XC vs. DH: Let's Rumble - Sunday Comics with Taj Mihelich

 ’Tis but thy name that is mine enemy:
What’s X.C.? It is not hand nor foot,
Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part.
What’s in a name? That which we call DH, by any other name would smell as sweet.

 @Altron5000: To pedal, or not to descend, that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous climbs,
Or to take arms against a sea of roots
And by doubling end them. To brake—to crash,
No more; and by a crash to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shock bottom outs
That DH is heir to.

 "All the world's a ride and all the men and women merely riders. They have their berms and their climbs; And one man in his time rides many paths."

 Doth mother know you weareth her goggles and half shell?

 @dirtnapped: out of all of these. This is the best one haha.

 We few, we happy few, we dh brothers;
For he to-day that shreds trails with me
Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile,
This day shall gentle his condition;
And climbers in England now a-bed
Shall think themselves accurs'd they were not here,
And hold their spandex cheap whiles any speaks
That drop-in with us upon Saint Crispin's day.

 @wingguy: Well this obviously wins!

 I have of late—but wherefore I know not—lost all my girth, forgone all custom of shredding, and indeed it goes so heavily with my disposition that this goodly frame, the bike, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent trail, the jumps—look you, this brave o'erhanging double drop, these majestical roots fretted with slimy mud—why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of tapers. What a piece of work is a bike! How noble in angles, how infinite in shredability! In form and moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god! The beauty of the trails. The paragon of vehicles. And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of parts? Climbs delights not me. No, nor spandex neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

 Did not expect iambic pentameter on Pinkbike today.

 @sarahallen: Quote of the year!

 A chair lift and a shuttle van both have motors.

 @cvoc: it is ride on chair lift or van

 @cvoc: and boats too, but none are bikes.

 The AXS rear mech has a motor.

 There is also the act of riding a bike with a motor

 @mkotowski1: A bike with a motor is called "a motorcycle"

 You get it. @The-Mango-Kid:

 @cvoc: they, too, aren’t bikes.

 @The-Mango-Kid: That line is used so often it’s become annoyingly cliche. Almost as annoying as the XC rider who refuses to yield when he’s riding downhill (because he refuses to ride the down-only trails).

 @cvoc: does it cancel out if someone is riding a lift with a folding full susser ebike?

 @Demoguy: Electric Moped then.

 @Demoguy: Not quite. You're got scooters in there too. In the states (many of them), there are different classifications for different power and style of motorized uncaged vehicles. It's amazing how they are able to see that there is a difference between a 1000cc motorcycle and a 50cc scooter...

 Nicely spotted!

 "Good thing you have Eagle. " is the one to hit my laugh out loud button.

 @flaflow: This was my favorite as well

 Most CX/XC dudes are roadies who are just trying to be better than other roadies.

 Weirdo

 What ratio,30-50?

 @cvoc: I have a rigid fixed-gear mountain bike, mostly as a trump card for internet arguments

 @showmethemountains: but does it have alt bars?

 @speed10: I'm not that hipster, so I have 32" wide Yamaha dirt bike handlebars. This one can win on the internet in better ways. Braap!

 @showmethemountains: 620mm wide bar 70mm stem plastic rigid fork

 @showmethemountains: Sounds cool. Let’s see pictures of you riding it down stairs.

 @showmethemountains: that made my day

 @ibishreddin: weird keeps things interesting

 @nozes: only when riding in the alps

 @showmethemountains: is it 26"?

 @fruitsd79: Not quite that OG. Mine is a beat up old 29er that was my main bike for 12 years before this rebirth.

 You have a serious mental health issue, ride less!

 its like your gears represent the number of people who want to ride with you.

 @garb0: that’s funny as shit

 @mkotowski1: I'm just busting your chops. I actually have a few friends in santa cruz who ride SS mtb and they smoke me going uphill...its mildly upsetting.

 The bike park I have a season pass to is all run off of a massive windmill and a small solar installation. They’ve got enough surplus to have two electric car charging spots.

 @pixelguru According to your numbers you could also just say that it takes 3000 XC riders at any time the lift spins. Say there are 100 chairs going up ( which is like 200 or 400 DH riders?) Sounds like pretty bad efficiency....

 @DHhack: are they disconnected from the grid? What happens when the wind isn't blowing or it's cloudy? Do the lifts not turn?

