Video: Brett Penfold Rides Trials on a Trail Bike

 Not to neg on your comment too much- but have you tried any trials riding? Taking those skills away from the streets and concrete and applying them on natural terrain, let alone on a squishy full suspension mountain bike, is significantly harder! It does look more approachable, i agree, but you dont get to such a level without proper trials background.

 That's the biggest trick,making it look easy.

 @Schizo: Not saying this is easy by any means. But MacAskill, Akrigg etc bring their trials skills to the dirt too. I do however think the level we see here is something we can, as I said, be achieved with a lot of hard and dedicated practice. Few of us are actually putting in such amount of dedication though. We could, but we don't. But yeah, I'm not anywhere close too so I could very well be wrong and this isn't necessarily something we can achieve. I would never use the word "easy" though!

 @vinay Hey Vinay, thanks for the considered comment ! This edit was a bit of fun really, filmed in a day, and that was the aim, to bring some trials-style skills to normal features that you'd see on a ride and think - "could I just jump up/over that?". Which is Brett's mindset every ride. Glad you enjoyed it and got some inspiration from it !

 @vinay: Yes find it funny that people buy pacific trials bikes, thinking it is needed to do trials
But can be done on any bike, but does still take plenty of practice
Was never a fan of full ridged trials bikes, but suspension set up can make it easier or much harder?
Wish that never sold my 5010 as that bike just made stuff feel easy?

 Agree with OP, wouldn't really call this trials on a trail bike, most of the video is trail riding. Fun video, but perhaps mis-titled.

 @aljoburr: "pacific"? Really? Read a book mate, it's *specific*.

 @aljoburr: There's a reason trials bikes are specific- the geometry is wildly different from most common hardtails. Yes, you CAN do it on nearly any bike, but all all those killer riders such as Akrigg/Macaskill/Ali C/Ryan Leech learned their basis on a proper trials bike. If im not mistaken, so has Brett in the video above.

Trials on a trail bike is significantly harder. Some tricks, such as bunnyhops (and generally lifting the front wheel) are much easier on a trail bike, but the proper trialsy moves, and anything static, is much more difficult with all that squish. The larger geo makes it harder to weight the bike as well. Disc brakes have much more modulation than grabby trials brakes. etc... you will notice most those riders pick a smaller frame and run very stiff suspension.
(and dont even get me started on any proper bash protection on mtb downtubes and cranks. those area get so bashed up when you're starting...)

 @vinay: gotcha. I didnt imply you thought it's easy, and it's definitely at a much more "human" level than Akrigg, but i'm just saying- don't assume this level didn't require years and years of painful and dedicated trials riding. I've seen very few riders who could do any trials moves out on the trails without proper trials/street background.

Perhaps im just speaking out of some inner frustration as someone who invested significant effort into trials years ago and didn't reach a level nearly as impressive as this

 @foxinsocks: Yes get what you are saying, but setting up suspension stiff, kind of defeats the point of having suspension, in stead use very little dampening gives you a bike like a pogo stick that gives you extra pop
Not ideal for all moves, but shocks are adjustable for a reason
Also more can be done to protect chain ring, chain & rear mech from damage?
But bike industry does not like this type of protection!

 Loved this video. I think it is what a lot of us aspire to, being able to rip a trail and do some fun jibs in the same ride on the same bike. I like the idea that some practice would get us all close to this level but I think you are under-appreciating his hops. Most of those rails he hops onto are close to a metre high, and the wall to wall transfer must be more. In my prime I was probably only hopping about 0.8m or so on my BMX and I struggle to do half a metre now on my full sus. I am inspired and I will push harder but Brett deserves a lot of credit.

 @G-Sport: Brett's one of those riders who makes these things look easy, even if they aren't. The level he's at belies a lot of hard work, practice and determination over a long period of time. But he's such a grounded dude. He wanted the riding in this edit to be relatable and I think he pulled it off.

 @aljoburr: You're right, but (a) most shocks these days are already quite dampened (much more than any shock/fork 10 years ago) and modifying them isn't trivial. My point is that you CAN do and learn many trials moves on trial/enduro bikes, but rarely on a comfortable, trail worthy, setup.

