The recent thunder showers have given the trails around Tahoe a much needed refresh.  This is my first year biking, and I must say, a downhill bike is one of the best summer investments I’ve made.  It serves up thrills so near to those of skiing its almost a replacement…almost.  With tacky dirt and more rain in the forecast, there’s more smiles on the way.

Early morning ride in Tahoe after a couple of storms provided much needed wet tacky dirt. Rain makes us happy! Multiple blown tubes do not.

Jesse Cassidy

Skip to 2:45 to see the future of bike helmets in action.

Could this possibly work?  A bike helmet that inflates on impact similar to the air bag system in your car.  This outlandish idea is currently being developed by two young design students Anna Haupt and Terese Alstin.

Looks like a less than ideal setup to me, but the idea of being able to ride safely through the city streets with no hard top helmet does sound pretty rad.  What do  you say?  Cheap ploy or the future of biking?

Crankworx Les 2 Alpes is rapping up and here’s a quick recap of some of the highlight reels.  The biggest names in biking converged on this resort in France and competed for glory and a decent cash purse.  With everything from downhill to slopestyle to dual speed, this event has it all. Check out some of the carnage and victories that went on below:

A Rather Snowy Downhill:

Giant Air DH:

 Slopestyle:

Slopestyle is certainly one of the most fun videos, where Semenuk ended up taking first place.

Dual Speed & Style:

Chatel Mountain Style:

A little side bonus, Chatel Mountain Style…downhill riding, huge hucks, and high speeds…does it get any better??:

Let’s face it…life is simply cooler when it’s in super slow motion.  Whether it’s watching action sports slowed to one thousandth of a second or simply watching every day events such as water dripping into a bucket….things are rad when they’re in slow motion.  If you’re at a loss with what to do with yourself on this fine summer day, sit back, relax, and enjoy this compilation of mega-slo mo.

Bobby Brown’s moment with Red Bull, sending one of the first triple corks

You might remember this video of Lindsey Vonn knifing her way through a slalom course at 1,000 FPS

For all you gear heads out there, a little moto action from the legend James Stewart

A 45 foot step down on a bike by Andreu Lacondeguy!

One of my personal favorites….surface skate tricks at 1000 fps

So what’s your favorite slow motion video out there?  Someone shooting a big gun, throwing a big trick, or maybe a microscopic event viewed through a macro lens?  Regardless, life looks a lot more fun when things don’t pass by quite so quickly.

With athletes confidence levels sky rocketing, and huge hucks becoming the norm, it’s nice to take a breather and look back to the roots of freeriding.  Watch in this video, as Chris Doney exhibits his uncanny comfort while riding bicycles.

Chris Doney once again shows his ability to ride smooth, flowing trials on natural hazards is unmatched in his new edit, Southern Comforts. Stay tuned to Amped for more videos with Chris later in the year.

In my opinion, trials is some of the most technically intensive riding out there…the balance necessary is unreal.  What do you think is the most difficult element to riding?

Freeride Entertainment just dropped a 90 second teaser for their new film, Where The Trail Ends (coming September 2012). Once this video gets 1 million views, they’ll release the full length trailer, so be sure to look at it on their website as well if you want to see more.

The biking in this teaser immediately brings to mind riding big mountain lines on skis or a snowboard. It is really cool to see bikers getting off of trails and choosing the most difficult line off a peak or ridge.

“After 10 years of making films, Freeride Entertainment is blowing the doors off by going all out on a big mountain adventure for a damn good reason; this is what mountain biking is to us and the future of what it will be to the world.”- Cameron Zink

Check out the Gobi Desert video that Freeride Entertainment released last year, specifically the huge line that starts at 1:05. Hopefully Cameron Zink is right, and this is the future of downhill mountain biking.

Like watching people throw backflip tail-whip combos and bicycle D-Spins on dirt jumps?  How about watching them do it on a boat??  That’s right, Red Bull’s JumpShip 2012 did just that.  Gathering some of the worlds best riders, they constructed an intricate and feature filled dirt jump course…on a floating barge.  Pretty rad if ya ask me!

Contest details:

• Location: Victoria, BC
• Dates:  June 22-24

Results:

1. Brandon Semenuk –  93.5
2. Brett Rheeder –  91
3. Anthony Messere – 90.5

For any out there that think you are special because you can hit a few jumps on your freeride bike, maybe you should take a look at this. With no suspension and no pads, these BMX riders are showing what is possible on a bike.  Some of these tricks they pull looks like they may define the laws of physics.  This video is a bit on the longer side, but is packed full of some of the best biking out there.

From the looks of our current weather pattern I’d say we’re heading into another ‘Bummer Summer’. I mean when was the last full week of sun? Methinks May 8-14.  Last year was a bit of a let down: rain > rain > rain > winter.

Here’s Dan Barham’s third place edit from last years Kokanee Crankworx Deep Summer Photo Challenge.  Involving six photographers they had 72 hours to complete a slideshow. Dan decided to show the five stages of “Bummer Summer” and how his crew dealt with the loss of sunshine and dust.

Stage One = Denial

Stage Two = Anger

Stage Three = Barganing

Stage Four = Depression

Stage Five = Acceptance

With an assortment of plug-and-play editing programs on the market and an obnoxious amount number of means of distributing edits to the world via the various social media outlets, it’s sometimes hard to separate the good and the great from the from the not quite par.  But one individual, Aaron LaRocque, continues churns out jaw dropping pieces that capture not only the incredibly prowess of today’s bike athletes, but also portrays the astound environments in which the biking takes place.  LaRocque is a 20-something-year-old based out of BC who loves bikes.  Sit back, relax, and enjoy some of his epic work on this lovely Sunday morning:

Demo Reels are always a favorite, watch as his time lapse and epic landscape shots combined with a compilation of years of bike footage come together:

November marks the start of skiing, but for some it marks the tail end of bike season and the last chance to get in some of the best riding:

And where the elevation is low enough, the riding continues right into the winter.  Watch as pow and mud turns are slashed and shredded in this video:

Sending on skis is one thing, you have a nice soft, usually wide landing zone.  On bikes you have trees and rocks and a single track to land on.  Watch Dean Tennant thread the needle and send it:

(Skip to 1:40 if you want to check out the monster gap in the video still!)

One last video to hopefully put a smile on your face and send you on your way: