^ As in engineered to perfection (by nature) vs. FUBAR'd by "tuners" (plastic surgeons)...

I think Teva marketers (not just Paul B) knew perfectly well what kind of response phrases like "first MTB athlete to land a double backflip" or "natural terrain" will generate. Even bad publicity makes for good advertisement :) That said I also think this Woodward-grade take-off is pretty artificial, it's just set into a nice Utah backdrop (or wherever it is he's riding). BS aside - he's got some balls to even jump that stuff. Flipping it twice makes it other-worldly. Restecp!

A relative of mine owned a 2006 Trek Fuel 90 which used the same rear suspension design on an aluminium frame (look it up if you don't believe me). It always surprised me that Trek was confident about subjecting the rear swingarm to such considerable forces with every compression of the suspension, but alas - "they had it figured out", I thought. Sure enough, I broke the damn thing a year ago after some mediocre all mountian ripping. Since then I've grown suspicious of designs that actually *rely* on the material being flexed, instead of just accepting it as an inevitable must. I hope I'll be proven wrong, but I doubt this design can last long, which, on a 10 grand bike, isn't quite what you want to hear (unless you're sponsored).

Still, your nation is enormous and there's hundreds upon hundreds of malls to consider. There *will* be one manager that won't have his head up his ass, lawsuits or not. And not even your legal system could harm him if he'd make the participants (and organizers) sign a document proclaiming that their health, and whatever (and whomever) they damage, is their sole responsiblity. It IS possible, period. :)

Oh PLEASE :) Not even you believe what you're saying. You also have Vegas, where a "down-mall" might only get rejected for actually not being crazy enough, and you have (for example) Red Bull, who are keen on supporting events that have 1/100th of the brand promotion potential of a downhill race in a shopping mall. I remind that these are the people who don't hesitate to invest into a freeride event in a desert in Utah. A thing like that couldn't land on more fertile soil. All it takes is for some energetic mind to pick up the idea, look for the right place and then just do it. Once it's demonstrated than under proper management, nothing gets broken and nobody dies nor gets sued, these could be popping up everywhere.

He's a great rider, I remember his then-exclusive double whips in old NWDs... And I'm sure he keeps the Lincoln just out of sentiment, but seeing him behind the wheel of that 460 cid, 2.5 ton cruise ship talk bollocks about light and efficient Euro cars is a bit ridiculous to me :)

I don't wish to be derogatory, or spoil anything, but this is average high-school physics :) But I'm still not entirely convinced about the 3rd point. To expand on the thinking: with an average(ly) inflated tyre, the total contact patch area of two MTB tyres can be about 2 x 2.5" x 3" = 15 square inches = 97 cm^2, which generates, under an avg. 75kg rider with a 12 kg bike, a pressure of ~90 kPa. A 75kg hiker (obviously sans the bike) with a US-size "8" hiking shoe (roughly 26 x 8 cm = 208 cm^2) with all his weight on the fore of one of his shoes (hiking up-hill) produces ~70 kPa, which is less than a bike. And, much more importantly, a hiker's shoe doesn't usually skid or bounce off rough terrain like a bike's rear wheel does under braking, nor do hikers corner at insane speeds sending roost everywhere :) So I think bikers do actually inflict more damage to trails than hikers, BUT it shouldn't really matter because unless motorbikes really start messing things up, the common "wear and tear" of mountain trails is definitely manageable. And that, I think, is the way to go - have a dedicated maintenance crew who will look after the trails, and if the damage is starting to be overwhelming, implement some sort of taxing. This could be some "global" tax included in the accomodation price for every tourist visiting the place, or even an actual "pay box" for donations located directly on the trailheads. I don't want to be naïve, but i would be happy to pay a few euros every time i'd hit a trail, knowing that someone has to come there every now and then and mend the stuff that i've just ruined. I just hope I wouldn't be alone :)

I'm Slovak and over here, this exact law has been in effect nation-wide for some time now. There was a lot of ruckus about it before it was enacted (even a former prime minister, himself a mountainbiker, participated in a demonstration), but since then things calmed down as we discovered the lawmakers have been as short-sighted as ever and haven't thought once about how it is to be enforced. So ultimately everyone is still riding what they always did, only now they can label themselves 'treacherous outcasts of society perpetratring the capital crime of riding a singletrack'. It is just another embarrasing paragraph amongst an endless array of stupid legislative failures. I sincerely hope that a country as far ahead of Slovakia as Switzerland will not follow the same mistake.

Do people get burned alive in the middle of the street a lot in Belgium?

PLC07 - good one :)

But he IS from Europe...