(gentle music)
- Welcome back to Berm Peak.
I'm Seth, and tonight we're gonna be doing
something a little bit different, but kind of the same.
I've wanted to do this video for a while
but I've been avoiding it.
I'm gonna try and ride
as many of Berm Peak's features as I can, at night.
And whatever I chicken out on that's up for grabs
the next time somebody comes to Berm Peak.
Now, the other thing is,
I've got some new lights I'm testing out.
(calming music)
So, when I was at Sedona Mountain Bike Festival
I discovered Outbound Lighting.
This is not an ad,
I just met the owner of the company
who's also the engineer.
So, he is like Steve Jobs, Wosniak
of mountain bike lighting.
And he tried to make a light
that's really simple and really reliable, and I admire that.
And so I wanted to put his product out there and test it.
But, at the same time, if I die tonight
the blood is gonna be on his hands.
(eerie music) (Wolves howling)
So if you're mountain biking at night
and you want the ideal equipment,
there's two things you're gonna need
and that is a flood light and a spotlight.
Now, the flood light goes in your handlebars
and it floods the entire scene with light,
it just shines light everywhere.
The spotlight goes on your helmet
and it sort of shines a narrower beam
wherever your head is pointing.
Now, this gives you two advantages.
First of all, when your night riding,
two is one, one is none.
You have one light and something happens,
runs outta batteries,
you are outta luck.
(leaves rustling) (twigs snapping)
The hell did I put my helmet?
So, you need at least two.
Also, the flood light is kinda low
on the handlebar shining outwards,
and so it tends to cast shadows on things.
And because your spotlight is up high
it sort of fills in those shadows.
Also, when you're going around a turn,
sometimes you're looking in that direction
before you turn your handlebars,
and so you get a little bit of light where you're going
and it's easier to navigate.
(forest insects chirping)
All right, so I'm on the flight deck here
and this is where we drop into all the trails.
I'm gonna start out with Woodpecker Trail,
and there're two major features here
that are gonna be kind of sketchy.
First is the maimframe.
People always mix it up and call the mainframe,
it's not it's the maimframe
because you can get maimed on it.
A lot of people have.
It's like a 90 degree turn that's really tricky.
I usually have no problem with it
but that's the first thing I'm gonna have to do at night,
so let me drop in, ride down woodpecker trail,
and then give the maimframe a try.
Man, I'm digging these lights.
40% chance of rain right now,
I hope that doesn't happen.
(gravel crunching) (bike chain singing)
Ooh.
Okay, a little tricky.
I honestly thought it was gonna be easier.
I've ridden at night before with really good lights,
and when you're going down the trail really fast
you get in the zone and things happen,
but I've never ridden stuff like that.
And I'm a little worried,
but let's move on down the trail to Snake Pit
and then we'll see if we can link it all together.
Okay, here goes nothing.
Snake pit.
(bike chain singing)
(wood crackling)
Woo-hoo!
(upbeat music) (wood crackling)
Whoa!
I almost didn't get that, that was scary.
All right, that was sketchy.
This little gap over here
and the grandpa (indistinct) the driveway jump,
that was all easy.
But after that is the drama drop.
(eerie music)
Ooh, yeah, that's a concern.
I don't know if I'm down for this, to be perfectly honest.
So, the thing about the drama drop is,
it's not just that it's a drop
it's like you have to really watch out where you're landing
because there's a stomp and a rhododendron and a root.
The drop is gonna cast the shadow
and I'm not gonna see all this stuff for the last second,
so I have to make sure I'm dead straight,
and we'll see what happens.
I'm really gonna not do it
if I come up and it just doesn't feel right,
this is madness.
All right, here goes.
(wood crackling) (gravel crunching)
This part, piece of cake.
Bike lights are designed for this stuff,
so it's just like riding trails.
Here goes.
(breathes deeply) (bike chain singing)
Okay, got it.
All right, we don't need to go too fast,
just enough to clear the jump.
(wood crackling)
Hey, felt better that time.
(gravel crunching)
Oh, I hit my helmet on those trees.
Oh, God.
(twigs snapping) (bike chain singing)
Ooh! (upbeat music)
Ooh, damn!
Once I got on it
I was going too fast to change the plan.
And so I just came up to it with speed
like I was gonna do it, like I usually do,
and it worked out.
Yeah, Berm Peak is scary.
Oh boy, this is a little worrisome but I think it's doable.
It sucks 'cause you just can't see that far
and there's so much to this.
All right, so off the other side of the flight deck
we have the whale tail,
which goes into the Kevin jump, the wood berm,
and then the pucker pad.
I'm not gonna try and link it all together right away,
I'm just gonna try the whale tail first
because that is the one that honestly scares me the most.
Here we go again.
(wood crackling) (bike chain singing)
(wood crackling)
Hoo!
