The whip was more impressive than the flip. Flips have become boring.

Good comment. It's a two way street, both parties help each other. Volunteer hours for the DNR gets them more funding, and the volunteers/trail builders get to build legal, healthy trails.

The important thing to learn from this is to keep the entrances and exits hidden, keep it on the down-low, and don't make it easy to decommission.

I think they are voting to decriminalize marijuana in Washington state this year, so it is an important election year for mountain bikers down there.

If the tools to forge are so expensive I'm surprised SRAM does it for their Truvativ stem, it's not like they are selling alot of them, and they don't even cost much. Maybe they already had the tools for making other parts? They are the only company I know of that makes a forged direct mount stem.

Awesome! Looks like fun. So is Oahu the best island over there for mountain biking? How do the other islands compare for freeride- type riding opportunities?

Actually, when done properly, a cold-forged stem like the Truvativ is much stronger than a CNC machined stem such as this.

Nice review. I got a Command Post, thought I hated it because of the play and tried the Reverb and hated it even more because of the infinite adjustment. The Reverb has a better lever and less play but I hated guessing where to set the height, a alot of times I would get it a little too high or low, it would feel a little odd, then have to readjust it. Not what you want to be doing on a fast DH. The Command Post only has three settings so your muscle memory gets used to those three settings and you just set it and forget it rather than set it and wonder if it's a little too low or high. The only reliable thing Crank Bros makes is stickers.

The shimano's seem the easiest if everything is dialed but AVIDs are better if the tabs are off alignment. But I hate aligning BB5s, hard to get no rub cause the pads don't sit tight.

Sweet pictures, and I liked the analysis of the different approaches taken at the dry riverbed. Super tight finish for a 20 minute enduro. 2nd and 3rd place must have some regrets.