Video: Matt Gosling - Winter Escapades

 I do not condone the tagline. Grab that rear brake and skid more? Put the sport and the trails ahead of your own ride and edit. It's one thing to skid as the result of speed and body english, but grabbing brakes to induce an artificial skid is bad form.

Pinkbike- Why are you promoting bad trail stewardship on your main page?

 since when is it such bad form to ride trails wet? yes it causes ruts and erosion but if the trail really erodes that bad it was poorly designed. also how are you ever going to get good at riding in the wet if you cant/dont practice it. riding ruts is part of the sport wet or dry.

 The last thing we need to do is influence young riders to grab brake and skid. This guy was killing it, no question about it. But I think that kids will take it the wrong way and go out and try and look cool and "fast" by skidding every.

 dreadful vid

 aside from the bit at around 40 seconds i dont know what youre all on about with the skidding thing. the rest of the vid is just pinned wet riding. the bike is going to slid and drift all over when its this greasey. imo opinion almost none of this video is skidding with the brake and more of it is drifting which is a lot more than can be said about most mtb vids these days. this rider is skilled and is showing it

 I was referring more to the tagline PB put in the title. He wasn't really skidding other than the part you mention.

 America surely does love to hide the fact they can't ride natural and wet tracks behind this " destroying the trails " bullshit , man up , put your spikes on and maybe even surprise your self by being able to ride in terrible conditions , not every one want over worked benched and bermed no brainer shit.

 Yess bigburd. I concur whole heartedly

 holy shit it's the skid police. calm down, stop being so righteous.

 Shuuduppp no skids! Jeez dyu guys ever have fun? As for not riding trails when wet some of us don't have that luxury. I'm off to go do super long skids on wet trails weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

 Sitting at home on the Xbox would preserve the trails even better!! Why dont we all just do that? We could call this website PinkXbox and talk about how we'd like to go out and get slideways but we dont want to ruin the life of a couple of earthworms.

Bloody treehuggers.

 Skid Police? No. I'm being reasonable. Most people here in California wont lift a shovel to do trail work even if there life depended on it. People ride muddy trails, rut the shit out of it, and then wonder why hikers and equestrians see mountain bikers as bad for the trail networks. Trail access is a big problem here, and we don't need little skid kiddies making it even harder. It's your guy's thinking that makes it difficult for mountain bikers to gain respect with other trail users.

 it's like trying to explain advanced physics to a tribe of cannibals in Papua New Guinea. pointless

 well, if you come over here, you might realise this is probably a little trail built by the rider to play on locally... it's not a massive mainstream bike park, it's a few little corners and some roots, therefor if he wants to be filmed skidding on it, he can do as he pleases...

 so the message being conveyed to people is that it's ok to trash trails. Pinkbike has influence over millions of riders, I'm sad to see this being endorsed. also what message does it send to anti-MTB groups? it's exactly what most of the MTB population is working against. responsible riding, trail advocacy, working with other trail user groups. instead someone can go rip trails in the wet like a retarded 11 year old, because that's OK - he's "having fun". regardless of what negative damage it does to the MTB community

sustainable trails don't get damaged as much in the wet, and responsible/experienced riders stay off trails that will become degraded if ridden in wet conditions. for example the North Shore, and some of my local trails, when it's wet or still thawing badly in spring they won't get ridden. but yeah, just go ride the ass off those wet trails, cuz cool and fun and make video and beat chest like infant gorilla. ug ug ride bike!

 Shut up gnarbar

 Gnarbar , this is a local rake and bake line , no trail is being trashed , if you think a few roots and ruts mean a wrecked trail then its better that you stick to canal tow paths.

The trail in that video is very typical of UK local trails , move the twigs/sticks and ride it , the more ruts the better , the more roots the better.

I can say with near 100% certainty that the guys who scratched this line in do not give two shits about the track becoming more technical or ' trashed ' as you say , infact they will be looking at these ruts forming and be feeling good that the line is becoming established and is wearing in nicely.

Go back to your 8 percent gradient , over bermed ' sustainable ' trails that have all the variation of a box of matches and all the technicality of a colour in-between the lines drawing book.

 I again want to agree with Bigburd. Gnarbar, if that even is your real name, you need to appreciate the differences between UK riding and what you guys have across the pond. You guys tend to your trails and keep them nice, try not to upset anyone, bench cut sections, in the UK we put some sticks down or decide which trees to go round and then ride it tell its axle deep. I literally just came back from riding a local country park doing exactly that and non of the other trail users were bothered. I'm guessing that if we done it near you we would have got hassle, but the video was in the UK and that makes it ok.

 bigburd, "8 percent gradient , over bermed ' sustainable ' trails that have all the variation of a box of matches and all the technicality of a colour in-between the lines drawing book" would not describe any of the trails that I ride in BC

gravel bike paths are cool, so are city parks, and mixed-use flat paved trails

 So you ride natural trails but at a speed where your tyres do not turf up the ground ?

 I don't ride when it's unnecessarily wet, and on a trail where it will be damaged by riding, such as fall lines or loamy/new trails. simples. yes I can ride a wet greasy trail like the best of them, but I guess I make a conscious decision not to ride some days, just out of respect for the trails and other/future riders

 Just different bike cultures I guess. With natural Dh trails here they are ridden all year around by every one , even official bike parks with natural trails run all year round all weathers with little to zero down time. I build trails my self at my local and have no problem with any of my tracks being ridden in any weather , yeah corners do get blown out and it looks like shit , but over here thats normal and I have never even considered to expect people or my self to not ride them due to damaging them. As long as you are not being a total prick and taking the tops off the top of berms and lips then it's fair game.

 I don't think it's cultural, skidding is poor form (different to drifting).

 Wow a lot of general hate, that's too bad. Like I said, the video looks really fun but were I live, Marin County California, that video is fuel for the fire. I know, that's too bad for us, but unfortunately we have to fight hard to keep, or even get trials to ride. Some National Audubon Society person shows that to video to the "powers that be" and we never get a new trail and they close others. We all love riding or we would not be on this site, redirect the hate to the correct areas, not each other.

 ^^ this, spot on.

 The great thing about dirt is that you can just build or rebuild anything... And isn't our sport all about having the most fun possible even if that means having to rework some part of the trail as well? I mean that's why we all started doing this is the first place...

 Check you out!!!!

 Did you think that maybe it's the only bike he's got? He's just going out and having fun

 Fix what ?

Rather than ' fixing ' the trails why not adapt and learn , you won't get any skills riding groomer tracks , riding slick rutted corners are the foundations of a good skill base.

DH trails erode , that's a simple fact , some of s actually want a challenge and not some super smooth , no brainer , disabled access trails , no wonder the US has so few top DH riders if this is the mentality of the riding community there..

 Been riding macc for 3 years almost every weekend iv seen it dry about 3 times

 @bigburd. Didn't realize it's wet all year there. Still don't agree with the off trail yahoo shred-fest. So I guess having fewer DH peeps makes us inferior to the UK and other countries with "correct mentality" mtb riders. Have fun ripping all forest the forest floors, meat head.

 For fuck sake man ... They are doing ZERO long term damage to that ground , leave that track for 1 year and you will never know it existed , nature wins every time. My local trails got destroyed by loggers just before Xmas , fucking huge ruts every where , it looked like a scene from a WW2 film , now you can barely see a mark as the nature has taken it all back.

 That trail is a 5min and is in my local area, so i have a lot of respect for the trail...

 trails are made to have fun on right?

 How do you know he isn't the trail builder?