Video: Joystick - Digger

 haha I'd buy it

 I think of the evolution of mountain biking over the past 20 years, and it is clear that trails like those Digger has created, compelled the manufacturers of everything related to riding on these trails to step up and create the technology that makes it possible. As the riders pushed their limits to ride Digger's vision in dirt, wood and rock the sport has been elevated both literally and figuratively. In the chicken/egg debate, it seems to me that trail builders like the inimitable Digger were and are at the leading edge of the evolutionary chain.

I remember riding Ladies Only 15 years or so ago, and thinking 'I hope I survive this' on numerous occasions and only riding certain sections because the buddy I was riding with had already ridden it so I figured it must be possible... Steep steep steep, and technically challenging to boot. I should go back and ride it again to check and see if the pucker factor is still as high as it was in the hard-tail days... I'm confident it is. Thanks for the inspiration Digger!

 MORE TRAIL BUILDING VIDS AND ARTICLES ON THE HOMEPAGE PLEASE...

 Yep...even more detailed articles about specific trail features, different methods or interpretations, best practice etc would be excellent...

 Digger.... my idol :3

 Those vhs are classic... had lots of them... mtb was not the same after those videos...

 Digger is a legend

 Was he a part of the NSX series?

Also I think more companies need to do this! Such a good idea.

 Plot Twist - His garden at home is overrun by long grass and weeds because he hates 'gardening'

 i really have no idea which sort of wood you canadians use for shores, that you can ride those in the wet. here we put metal grid on the shores to have grip.

 colincolin: I guess it's Canadian Cedar. Its way more grippy in wet than other wood. Someone told me..

 naw, we just slide and have fun up here in canada, no special wood

 i hate wood

 there's no special wood, it just takes a fuckload of skill to be able to ride them like that. I can't, I just slip out instantly.

 No special wood? Cedar is the ultimate building material. Yes its grippy when when wet. Just not as grippy.

 Don't pedal so hard, or stay balanced? I slide all over the place too.

 ALL HAIL DIGGER

 SShredder: Thank you for confirming my thought. I haven't tried it on my own tyres yet so I was'nt sure about it. We have got no Cedar trees in the Czech Republic.

 Yes, no cedar trees in Norway either unfortunately, just a ton of birch up in the mountains. Slippery as hell bark on them that is near impossible to remove. A layer of chicken wire works reasonably well, providing nobody skids it up and turns it into a pedal trap.

 To be honest it doesnt really take skill to ride ladders in the wet. Personally. i hate ladders and think we should demolish them all

 Anyone else not surprised at all by samtomkins' age? I feel only an ignorant child would make a comment like that.

 no we're young and like the more dh side of things more than the tech usually, I don't mind ladders and all that but they do get in the way of trail progression, just wish there could be more nsmba sanctioned trails on seymour so we can have the more dh style trails and then the trails with wood on them as separate trails, you have to understand sams point of view here, he doesn't have an all mountain bike so obviously he's going to have a bad time on the old school trails with his wilson, I used to feel the same way about old school trails but after getting the slayer I don't mind them so much

 It's fine to be into 'the more DH' side of riding, but posting comments like this under an article on Digger and a discussion about this type of trailbuilding... is pretty lame.

 Pretty lame? It's disrespectful.

 I actually really like some of the newer stuff Digger is putting into trails like Crokscrew (the faster flowy part) and stuff. No disrespect to Digger himself intended. Just saying I don't like how a trail such as Corkscrew has these new faster, flowier part mixed in with speedkilling skinnies. It's kind of a bummer to be ripping through berms and stuff then having to slow right down and basically crawl across a skinny on a double crown bike. Just wish they could keep flowy trails flowy, not saying they should get rid of skinnies (even though I said that in my original comment I didn't mean it like that) just keep them seperate from the more DH ish trails

 corkscrew just has the uphill ladder, no way to get around that... I'm not insulting Digger's classic style it's just not my riding style, when I'm too old for shuttle runs and stuff I'll definitely enjoy the stuff he builds more then I am already, plus I've seen his truck parked outside some of my favourite trails, I definitely appreciate all the work he's done, I'm sure he's done flow quite a bit from time to time, especially as I saw his truck parked outside a few of my favourites which are flow, anyway Fromme is where Digger does most of his building and seeing as seymour is on our doorstep it's not really an insult to Digger

 let's put it this way, he deserves sponsorships more than almost everybody else for the amount of work he's put in

 Let's put it this way, hating on other styles of riding (as samtomkins puts it, fast/flowy aka MTB park-style trails vs. freeride trails) is not progressive at all. This is to sam- Instead of saying it takes no skill and that elevations/skinnies ruin a "good" trail, how about you suggest OR BUILD your own trail that fits your riding style (or as I call it, an all abilities trail with no risk of falling off something that requires ultimate commitment and bike handling ability). You say you have ultimate respect for builders and yet you make posts on the world's biggest MTB site saying you want THEM to build trails to better suit YOU. That's the mindset of a friggen teenboy for you... especially when you live in an area where there are more than enough trails to suit you. There is nothing wrong with trails that have VARIETY. Learn how to ride it or don't ride it at all so you don't waste time bitching about it.

