Obligatory warning – Its another BIG one today, rammed with pics and general raving… so buckle up!

One of the challenges on a mission like this is working out how you can continue to match or outdo the previous rad day. This time around Herr Doktor had just the plan to make sure that the radness ratio continued to steadily increase:

Super Saturday ENDURO

Yes, he put the call out to assemble the local usual suspects, you may remember them from last years raid into the John Forrest National Park on the Eagle loop. Fast forward 10 months and the boys had a whole new concept of radness to unleash on their guests. The good thing about a bigger crew? Significanly enhanced faffing and shit talking:

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The Rob Roskopp retirement fund: 4 Nomads and a Bronson in attendance

That’s right, it was an all star cast and ensemble of carbon goodness and quality shredders… And BOOM! The day didn’t start slowly either… First up on the menu like some sort of sick and twisted Western Strayla joke, was the ‘warm up‘ run of the aptly named ‘Medivac‘ trail… It was an absolute banger as well! The Dok had talked about this trail so much that it was basically already folklore from our perspective, so I for one was gagging to scope it out. It didn’t disappoint either:

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The Dok returns to his natural habitat and unleashes the PLOW!

Stoke factor was so high ripping down Medivac that it unleashed an important aspect of ENDURO that I forgot to cover in yesterdays ‘How to’ post thats right – The ENDURO fisting:

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“Ehhhh, yeah, BOOM cunt!”

Its basically involuntary when you’re that pumped, find someone and fist them immediately! Would probably go horrifically wrong if you tried it in Germany though, so pick your moments. I was loving Medivac as it was getting back to some of the steepness and gnar factor that was going down in Europe… Plus, it had great variety. Flowy at the top, then BIG rock in the middle, Dok’s favourite:

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“This is what we call LARGE ancient Granite formations, some up to 360 million years old”

Followed by some steep and loose gnar to finish up with:

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Get it in there maaaaaate

Yeah… There was ample amounts of fever washing around for the radness of Medivac, and as an added bonus, no one actually needed one. The same may not be said for the climb out… Climb/push of course, as we looked to tweak our ENDURO form. By the top of the mission out of the valley, Wolf almost wanted to call for a Medivac:

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Wolf climbing blue steel look

There was a fair amount of transition action today, normally this is balls, but now its an essential part of our Endurofication, so we don’t mind at all. Besides, it gave me the chance to reminisce a bit. 10 months ago the Dok gave Aaron and I an impromptu science lesson (top pic), fast forward to present day and whilst the bike has changed, the education still rolls on:

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“So, if you look over there, you can see some gum trees, they’re an essential part of the eco system and they use photosynthesis…”

Now take note, this is A) How its done on a group ride and B) why a 2 hour ride can take 4 to 5 hours. If this pic creates spousal rage, please relax. These ENDURO breaks are an essential safety component, given how fast we smash the downs, its key to make sure we’re fresh and have all the up to date information we need:

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“Yeah… fuck… rad… yeah… fuck… sweet as… So whats the plan?”

A quick reboot tour of Kalamunda again as part of the super ENDURO loop allowed me to hit a few things that I missed yesterday, absolutely loving the Nomad 3 even more today. Its so immensely capable that it makes you do things that you may usually shy away from. AKA – stuff made from wood:

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Everyone will be pleased to know I mildly cased the back end on the lip…

I then decided to get some quality Go PRO footage for shrediting purposes by getting the boys to have a bash at the jump from the day before. You are tempting fate when someone puts a camera on a jump and then encourages a train of dudes to smash it Bree Olsen styles… That equation has additional risk factor when A) You have someone in the train that has never hit the jump before and B) No one mentions that you can’t roll it bro… The results? Let me walk you through the sequence of events when the caboose on the trail derailed somewhat:

1.  The moment of realisation

There is always a horrific moment that takes about 0.05 seconds when the brain gets the message that shit is about to go mega sideways. At first, there is an inkling that something is wrong, but generally you want to believe that you can ride it out. And then? You have this moment of realisation that its perhaps not going to end well:

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Commonly known as the point of no return… From here, physics and medical supplies take over

