(upbeat music)
- Hey everyone!
Back in Squamish, British Columbia.
I've just had my bike all kitted out
with George, our last day,
and pretty stoked to see how it's gonna ride.
I'm heading up to meet with Micayla Gatto.
She's big on the Ferda Girls.
She's a great female ambassador for the sport,
so I'm really stoked to see
what she's got in store for me.
- My name is Micayla Gatto
and I am a mountain biker.
I come from racing downhill,
but now I'm doing more of the free ride,
shooting video,
creative kind of stuff.
- Hey, Micayla!
- Oh, what's up?
How's it going? - Sick!
Not bad, how are you?
- Yes!
I'm pretty good, yeah.
- Awesome.
- Just cruising on up.
- Sweet, ready to go ride a trail?
- Yeah, yeah.
- I was thinking,
have you ridden Cakewalk before?
- No, I haven't.
- All right, so I think we're gonna go head up there.
- Okay.
- Talk a little bit about line choice.
- Sweet.
- Coming from a downhill background,
you come from a cross-country background, right?
- Yeah.
- So I think we're gonna look at body positioning, as well.
- Sweet.
- And, yeah, just the importance of
picking line choices for your own abilities and
just see how it goes.
- Oh, sounds fun, yeah.
It's something I really need to work on, so I'll be stoked--
- All right.
- To try it out. - Perfect.
Well hopefully I can teach you something.
- I bet you can, okay?
- (laughs)
Okay, so, let's do it!
(electronic music)
- [Zoe] Some people even tried to glide down here for some.
Oh, I guess that's sort of straight that way.
- [Micayla] Oh, that's actually pretty good, too.
- Yeah.
- A lot of the times,
the main line isn't the fastest line.
- Right.
- It's like, the sheep line.
It's kind of like,
the path of least resistance,
but sometimes it's also not the path of fast.
- Fast. - Fast resist--
(laughs)
- Fast or least?
Flast resistance.
(laughs) - Fastestestest?
So yeah, it's good to keep your eyes open and, like,
I mean, you spotted that before I did.
- I'd say, for me, I'd probably
like the smoother, loamery one, yeah.
- Yeah. - (laughs)
- Well, let's try it.
- All right, let's do it.
- Yeah.
- Jump!
Yeah!
- Entering into my line,
I feel like I,
because I have to make a bit of a reach to gap the roots--
- Yup.
- I'm coming into it at a lot faster.
- Right.
- And I know I have to, like, pop hard,
and then I land,
and then I get that pump off the backside.
- Yeah.
- Whereas I felt like, with the middle line,
your line-- - Yup.
- It's a bit tricky going into,
but I also don't feel like going into it slower,
I'm coming out with more speed than the high line.
- Right.
- Does that make sense? - Okay, yeah.
- Because you wanna have good exit speed.
- Yeah.
- So it's okay sometimes if it's hard
to get into something, into a line--
- As long as it shoots you--
- As long as you come out of it faster
and you can go through it faster.
- Okay, so should I try that other line
and just, sort of, see for me, how I feel?
- Yeah, yeah. - (laughs)
- For you though?
- Okay, all right. - Let's see, yeah.
- [Zoe] Okay.
- Yeah, 'cause that root's one to watch,
but if you go to the right of it.
- Yeah.
Maybe I can just come up a little higher and see.
- See what's going on. - See how--
- Like, almost do a little hill climb.
I got you.
- Up!
Hey!
I mean, that was pretty good!
- It felt a little slower,
just because I don't think I got that,
I didn't land on the down like you did.
- Yeah.
- Like, if I could get a bit more confident,
a little bit more,
a little bit more air time, perhaps,
so I could kind of keep it going.
- Yeah.
- Maybe that would be faster?
- Pop up high.
- [Zoe] Okay.
- It's a bit of a move.
- [Zoe] Okay.
Give it the--
- [Zoe] All right.
Up high!
- Yeah!
Oh! - Much better!
Yeah, way better.
- Yeah! - Sweet, thanks, dude!