 1st world problems I guess haha Anyway if I had that trail in my backyard, I'd be so damn happy. I don't know what is so wrong about having variety in the trail as long as most of it is pointing downward to keep the speed going right?

 I've got a couple trails of my own, and some in the works, problem is Parks and Metro Van aren't exactly fond of secret trails so they always end up getting closed down or fucked over. It's kind of frustrting

 That's a complete lie. I highly doubt that you're building "a couple trails" because if you had put in 100+ hours of sweat and energy into a trail, never mind multiple trails which would take much more time than that, you wouldn't be so damned ignorant and complaining about what OTHER PEOPLE build for trails that YOU GET TO RIDE FOR FREE.

 no, he is building, one is a dedicated gold dirt trail, the other is loam with extensions on to it probably being added soon, they don't take 100+ hours to build as we don't have to build all this rock armoring and wooden stuff, I think they should just give a zone of seymour over and allow us to build 1-2 more trails or rip out an existing trail with NSMBA giving the final check over, I want to work together on this instead of fighting it with secret trails, fromme is getting more gold dirt trails and less rock armouring so why can't seymour be the same? I want the shore to appeal to riders of our generation as well as future young riders, young riders shouldn't have to build secret trails to stay with the times and being young we like to do high speed gap jumps and big drops, not skinnies as there's not really a risk in doing them compared to high speed stuff, see digger builds gold dirt on fromme so why can't we have that style here as well? it's not an insult to Digger seeing as he builds almost everything on fromme and fromme has gold dirt and not as much skinnies with rock armouring, put it this way: it's not making trails easier by putting in jumps instead of skinnies, that's like saying we should put speed gates on a-line/dirt merchant to make it more challenging

 Yea dude hate to tell you but I've got two trails. One is a properly built gold dirt trail with nice berms, high speed drops and jumps which I (and my buddies) have put at least 75 hours into over the last year and a bit and it's still only half done. Got another one going which We have put 2- 8 hour build days into, it's a loam trail meaning it's fast building as you don't have to lay down gold dirt, just simply rip up top soil but it still takes a lot of effort if your adding in the occasional jump or drop or removing a tree when your 16 and can't afford a chainsaw so you have to use a handsaw.

Another note - I really do like what is happening on Fromme, trails like Espresso are getting redone with nice gold dirt and removing the old skinnies making it a faster trail but Boundary and trails like that are still there for the people who enjoy skinnies. Lets maybe try and make Seymour a bit more like that so that there are dedicated fast trails with berms and jumps and dedicated slow trails with skinnies and such. Lets just try and keep them seperate. And yes whoever asks I do go to NSMBA trail days and contribute whenever possible.

 Aw that's cute. If you know how much effort it takes then try to have a bit more respect for it, alrighty? Good.

 ^dude stfu, go skiing ya nort

 Another pre-teen, another ignorant, useless comment... go figure.

 Yo fin and sam. Your building your own dream? And your putting your shovel where your mouth is.? sweet. I agree. It would be nice to have A line style trails top to bottom. Like what fin n sam are building. Lets keep the Gnar trails gnarly and have a proper flow trail top to bottom that is black diamond status.
Unless you are building trails like these guys your just talking.
Personaly hating a type of trail just limits what trails you can enjoy.

 if the NSMBA wants to build a trail on seymour similar to whistler downhill/schleyer/joyride I'll gladly come to the build days and help out...

 What would you do oo oo... for a ride on the shore? uses best singing voice>

 check out rogue hoe; not sure you can get 'em down there, though well worth it. Our local club just bought 3 F70HR and I must say they go from surgical precision shaping to cutting through thick forest mat to moving lots of dirt fast. Hell, we even used one as a rock bar.

www.roguehoe.com/trailbuilding/trailbuilding.html

 What Digger has for building trails can't be bought in a store.

 Fancy footwork!

 ahmen! I've stumbled upon so many sick, forgotten lines in the Appalchian area of NC. I've tried restoring some, but I can only do so much...

 Someone should make a list. I'd love to see some of these.

 trail insights' trail boss; there was an article on it here a while back...

 Diggers a builder. His riding days are behind him, I honestly think for him he gets more enjoyment watching/knowing others are shredding his trails then he would shredding them himself.

 He's also stoked to have other people coming out to trail days and is happy to hand over advice to novice builders. It's been a pleasure being on a couple of trail days with him at the helm. I've also know plenty of builders over the years that get their pleasure from digging rather than riding.

 I'm hard-pressed to say which I love more. There's nothing like railing a berm, and nothing quite like seeing a line in my mind and putting a trail or feature in to make it ridable. Sort of like asking which side of a coin you like better when it's the coin itself that'll put a cold beer in your hand

 sighhhh bike parks suck compared to non lift mountains, notice how fromme is always in good condition? alot harder to mess up a trail when everyone has to ride up first

 Yes a lot of the time the trails are like f*cken rapeds

 yeah, it never stops... don't come here and ride ...you'll get very wet..hahahaha

 I just clicked on the image then press back and the video popped up