Video: Lars Sternberg - Loam Ranger
(Password protected)
LOAM is a term I try and refrain from abusing.
It used to be a word used only to refer to those really special conditions, days spent so deeply engulfed within it, that it was hard to see. To simply utter the phrase would result in an acknowledging nod from another member of the club. Like a secret password. A word shared between a few who were lucky enough to experience it.
Today you can read and hear it in modern MTB culture everywhere. It's become something used in so many incorrect ways it's lost its effect. Everybody's out there to get it, shred it, blow it up... what was once a word only to be busted out when trying to recapture those truly magical moments or trails, is now the primary candidate for many a jabrone attempting to recount their epicness.
With any luck it will get used and abused, chewed up and spit out. Someday it will fall out of favour for the next flavour of the month, just like every other 'next big thing' or hot shit trend. And when it does, we'll be right here to pick it back up, and take it out to share like a secret password again. I feel it's safe to use here.
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Secco, Paris, and I shot this over the course of three days. We intended to get back out and capture more of the trail. I spent most of the previous fall/winter scouting and building here. And the video has been under lock and password for the better part of nine months since. In the end we could never coordinate again to get out and finish it up, and we decided to cut it loose and move on to something different. I hope you enjoy watching it as much as we enjoyed making it.
This is a Mountain Bike video, and how I think it should be when I want to go riding. A bike, some great gear, and a mountain. Nothing more, nothing less. This is how I've always pictured it, and how I will continue to picture it. No flavour of the month.
I dreamt of it. Went and found it. And got buried. Get some. - Lars Sternberg
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Photography: Paris Gore
Words: Lars Sternberg
MENTIONS @TransitionBikeCompany @foxracingshox @scottsecco @parisgore
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Step 1: Be more like Lars Stenberg.
+1 though, very nice not to constantly have huge gashes in my shins.
Couldn't have said it better myself. It's called Mountain Biking. Cool vid!
Waouh !!!
Really nice move where he manuals the rock at 0:55.
Slight Return!
To simply utter the phrase would result in an acknowledging nod from another member of the club. Like a secret password. A word shared between a few who were lucky enough to experience it"
WTF! it's mud for Christ sake, mud made up of sand, silt and clay. that's it no more no less. it's not a secret password or some lucky experience....it's mud!!
What you were doing in your write up was actually abusing the term loam by overselling it as some magical MTB term when in fact....MUD
The term Loam in soils science refers to a proportionally balance mix of sand, silt and clay. In mountain biking Loam refers to organic soil that has very little mineral (sand,silt,clay) because it is mainly decomposed plant matter. When its wet its called muskeg and when its dry its also called peat. Loam does not destroy bike parts because it is organic while "mud" generally refers to wet mineral soil which is very destructive and sticks to everything. Just like eskimos and snow we need articulate our soil conditions so we don't sound like surfers. The "loam" Lars refers to is dry organic soil while "mud" is wet mineral soil. It's the opposite type of soil matrix. Get it?
whether I said mud or soil or dirt it still doesn't change the fact that it's not a password to the lucky few. or a term to be nodded to secretly. it's the sh*t we ride on.
oh, and if you want to stop sounding like surfer dudes stop saying steez, gnar, shred etc.
yes, loam (in scientific terms) is any two MINERAL soils mixed together. there are many forms of loam, however "loam" contains ZERO organic soils
when mountain bikers needed a word to describe the brown pow they chose the word loam, however that does now make them rite. If i wanted to name that perfect kind of powder to ski in and decided to call it beach sand (thats pretty much what happened, they just used loam) everyone would call me a retard cause they already know what beach sand is, unlike loam
when someone uses the word loam to describe that 'rake n ride' trail, they are wrong, it could not be any more opposite of "loamy"
It does not matter that loam mean to bikers, we are misusing the word and sound like f*cking retards
You wouldn't call snow sand, and yes calling organic soils loam is the exact same thing
A-line, crank it up, dirt merchant, freight train.....now that shit is "loamy"
I appreciate your candor but you contradict truth enough to not need anyone to argue with.
In the Pacific Northwest loam refers to organic detritus that constitutes the soft organic (woody) and non-mineral soil featured in the video under discussion.
The trails you refer to are packed sand, gravel and clay composite. This is not what loam means to bikers in the part of the world I live in. But what do I know, I''ve just been mountain biking 20 years longer than you've been alive and own an environmental engineering firm. Words are just words until you get paid to use them. Being under contract to "harden" trails built of "loam" is enough for me and the state of Alaska to accept that definition.
loam
lōm/
noun
noun: loam
a fertile soil of clay and sand
Geology
a soil with roughly equal proportions of sand, silt, and clay.
a paste of clay and water with sand, chopped straw, etc., used in making bricks and plastering walls.
If you actually own an environmental engineering firm, and call "organic detritus that constitutes the soft organic (woody) and non-mineral soil" loam, that is just crazy. It is not loam. Wood is organic. Loam DOES NOT contain organic what so ever.
type loam into google images, it will provide you with a nice little triangle graph that shows how to determine what type of soil you have.
www.had2know.com/garden/classify-soil-texture-triangle-chart.html -------that might help you out to.
so that would mean, that even in the pacific north west.......you are still wrong
in a group of mountain bikers who all agree organic material is loam.......you re still wrong
I'm not trying to be condescending, but you are flat out wrong if you refer to organic materials as loam
However if you can find something, even ONE article or study that at any time refers to organic material as loam I would love to see it
Anyways, I hope you have a fantastic day, keep shredding both the loam trails and organic material trails
@spudreau
I wonder what peeps will do when they ride a trail like this. Skid like idiots?
This vid is a joke! A bad joke.