- No worries! - Sweet!
Yeah, that was amazing.
I'm just thinking, "Oh, yeah, I'm gonna case it,
"I'm gonna case it."
But with enough speed,
and with the right line,
and like you said, staying up more than you think--
- Yeah.
- Gave you plenty of clearance to keep it smooth.
- [Micayla] Yeah, that was perfect.
That was so perfect.
(gentle music)
- Okay, so come to this section of trail here,
with multiple line choices,
and we're gonna see,
oh, here comes Micayla,
we'll see what it looks like.
Oh, sweet!
- [Micayla] This next section,
I kind of wanna go right across this,
right of that,
straight down the guts,
and exit with some speed.
All right, that's how you do it.
- [Zoe] (laughs)
- So, that how you do it, kind of.
I found the two times that I just did it,
for some reason,
I wanted to be pushed over here.
- Oh, okay.
- So, but you don't wanna be over there.
- No.
- So be mindful of that.
So you wanna be left of the tree.
- Yup.
- Right of the rock.
Those are your two, kind of, mental--
- Points.
- Points, to think about when you're entering this line.
A lot of the times in technical stuff like this,
you can get on the brakes and you can kind of, like--
- Get down, yeah.
- Get your head down and, like, focus on what's going on,
but then you can't plan ahead,
and the thing with line choice is,
making a plan that can be
executed throughout the whole line.
- What was your attack?
- Because as soon as you do this--
- Yeah. - It's like--
- You're going there. - Yeah, you're pretty much,
you're doing this.
- Yeah.
- At this point, you're probably
gonna have a bit more speed.
- Yeah.
- Just know that there's nothing
that can really go wrong here.
Just stay right to the tree.
- Yup.
- And it'll shoot you out off the next section.
- So did you just kind of like launch off this,
or did you, like, preload, or--
- Don't, I wouldn't pop.
I would, like,
(squeaks)
like, a little bit, like-- - A little bit of,
(squeaks)
- So you're not, like, getting,
so this doesn't like, buck you.
- Okay.
- And so, you're kind of like, unweighting,
but then you're pushing, you wanna like--
- Push the bike down. - Push the front end down.
- Right.
- 'Cause if you pull up over this--
- It's gonna--
- If you're going kind of fast,
you're gonna end up--
- Whiplash.
(chuckles)
- Down. - Oh right.
- Zee mountain.
- Okay.
- [Zoe] Nice.
- [Micayla] Yeah! - [Zoe] Whew!
- So she's gonna do that one more time.
I noticed a little bit of body positioning going on there
that she can improve on.
I'm gonna use my phone to film her,
because I find it's way easier for the rider
to see what they're doing and make adjustments
rather than me just trying to use my words
and explain what she's doing.
That's okay, but then you see,
as she gets kind of into the steeper bit,
her butt drops back there,
and she's getting real, real crouchy.
She's really, really crouching over the bike,
and her arms are bent.
She's off the back of it.
So I think she could stand up a little taller on the bike.
Just more relaxed, 'cause you've got the body positioning.
- Mm-hmm.
- It's just--
- A little intense. - You crunched up.
- Yeah, okay.
- When you-- - It got steeper.
- Yeah.
- So it's-- - So it's like, staying,
I would say more, a little bit more forward.
- Okay.
- Like, be strong on your arms.
- Yup.
- You wanna feel like there's sort of
an even balance of arm and leg.
- Yeah, and between both wheels.
It's true, yeah.
I think I'm, yeah.
I definitely feel that I'm, like,
putting everything back here,
'cause it's like--
- Yeah.
- You know when you ski. - (groans)
- You're like, ugh! - Yeah, yeah.
- It's like, no, you wanna get into it.
- [Micayla] She's flying!
- [Zoe] That's better,
that's much better.
- [Micayla] Yeah!
Very subtle, because you are still crouched.
- [Zoe] Yeah.
- But it's definitely,
you can see that,
I mean, you're smiling,
and you're a bit more upright,
and you look more confident.