As for protection - we used to have bash rings. God knows why we don't have those anymore, especially nowadays when your ride and bike depends on a single front chainring. Oh, yeah, I know- money...

 @aljoburr: It's the same way that you can technically ride an XC bike down a DH track, but it's not going to be as good for DH as a DH bike is. A mountain bike of any sort is nowhere near as good as either a competition trials bike or street trials bike in their respective disciplines. The riders really pushing the limits in those disciplines would be massively limited by doing it on a non-specific bike.

That's not to say you can't learn the basics and some of the more advanced moves on an MTB, but people who want to really follow that path will be much better off on a trials bike.

 @rbeach: The worst grammatical error.

 Personally I do the contrary, I bring my trail skills to trial : I avoid obstacles gracefully as if they were trees.

 @foxinsocks: Yes money is the answer!
But not as directly as you may think, but also in not any products that make your chain drive last longer other than chain lube
It is possible to seal the whole drive, but it would last to long?
Most likely said to much, so expect this comment to be deleted

 @itslightoutandawaywego: Not grammar, basic vocabulary ignorance. It wasn't a typo, it was genuinely thinking that the correct word was pacific.
I mean, the guy thinks big bike is going to delete his product ideas lol

 @foxinsocks: I mean... we *do* have bashrings? Quite a lot of brands make them. I've got one from Unite on my own bike at the moment.

 @CleanZine: I don't think I'd ever ride without bashprotection. Until my current bike, I used a ring (e-thirteen, Straitline or DMR). My current bike has ISCG05 tabs and I'm using the taco with chainguide from One-Up. The ones from DMR and Straitline were serrated. Maybe some trials riders use these for crawling up obstacles. Not sure whether anyone still makes those.

 @vinay: Trials bashrings these days are as small and out of the way as possible. Nobody has really used them on a 26" bike as an aid for getting up obstacles for about 20 years now - without going into punishing detail, trials split between a type of trials using pedals and bashguards to get up obstacles and a type of trials where you got penalised for using them.

Hopping up things to tyres looks and feels approx. 1,000,000% better than going to bash, so riders and products developed in that direction. I think you can still get chunkier 4-bolt or 5-bolt style bashrings from some random eBay/Amazon brands, but all the 'real' trials brands stopped making them well over a decade ago.

 @CleanZine: Ah, I see. My stuff is old like that. Superstarcomponents still makes smooth bashguards in the UK for prices lower than you what you probably paid for your chainring. Unless you're using a different chainring mount. My cranks are Shimano Zee so 104BCD would fit (but won't use as I already have this taco), but I understand there are different mounts nowadays where you'll have more trouble fitting a bashring.

I would have loved to, but never committed to trials. Back in the days I once bent my 44t chainring of my BMX against the coping of a quarter. The new ring I got, had the big hole in the middle to use on my BMX cranks (and the small one for the driveside crank so that you could actually pedal). But it also had five holes to use on a five arm crank spider, which even back then were old fashioned. So I got a cheap e-thirteen bashring (the old solid polycarbonate one) and bolted it to the chainring as a stiffener. I only use the BMX for the pumptrack now so I don't really care about the drivetrain, but it is still on there .

 @CleanZine: they're exceedingly rare, especially on mountain bikes. Most stock cranks nowadays are cinch which is basically incompatible with bashguards. They still exist, indeed, but far less than 10-15 years ago. And that's ironic because back then we had 2-3 chain rings instead of having all our eggs in one basket

 @Schizo: in fairness I should have said baahguards, sorry!

 @vinay: Apologies to you too, only just realised my rookie error of saying bashrings rather than bashguards!

 @foxinsocks: Absolute black makes a killer chain guide/ bashguard.

 Yep that line was sick. Brett's a legit rider whether it's trials or trails :-)

 www.instagram.com/brett_3sixty

Give him a follow !

 haha, now we may have the next video idea !

 I don't know how tall Brett is exactly but I'd guess around 180cm. He's on a Large Filter frame. Geometry is here: www.airdropbikes.com/products/filter-frame-cane-creek-db-coil-il

 @AirdropBikes: Grazie :-)

 Capitalism survives on "making more." Humanity survives on "making do."