Freeriding as a world may go away, but the answer to the question if Sorge and the new gang are real freeriders? Of course they are, the riding they do to train for events is freeriding and the “events” are merely venues to display their skills and inspire others to go freeriding. Just because something gains a competitive outlet does not negate what inspired it in the first place. I am sure many of the new riders would be riding just the same if there were no sponsors or events, and that makes them freeriders. Were Simmons and the gang not real freeriders because they got a paycheck? I still believe that the freeride movement stem's from DH being sunbed form the Olympics in 96. Gravity guys finally said screw it lets have fun. And isn’t having fun pushing the limits on a mountain bike really what freeriding is/was?

Dude Trek and Specialized had gravity teams well before “Freeride” was even a term for mountain biking. There was a few years in the late 90's when all the big manufactures figured sponsoring racing was not translating into profits and they got rid of almost all of their teams (also influenced by the fact that many of the big makers were now owned by bowling companies etc). About the same time the boys in Canada started hucking cliffs getting people stoked on riding again and the big guys found they could capitalize of sponsorship better paying one or two guys to do “extreme” stunts to sell bikes, and surprise for everyone when it actually became more than a marketing idea and a viable movement within mountain biking that just happen to coincide with amazing advancements in suspension technology that enabled anybody to do stunts that only a few years earlier would have been an unimaginable stunt in a video. Freeriding did not start the long travel movement, it just happened at the same time as world cup DH tracks were getting more gnarly helped push the marketability of such a product and pushed it over the top so for the first time people besides DH racers were stoked about long travel riding.

Please let it be a mistake.

http://www.durangoherald.com/sections/News/2009/06/19/Exbicycling_champ_Giove_held_in_NY/ Depressing

She choose to sell drugs to make money not because she was a crusader for weed. Those dealers locked up would still need an easy path to cash that doesn't take effort. They get into dealing for cash man. Missy would be selling something else illegal if weed was illegal, the mobsters moved on to other illegal things when prohibition ended. They chose to be criminals 400lbs was not for her use.

In my life I have found that there are many things that can get me high, really high if I concentrate on them enough it blows smoking weed away. Racing DH is far more exciting to me then getting lit, hanging out with my girlfriend/wife or getting it on is far more enjoyable than getting lit. Playing guitar or dj’n for a large audience get me high. I found when I was young that if I was literally high with weed that those experiences while still enjoyable, It was difficult to know what was causing my enjoyment, the drugs or the activity. When I would separate the two I always enjoyed the high I got from the activity over the chemical. At least give kids a chance to learn to enjoy life’s experience for what they are. There will be plenty of life in adulthood that are painful, boring, and stressful that could maybe benefit from some chemical alteration. If you grow up thinking that riding DH is only cool when you’re stoned, then you are missing a pretty sublime experience in my opinion

>>>"well your Dad doesn;t know what he is talking about, weed cannot make someone lose there job and end up on the street" That sounds like a statement telling the kids to not listen to his fathers warnings about drugs, and that getting involved with weed is harmless to me. I understand your point Mazekwan, I do. But I can not accept someone telling a 12 year old to not listen to his father’s advice and that weed is harmless. There are some things that are just not cool. Also I never said weed was going to harm you just that being in an altered state all the time does nothing good for you, if you get drunk every night of your life 1. you are an addict 2. You are living in an state of altered reality and perception “otherwise smoking up would not be worth it) Weather your high is good or not it will eventually be bad for you physically or socially. A lot of my friends just found they enjoyed the life of being high all the time better then the real world, well being stoned is not the real world, you are far less productive at work and school and most everyone else is not living in that same false world that you are when you are stoned. Weed is fine if used as a recreational intoxicant, problem is 85% of the people I know who smoke up feel they need to do it everyday or every weekend, and that’s not cool, that’s a problem regardless if it is bad for you or not. Instead of having some 12 year old kid get hi highs out of drugs why not let him experience the highs of biding or hucking a big cliff or before he goes and distracts from that experience with drugs. I am stoked that you feel you can find some kind of deep experience from smoking, but please just realize that it can and does screw up peoples lives and that part of what makes weed attractive is that altered state… well is what you get out of things really a deep experience or are you just high?

If people only had one or two cigarettes on the weekend to party instead of so many addicts smoking 20-40+ cigarettes a day I am sure some people would grow there own. Have you every grown a pot plant? It is not rocket science and you can grow stuff that will blow your mind, it is as simple as has having the correct variant of seed. Once you have that it reproduces identically all the time.

My relatives have run illegal stills since prohibition, I have run a pot still, I know all about distilling my friend. I can tell you that it is very difficult to 1. not kill yourself producing it and 2. that it is very difficult to make something besides crappy moonshine, it takes skill and if you are going for any kind of quality you will have spent thousands on distillation pots, mass amount of grain every time you produce etc. There is no comparison at all to growing a plant my friend. And yes it is illegal to distill, and when you get arrested for it it's for tax evasion essentially. There is no way that the DEA will transfer it's energy to controlling what plants people are growing in their house when weed is legal. You think people get upset now even defending Missy having 400lbs how do you think it will look for the DEA to be raiding homes because someone has "A weed that grows out of the ground man" and charging them with tax evasion. If it's legalized there will be virtually no control over home production of weed..... it's a weed. Sure there would be a smaller "Amsterdam like" market here but it would be insignificant compared to what is spent on illegal drugs right now. Even so like you said over half of the cost of alcohol is tax right? and there are significantly more drinkers than pot smokers, and I can tell you that tax revenue from booze has not been the secret to wealth for our country. taxing our recreational drugs etc barley pays for automobile deaths and drug treatment for Alcoholics and cancer treatment for smokers. All I am saying is that it would not even be close to being a magic path to wealth for our country. Again it is more important to argue the legitimate reasons for legalizing it like trying to control a weed, the number of users, the relative safety of the product etc

There is a difference between tobacco and weed in that heavy smokers can smoke a pack or two a day that’s 20 to 40 cigarettes a day, if you are smoking that much weed a day you have a problem. 2 to 4 plants can have 4 grow cycles in a year that is plenty to keep people stoned. Sure your skill as a grower can make differences in quality but if you could make almost as good of whisky in your house would you still buy the same amount of jack Daniels? If you could make a Turner DHR for pennies in your garage would you blow 3 g’s on a frame? The small indoor hydroponic kits are what would flourish every dorm room in North America would have a friggn window box. The reality is that you would probably never be able to go to 7=11 and buy a 20 pack of Mexican redhair for $3.00, it would still be so regulated and controlled that it would still be about as much out of your pocket to buy an ounce as it is today. So why would you buy a dime bag when you can grow what ever you want for pennies? I grow my own chives, basil, oregano, chili peppers etc etc, If those herbs were still $100+ an ounce no body would buy it from the store. why would I pay a legit company so much money and pay so much tax when it is legal to grow in my house like a f-n tomato? The legal marijuana market would be much smaller than the current dollars spent on overpriced weed, guaranteed. The tax revenue concept is a non starter used to convince Americans suffering through a depression to legalize your drug. Don’t get me wrong, that’s fine and dandy to cut the Bull shit about how it will make the world a Utopia and erase the national debt.. please just continue on the ridiculous idea of regulating a weed that is less harmful than many things that are already illegal

AsAsbestoses and uranium are natural substances so are poison ivy and Hemlock, just because something is natural doesn’t make it harmless man.