Video: Robin Rides Hafjell

 Wait isnt that how all vikings are? just show up and decide to f*ck shit up?

 Become a viking today...

 Gnarcore Shreddage!

 WTF is with this flash shit , Fucking bullshit

 Your feet tend to end up where they want to be on flat pedals, I mean, in the best possible position for them to be. More over flats don't allow you to get away with bad technique in rough terrain, you ride properly, neutral with heels down, weigh/unweigh the bike in right moments or you fall off the bike. Hence it is tricky with clipless, not many shoes allow you to put the clips so far behind (Vans suck for that reason) 5.10 SPD and Shimano AM shoes are awesome! For unskilled rider on clipless it is easy to end up tensed with heels up and instead of learning and slowly progressing you end up ramming into everything at speed, tumbling down the rockgarden like a bag of potatoes, totaly out of balance. But being "connected" to the bike will let you get away with it... until that one time. You'll clean that rock garden at higher speed than you would on flats given same skills, but you slow down your progress and sooner or later you are going to eat sht big time. Being connected to the bike is a false sense of security. It is better to build up skill on flats. Flats for fun and school, clipless for work at races.

As Lee McCormack puts it: light hands - heavy feet, supple feet! Light - heavy - light - heavy - Ride the sinewave!

 noticed this as well. I am riding like that myself. reasons are: gives me a better feeling when it gets really rough. muscles of my lower leg dont get tired so fast. Sometimes i find myself readjusting my foot position: for corners i try to get more weight on my front wheel by moving a bit forward (if possible) and before it gets really rough or before drops i move back a bit.

 thanks for the advice i ride flats and find that when ive got the balls of my feet in the center of the pedal i can pull my achiles heel if im not careful when landing larger jumps, i guess ill start letting my feet go where they want as i have been consciously placing them (ball of foot, middle of the pedal)
cheers

 Yes that is actually the feeling I experienced as well. Thus I moved back. Not quite sure if i missunderstood you, but in case your shoe is moving on the paddle unconsciously, you should try another paddle because that should not happen due to a lack of grip.

 no grip is fine since switching to 5 10 i have never slipped but when i place my foot on for the first time i often have to do some shuffling to get it right

 A good training is to try to ride quite fast on a HT with flats as your feet will get bounced off pedals a lot. You have to get that to your head when things get scary: Supple feet! Supple feet!. More over when you do stay in a proper neutral position (almost all weight on pedals, almost zero on bars - almost, as completely is unachievable) and you bounce off you will most likely land back on the pedals. If you hang off the bars or press on them, you will probably loose your foot for real. Furthermore riding rough bits on HT forces the other part of your body to relax: your bum. I often find myself completely stiff in knees and hips when riding rock gardens on HT with flats, I tend to lean forward and work my arms more to keep up but that's short sighted. The ass must move, knees must do their work conforming the rear to the terrain! Then when you come back on a fully, the world is different!

Once I started training that, I understood what does that mean to "relax" or not "tense up" on bike. When things get sketchy and suddenly something goes really wrong, I get this thought: the best thing to do is to relax and do nothing - wait until the bike gets into a controllable position, and even if it won't, being relaxed allows you for the full range of motion, thus my bail out will be better executed. When you are tensed up you hold to your bike longer and fall down on the ground like a bag of flour - bam!

 ha thats realy helpful i was thinking of getting a cheap little dj bike so maybe this is the excuse

 I have been riding flats for a while and I used to let my feet do what felt right. I picked up my first real DH bike this year and noticed that my toes would catch and hyperextend my ankle if the balls of my feet weren't in the middle of the pedal. I am larger than the average DHer and I have size 14 shoe which Im sure is a lot of the problem. Although Ive never had this problem on any other bike, but Ive never owned a proper DH bike (Demo 8 ) either. Is it because the bike is lower to the ground? Is it Demo's in general? Any advice on how to fix it other than constantly worrying about my foot positioning?

 i guess just do what this guy does in the video (maybe not as far) position you foot further forward so the center of the pedal is between the ball of your foot and the arch
thats my advice anyway if there are any pros out there who know the actual answer???

 @hellhound I think the ball of your feet over the spindle of the pedal is good for putting the power down ( road,xc,climbs, when things get technical or jumps i prefer further back. Thats on flats obviously haha .
Flats give you the pump feeling you need for learning dh skills, just like rigid forks gave you bump absorving skills back in the days.
My 2 cents

 Riding a trail and racing really are 2 completely different things, and racing is a beast that even the best of the best riders sometimes can't do.

 No doubt, but if this guy buckled down and threw a couple less whips in a race run I wonder if he would come anywhere close. Boggles my mind how the wc guys can practice for a very short period of time over only two days on a foreign mountain and still destroy some guys who are local riders.

 It's hard to tell seeing how 1. filming is COMPLETELY different to racing as you only hit a small section one-at-a-time while filming which makes it insanely easier to go as fast as possible for that given section and 2. all of those shots were on machined, bike park trails which are insanely easy to go fast on (especially with 7" of travel) so you cannot tell how fast he is on technical aspects that require much more skill than how to scrub a jump such as carrying speed through odd sections and turns. Although if I had to guess, I'd say he'd def. qualify for finals but it'd be a tossup if he'd make top 20 or not (complete shot in the dark seeing as how we don't know enough about his riding to make an educated guess, it'd be interesting to find out, however).

That's not taking away anything from him because he's so friggen stylish in the scrubbing department. I loved that edit and wouldn't mind to see more of him in the future. It reminded me of Kovarik... maybe it was the metal. Very nice job! We need more metal!

 I think you're over-analyzing it.

 I think you are spot on scott, and yes, we do need more metal!

 Thats why they get paid.

 If you want to compare to Kovarik in Hajfell, you will have your chance, he's racing there this weekend..so is Claire. Go Chris & Claire! Hell yeah!!

 The berms will crumble in his wake! Far and away the most entertaining ( and frightening!) rider to watch! \m/

 He only ride park bro

 Me to

 it's how vikings say thank you to the kameraguy hahaha

 Looked like a Cove to me.

 Yes! he even got the teams red link and dropouts. kinda special.

 no

 why? Doesn't he take part?