 @laksboy: berkshireeast.com/the-resort/berkshire-renewable-energy the eventual goal is to completely disconnect via energy storage that isn’t battery based. The bike park itself is fairly well known m.pinkbike.com/news/thunder-mountain-berkshire-east-new-englands-newest-downhill-park-2015.html and hosts round of the ESC every season for dh and enduro racing.

Thank you for your Trump reference, his complete lack of understanding of renewables technologies and the money/jobs it creates is quite... interesting.

 @DHhack: I have solar panels on my roof and I generate excess power which goes to the grid and typically I see a credit from the power company every month. Thus I generate more power than I need. Are my power needs 100% met? Nope. I still get my power from the grid when the sun goes down, which also happen's to be when my peak power need occurs. This is true for all renewable's and the grid supply/demand in general. I think it's your lack of understanding of "renewable" technology that is in question here. Berkshire's goal of "power" storage is noble. Whether they can match their supply with sufficient energy storage capacity to match their demand curve when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining is a very challenging engineering & capital investment challenge.

 @laksboy: comparing residential power needs with commercial. Please educate me. I’d love your explanation on if you think the pet project of rich people might account for such things? You’re stuck on cloudy days with no wind, a weather phenomenon that’s not particularly common in their part of the country, ignoring snow, which happens a lot more frequently than your Trump-FUD excuses go. But hey, you’re the expert!

 @DHhack: www.ucsusa.org/resources/how-electricity-grid-works
When a company claims they get their power from "100% renewable" it's 100% feel-good marketing bullshit. Just like the bike industry. Unless they are disconnected from the grid and have no diesel back-up generators. It's a false statement, because that's not how the grid or electricity works. Berkshire's renewable assets probably do generate a surplus that meets or exceeds their demand and they may even get credits back from their local power grid for when they are generating more power than they need. But when the sun goes down and the wind isn't blowing, they are buying power back from the grid, and it's not the same "renewable electrons" that they sold to the grid earlier. It's from a base load nuke or coal plant, maybe hydro, or a peaker natural gas power plant. Or even if they do have enough pumped storage "battery capacity" unless it's all on a closed disconnected grid, there's no guarantee that those "electrons" coming from the pumped storage where in fact charged by Berkshire's surplus of turbine/solar generation. So charge your Tesla on a calm night at the ski hill and feel good about yourself but the power isn't coming from renewable energy.

 that was my favorite part. The DHers had the nunchucku!

 Nah, mountain unicyclists are pretty mellow. It takes a PB account to feel better than someone else.

 pretty sure it's the other way around

 Well yeah, that riding position is super upright.

 @Fix-the-Spade: Never looked at it from that perspective. I ride my mountainbike standing up and because the bars on my bike are higher than the handlebar of a unicycle (typically the nose of the saddle or some people run an extension) it feels like I can stand taller on the bike than I do on the unicycle. So yeah, not sure which is taller. It may be similar. You can tuck low on a DH bike obviously but then again when you tuck SIF (seat in front) on a unicycle you're even lower .

 @Fix-the-Spade: 90* seat tube angle. So futuristic! Grim Donut ain't got nothin on it!

 @Connerv6: It is a dynamic seat tube angle. It can be whatever you want it to be. If it isn't, blame it on yourself.

 Definitely taller on my unicycle. Upright seating position and no bottom bracket drop. Trails that are all good on my bike have me head butting twigs on my uni.

 @ColinChapman: Wait a second, aren't you supposed to be dead?

 never heard of this mountain biking

 If UCI regs allowed it, half every lift line would be people in lycra because the entire World Cup would be riding in it.

 @Jamminator: No...no they wouldn't be. Did you even ride Whistler or another famous bike park in the early 2000's when the UCI allowed lycra? Half of every lift line was definitely not people in that garbage...

 @Jamminator: so glad for the UCI on this one.

 @madocreg2: The only other sport I know of that ever regulated clothing for purely aesthetic reasons is beach volleyball (had to be skimpy to draw the crowds in a sport no-one woulda watched otherwise - who says sex doesn't sell? No-one.)

Have you seen how tight DH pants are these days? May as well be in a skin suit.

 My favorite dh crowd, hate lycra but love to wear slimfit skinny jeans!

 heres something fun, dh ski racers race in skinsuits, but if you go to a ski resort you see approx. 0 skinsuits.

 @spaceofades: Bravo haha, exactly!

 Hell no! The DHers had the nunchucku. Those things make you invincible!