2. The FULL superman

I’m not sure if its considered ‘lucky’ if you manage to get your arms out in this particular situation, but it has to be better than your face leading the charge I guess… At this stage, its a FULL commitment to the superman move:

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I believe I can fly…

3. Touchdown

Can you fly bobby? Usually the answer is NO, so inevitably this story ends with the touch down…  Dirt will fly, skin will rip and things will bend in ways you fucking don’t want… Not to mention your bike is going to provide a fast following probe from behind, landing on the pea gravel less than ideal:

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Our crash test dummy is already looking for the fucker that didn’t mention it wasn’t rollable…

Pleased to say that aside from a thumb job, our man from the sequence was relatively unscathed, even if it did result in an early shower. The drama wasn’t over though… Terrified by the thought of a Nomad gang bang (there were 4 of them in attendance after all), the only Bronson rider in the group felt compelled to flee at any opportunity that presented itself. With a pack of hungry Nomads plowing with relentless and ruthless abandon, it was only a matter of time before the previous best bike in the Santa Cruz range came unglued in spectacular fashion:

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Ha, our first catch of the day… The slayed Bronson pilot attempts to foot trip one of the ravenous Nomads

Science officially says: “What goes down, needs to go back the fuck up to fucking go down some more radness again“. Who are we to argue? So, it was more ENDURO trekking after a whole load of excellent DH action. Every time we hit a sweet natural Perth single track DH I could feel myself getting more emotionally attached to the new Nomad 3 and its mind blowing ability to eat up and spit out anything you put in front of it with ease. Its even better to push up a hill, as Dok outlines here up the oddly named ‘Elevator’. By the top we all wanted to rename it the ‘Cuntenator’:

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Thank fuck we have ENDURO shoes

Whilst Dok went off and got semi lost, Wolf and I decided it was most helpful and appropriate to bust out into an ENDURO modelling shoot, as per our sponsors Mavic/Fox/ChrisKing/Santa Cruz/Shimano/Evoc/Oakley/Troy lee/661/Cane Creek/Enve/Fizik/Royal would have wanted us to:

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“No, hand on hip…. left leg down… Look relaxed, natural… Yeah yeah, that’s it… Back drop is looking good… Breath in if you can”

Taking a slight deviation from the normal loop had angered science, who arrived back on the scene to interrupt our ENDURO selfie session, focused on cracking on with it faster than an Ebola outbreak:

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“Ehhh, give me the fucking map cunt, stop pissing about”

You may think that by this stage we had already rammed enough riding and shit talking into the day? Much like I have once again smashed way too many photos into this post. But no, there was ONE more awesome trail to come. Much like Medivac, the final trail of the day already had some sort of mythical and legendary status attached to it based on the weekly Dok report. Yes, we were finally getting to ride the ‘League of Gentlemen’:

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Once upon a time this was probably hard… Then… They invented the Nomad 3…

The League was another banger of a trail… And the final example I needed to absolutely confirm that the new Nomad is an unreasonably amazing bike. I ended up riding a new trail blind, at speed I wouldn’t have been able to on the old bike, but to do so in a way that felt oddly relaxed and natural. Yes, there has been a lot of MTB action recently, but this was something more… This was experiencing MTB perfection, matched to awesome conditions, trails and with shredding riders:

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A mere entree for the new beast… FEED IT! ITS HUNGRY!

Case in point? Following Aaron like he was a cult leader I hit every line and feature the whole way down, almost like it was by instinct… The bike just took it all and begged for more like we had an endless supply of peanut butter. I did almost come unstuck on this creek gap though:

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Must… Follow… The… Local…

How to cap off a massively solid day of HOT and golden ENDURO action? Get a giant ice cream and eat it with your staunch serious face is what… Preferably have some magenta on your top to add to the mood:

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“What are you looking at cunt? Its a fucken ice cream… I’ll stick it in ya face”

A massive Dirty thank you to the local Perth shred crew for having us along on their awesome Saturday session, great to be out with such a quality posse and on the premier local trails.

I’m still a day behind on updates… Sunday was all about the climax of this trip… I am already frothing about bringing that update to you once I have dried out. Yes, massive spoiler, it was wetter than a Penguin Porn star conference. Watch this space!

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