video must be one of several attempts by 'that guy' to look tough while wearing purple spandex...