Wild Wednesday: 5 insane places to ride a bike

Just getting on a bike provides a sense of freedom, with wind in your hair and the opportunity to explore wherever your interests take you.

That’s for normal people. And then there’s what happens when enthusiastically wild bike riders experience freedom from reality as we know it…

1. Ride in a blizzard.

Of all the visitors coming to www.flatbike.com, some are actually looking for fat bikes with big tires for riding in deep snow or mud. You can put up to a 2.25-inch tire on a CHANGE 609 mountain bike, but the tires on these downhill beasts are up to 4.8 inches wide. You don’t just get through deep snow; you go looking for it!

2. Ride on slippery mountain switchbacks…backwards!

50 MPH is a scary speed to ride next to cliffs anyway. Throw in a 10 percent grade downhill, wet pavement, and cars coming the other way around hairpin turns, and it’s a white-knuckle ride for sure. So how did Eskil Ronningsbakken do it? Backwards, of course! You have to see this video to believe it!

3. Ride on vertical surfaces.

It probably starts as a ramp ride. Then a steeper ramp. Then a low wall, or the side of a house. Each guy outdoing the other. Before you know it, you’re thinking that riding down a wall from a second story building or the down the side of a 60-foot cliff is a super-gnarly idea…

4. Ride on rooftops.

If you’ve ever seen parkour, this video is the death-defying bicycle version. Hopping effortlessly from building to building, it looks like just another day in the life of Spiderman–if he were a bike rider. I guess the thinking is that you can’t have a false step if you’re not taking any steps at all…

5. Ride off cliffs.

It’s common knowledge in the cycling world that wearing a backpack raises your center of gravity, maybe shifts a bit on sensitive turns, and can generally cause problems. But there’s one time when you absolutely NEED a backpack on your bike–when you’re BASE-jumping with a parachute like in this video!

So next time you’re huffing and puffing your way up a steep hill, wondering if bikes were even designed to go places like that, the answer is just Yes. They’re designed to go anywhere. And most places are much, much safer than you see here!

Bob Forgrave is president of Flatbike, an
ecommerce company offering full-size folding bikes
and kits to make any bike take up half the space.

425-985-6219