See, you're like-- - More relaxed.
- More like, up and relaxed. - Yeah.
Oh, you said there's a slight difference, but it--
- Check it, can tell.
- Yeah, it made, yeah,
it definitely made a difference.
- You went way faster.
- Hey! - (beep) yeah!
I mean.
(gentle music)
- [Zoe] Woo-hoo.
- [Micayla] Go!
I would say it's fairly straightforward,
but it is hard to pull off.
- Yeah.
- What you don't wanna do
is end up in here.
- All right.
- 'Cause you've got this guy here.
- Gonna skip me off.
- Which you're going to automatically subconsciously avoid,
which is then going to send you--
- To mega death.
(laughs)
- Down yonder.
You wanna get up onto this,
get over this.
This is where you want to be.
- Right.
- Then it's just a straight shot.
Watch your brakes through here.
- Right.
- You don't wanna be
slamming the brakes,
you wanna do most of your braking on the entrance.
- Yup, yes--
- So you can kind of roll it out of the exit.
- Yeah.
- Because if you're coming in hot,
and then slamming on your brakes in the middle of the line--
- Mm-hmm.
That's gonna, like, your suspension doesn't work as well.
Your tires won't be spinning.
- Right.
- So you're not gonna get as much traction.
- It'll lock up.
- Everything just kind of goes to hell in a handbasket.
- Yeah.
Okay.
So putting the drops into practice,
that's kind of what I'm most nervous about, here.
(laughs nervously)
- No, that you just roll off.
You're just gonna--
(whistles)
- Okay.
- (whistles)
Open the rear, over that, over this.
Hey!
Just get in that V, yup!
Yup!
Not too much.
Yeah, nice!
- [Zoe] Yeah, woo-hoo!
- Sick!
That was good!
- Nice, yeah!
Normally, if I'd seen that drop,
I'd have been like, "Oh, I can't take it."
How's it going?
(laughs)
So I'd try and go around it,
and that would've been way worse,
so I'm stoked now that that goes,
and had that little pop,
and that line choice,
and what Micayla was saying about
getting the speed before you get there so you're balanced,
and then you can kind of let her go a little.
I still was a little bit braky,
but it was okay.
- [Zoe] Oh nice!
Here we go!
Yeah!
Woo!
Woo-hoo!
- So you feel like you learned something?
- Yes.
I think, for sure, going with the line choices first,
and you know, thinking that,
oh, this line works better than this line,
but when you ride both of them,
you realize that, hey, actually,
this line's faster and more flowy.
Like, 'cause I was saying,
I didn't think that the roots would be a better way to go,
'cause I'm not good at roots,
but then when you were giving me some advice on
just getting, unweighting the bike a little bit,
made it way smoother, and--
- Good.
- Yeah, that was sweet.
- Sweet!
- Yeah, and definitely, what you were saying about
the body position, as well.
- Yeah.
- On the steeps, and lifting up a little more.
- Mm-hmm.
- And keeping even weight on both wheels.
- Yeah. - Felt way smoother.
- Good!
Well, I noticed a little bit of a difference.
- Yes!
- And hope you did, too,
and you've got a lot more coaches to,
you know, show you the way,
and I'm really excited to see,
maybe at the end of all this,
how you're feeling and what your confidence is like, and--
- Yeah.
- Maybe we can go for a shred. - That'd be sweet!
- Yeah!
- Thank you so much! - You're welcome!
(laughs)
- All right!
- All right, had a sweet day on the trails
riding Cakewalk with Micayla.
Got some pointers on body position
and line choice,
so can check those off.
Now I've just gotta do my homework,
go practice.
But it felt way better, learned lots.
So let's see how these skills transfer
going forward with some more coaching,
so let's see what happens.
- It's all very subtle if you come in
with the right amount of momentum.
A death grip, let's go.
- Wow!
(laughs)
- [Zoe] Whoa!
You okay?
(laughs)
- Rollover!
(laughs)
This is what happens.
- [Zoe] Way more gnarly on foot, this trail.