What was it like while Danny was getting big?

[Mark W]

On 5/15/2022 at 11:27 AM, Scotty Evil1 said:

The only downside i think there may have been, and I may be well off, @Mark W may be able to help with his tartybikes insight, But in the old days, riders would buy an old monty, onza, MTB, gradually upgrade bits and gradually learn trials skills. After the danny mac explosion, it seemed younger riders would buy a brand new inspired build, learn a few basics, learn how to footjam whip and be done. There seemed to be less of a want to improve overall trials skills - which may come from riders not competing as much or not needing to go to comps to ride as much now/then, so they just learnt the certain tricks they fancied or looked good and were happy, rather than needing the specific skills associate with compy stuff, which a lot of us grew up needing to do. Not saying its a bad thing, just something I  think I have noticed.

I think that lack of the fundamentals is certainly true for plenty of newer street trials riders, but then it was also pretty apparent back in the TGS heyday too. The whole 'TGS' moniker came about as a derogatory name from more comp-focussed riders towards the guys who were basically just sidehopping everything and trying to get more and more contorted with their tucks. Trying to +1 your footjam whip count is just the modern equivalent of that with street. I think it's generally going to be what happens with these sub-genres though. Most riders will get into it because it seems fun, they'll develop tastes within the style of riding they like, start mimicking the best riders in that niche and then just do the things they do. That's true for street trials, it was/is true for TGS, for early 24" street riders, BMX street riders and so on. 

From my perspective I think some of the bigger name riders are adding more overtly trials lines to their riding (when Langlois started posting clips of huge ups to front and hooks there was suddenly a load of riders trying to learn them too, so some will follow down that path at least), but ultimately it's only ever to really serve the ability to do their usual moves on more tech setups. I think that's probably true for more general non-comp trials riders too though. It's clear to see the influence that Charlie has had on how some riders ride street these days!

In terms of the more comp specific moves like vibrating up muddy banks, when I first rode a comp I could do the usual trialsy moves to a decent size, but I lost so many dabs to really basic/awkward/fiddly classic blue route nibbly stuff. From the comps I've been to more recently as a filmer/helper, I think that's still the thing that catches out most riders who aren't used to riding comps. Unless you go out to do that style of riding it'll inevitably catch you out, and I suspect that a lot of people just don't really enjoy doing that aspect of trials too much. Even comps themselves appear to be moving away from that to an extent - a lot of the most popular venues now are largely man-made trials parks, and although some of them feature awkward janky kinda stuff it's no old school BIU comp. The World Cups and World Champs seem to have switched to generic, interchangeable sections of pipes, sleepers and random chunky boulders, and as the top riders start to focus more on riding those style of sections it's inevitable that that will filter down to other comps too. As a side note, can still remember a lot of sourpusses when there was a long balance beam in a World Cup or World Champs section ages ago that claimed a lot of top names - times have changed...

It'll be interesting to see if there is much of a swing back to that style of riding/comp. There did seem to be a bit of a backlash to the way UCI sections were coming down almost to whoever could make the ridiculous hook or up to front mid-section, but I do wonder if things have gone so far in the direction of new school UCI comps that they'll never really go all the way back to what used to pass for sections. Even the few clips I've seen of BIU comps seem to have a lot more of the new school style stuff in them rather than being pure natural. You know more about that side of trials than me though!

EDIT: One thing I forgot to point out is that I'm definitely in favour of riders getting more of a well-rounded base of skills, that's why I'm into the way that Inspired (as an example) support riders like Ali, Ben Travis, Joacim Lundgren and to an extent guys like Duncan Shaw as well. When trying to find riders to sponsor, it's something I look for as well. I get a lot of recommendations for riders to watch as possible people to hook up, but so often they can do some really cool streety stuff, but they tend to look like so many other riders simply because they don't have that extra dimension to their riding. As before, some street guys are upping their trials skills now, but with that being the hard part I think there's always going to be a limit to how many get involved with that.

[rathergoodpie]

I've always found the whole street / comp split a bit unusual - but maybe that's just me. I guess when we were in the late 90's it was just "small MTB" which was used for everything: street, rocks, dirt jumps - so there never really was any segregation - just "BIKE"

It's always stuck with me that, albeit elite riders need the most specialised equipment, you can do most stuff to a decent level on most mid-2000 26" (Ali is a fine example of this) 

I do wonder how things would have been different had Danny posted that first video on a 26" - which I'm sure he was more than capable of doing. Maybe less folks would be flocking to buy a 24 because "that's what you need to do Danny moves on" and the scene might have actually gone in a slightly different direction.

Who knows. 

  

[manuel]

I enjoyed that time, I was riding and hanging out with Martyn a lot on the team, and that video just came and really blew everything up! I got to hang out with Danny a tiny bit and it was clear (oh so clear) how different he was. His general approach and attitude on the bike was a lot like (for me) Sam Pilgrim, no fear and all out, with a "this will be fun" kinda thinking. It was so clear the gulf between him and everyone else. Before April 09 there was a slim chance I could have learnt a full living from trials/the bike industry, but after that was just not going to be possible, and I don't say that with any kind of regret or bitterness - It was a bit of a relief in a way, as there were a few times I felt waaaaay out of depth being on that team. Side note: Its funny, me and Martyn were chatting about riding normal mountain bikes and making videos back then as that would have been such a bigger sell for DB/whoever after. We had a bit of a eureka moment when we worked out just how small the trials market was and were pretty close to sacking off trials bikes! the bike team ended before we could really go for it and I just don't have the same drive as Martyn!  As it turns out big bike companies using trials to promote normal bikes is a big deal now, with Danny being a huge part of that!

Danny did spawn a load of copycats and also street riding changed quite a bit to focus a lot less on actual trials moves, which I thought was a bit of a backward step as that's the bit that really enables Danny to put the cool moves into places that look amazing! 

The divide was weird but inevitable, but the reality was Danny was better at actual trials than most riders so was a bit of a non argument.