KFM Playground Video

I ride mountain bikes.

A friend of mine started to ride XC after work for some crosstraining. He's a motorcross racer. Then it spread to my brother and his other coworkers. Eventually it reached me.

I had broken my stationary bike and purchased an elliptical trainer as a replacement. I was never happy with the elliptical. It seemed to work the smaller muscles of my legs rather than the larger thighs and glutes. I felt I was not getting the workout I used to get. So when my brother suggested I join them after work for some XC bicycling, I jumped at the chance.

I started off on my brother's old Trek 3900. It's a hardtail, which means there is no rear suspension. It's harder on the bumps, but with no shock absorber to absorb pedaling energy, it's an efficient bike. I soon wished for more though. I had dreams of being 10 again and hitting some big dirt jumps. I started looking into a full suspension bike of my own.

If you haven't priced mountain bikes, be prepared for some sticker shock. The bikes can easily run up to $4000-5000. And no, you cannot do with a Walmart special for $99. That's like buying a Yugo for NASCAR duties. Luckily, I found an entry-level Haro X6.

The X6 is a cheaper version of the X7, a decent mountain bike. What that means is that some of the parts are a cheaper, lower-end models. However, it sold for only $1000, which is cheap for real MTBs (mountain bikes). It's also an all-mountain type bike. It falls right in between the XC and Downhill archetypes of MTB. The XC bikes usually have about 4" of suspension travel and are built lighter for speed. The downhill bikes are more robust with 7-10" of travel. They're designed to descend mountains and hit anything in their way without stopping. They're also hard to pedal. The All-Mountain bikes fit right in between.

For the past several months, we've been going up the mountain for some real mountain biking. The trails we ride on include fast single-track action, log jumps, big drops, cliffs, etc. I have learned that people older than 18 should look twice before leaping.

Yes, I have crashed many times.

Now because fear and self-preservation beat my skill and technique, I relegated myself to the group's documenter. The added bonus of this is that I don't get to be infront of the cameras. This is a good thing. I'm so un-photogenic that my last pic was mistaken as evidence for Big Foot.

Enough gilding the lilly. Here is the result of our last two trips up the mountain. Yet another video by yours truly:



PS: I know the unintelligentsia won't see this because clicking links is too much of a bother, but I did crash yet again on this last trip. It was bad enough to knock the wind out of me for a few minutes, and now my shoulder is messed up.

PPS: For those that don't know, the unintelligentsia thrive on my mishaps.