That comes up really quick.
One of the scarier parts was actually the pucker plank,
just the roll-in.
You're just looking into an abyss,
and then you go to drop-in, you point down.
Now your lights are pointing at the ground,
it's really blind.
I think if I just catch it a little bit better
I'll switch into a different gear and take a crank.
I think we can hit the Kevin jump.
All right, gonna get into one gear higher.
All right, stay focused.
Look where you're gonna go,
even if you don't see anything.
(wood crackling)
Okay, got it.
(upbeat music)
Okay, okay, okay, I was all over the place.
I don't think the whale tail went any better
and the Kevin jump didn't go good at all.
I sort of took off crooked
and I almost ate it when I landed.
All right, I'll try again and do better next time.
If I have the speed, this is not that sketchy.
What's sketchy is flying into the rock garden over there,
that's really sketchy.
Let's give this a shot, stay focused.
(wood crackling)
Oh, way better.
(wood crackling) (bike chain singing)
Oh, yeah, way better.
I'm going for it.
(wood crackling)
Okay.
Oh, yeah, stomped it.
Okay, I tightened up my helmet, stayed focused,
and it worked.
Everything felt smooth,
so now I gotta launch into the rock garden
and then the next feature is the Teeter cannon.
I don't wanna do the Teeter cannon multiple times,
and so what I think we'll do is,
let's hike down knock out the wall ride real quick.
That's not gonna be a picnic either.
So, the messed up part about the wall ride
is that my lights are never really gonna be pointing
in the right place,
it's gonna constantly be changing.
Although one of the sketchiest parts
is that I'm gonna have to come off of the wall here
and land over here, like jump off the wall.
I could also just roll to the bottom of the wall
and come out of it, but I want to get it good
so I'm gonna go up there and give it my worst.
Oh, my God, these bugs are so gnarly.
All right, dropping in.
(exhales sharply) (gravel crunching)
All right, Oscar drop.
(funky music)
(wood crackling)
Ooh, yeah!
(funky music)
Oh, yeah, I made the step-up and everything.
That wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it was gonna be,
or maybe I'm just that good.
Or maybe these lights are that good.
All right, I am stoked that went great
and I don't have to try it again.
I'm not stoked that the teeter canon is next.
There she is, I am procrastinating.
I do not wanna ride that teeter canon.
Oh, my God,
I don't even like doing this thing, ever.
In the most perfect conditions
I don't like doing this thing.
Oh, this is a bummer.
This might be the one that I just leave
for somebody else to do at night,
we got another special guest coming soon,
who's a professional rider.
And the next features is a little bit of a bummer too,
look at this freaking thing.
This super steep rutted out roll-in,
in the Elmer Fudd skinny.
I thought skinnies were gonna be easy
'cause you can see 'em great,
but Snake Pit really didn't feel great.
This is one of the scariest skinnies out there.
Like Kyle said in the video,
you can't tell how steep it is until you come out here.
You're on the breaks the whole time,
you hear tires chirping,
and then you're basically just diving into this.
There's a berm, and then there's a double.
If I make this
I'm honestly not worried about the double at all.
If I make that double, then I'm done.
Oh boy, this is a piece of cake.
Everything's just going great right now, Berm Park's open,
Ranger Station is booked solid, got a dream career.
Why am I doing this?
I thought I saw little eyes out in the woods,
I would slap a coyote across the face right now.
It's not a concern of mine.
Oh, all right, let's do this.
(wood crackling) (bike chain singing)
Little sketchy start but recovered.
(gravel crunching)
(wood crackling)
Okay, that worked.
(gravel crunching)
(wood crackling)
(breathing deeply)
All right, it's go time.
Ooh, ooh, okay.
(wood crackling)
(breathing deeply)
(laughing vigorously)
What?
Oh, damn!
Okay, ooh.
That was stupid.
That was one of the best times
I've ever done the teeter cannon,
worked out great.
One of the worst times I've ever did the Elmer Fudd Ridge,
I really felt like I was gonna go of the side
but recovered and once I got through this
I knew the double was gonna be no problem.
I always wanted to do that
because I thought it was gonna be easy
and that it would just be a cool video,
but that was actually really hard, that tested me.
But I'm glad we did it.
Now if somebody ask me,
"Have you ever ride this at night?"
I can say, "Yes, probably a good idea not to do that."
And I also know that these lights are pretty good,
I haven't long-term tested them, or anything,
but at this point it's pretty hard to say
that these are not my favorite lights ever,
because I just survived all that
so I'm gonna run these long-term as my primary lights.
So, thank you all for watching,
I hope you've learned something today
and if you didn't I hope you were at least entertained.
We won't be doing this again any time soon,
but maybe we'll ride somewhere else at night.
Thanks for riding with me tonight,
I'll see you next time.
(upbeat music)