Riding the Gnarliest Legal Mountain Bike Trail in the US and more! #mountainbiking #remymetailler #gopro

Johan, are you scared? Well, a little bit. I am scared. I stand tall, my shoulders are above the bars. Hard line! If I can walk on it, I can stop. That's the science. That was fast. What's up, YouTube? Welcome back to the channel. For today's video, we are flying to Sedona to ride the gnarliest sanctioned trail in the United States. It's going to be epic. We're also going to be checking out a bunch of other features. I'm going down there to hang out with the team Cyrus and support the launch of the new bike rack called The Henge. Now, for bikes, we've got my Spindrift right here, but it's not finished yet. It's for a future video. So I'm going to be using the propane tie that's behind me. And a couple of things I want to share with you before we move forward with the video. First, the podcast now has its own channel. It's called Breaking Down the Line. You'll find all the episodes, all the videos. It's going to be some really cool content with riders such as Steve Vordaug, Jesse Melamed, Jackson Goldstone, Johan Bailly, and many more. Super excited about it. So make sure you check out the link down below. If you want to follow the content. And another thing, behind me, you've got the steady racks. I've been using for a while, but those are the all new Proflex. They just came out. Make sure you check them out. Now, let's go ride. How are you feeling? Pretty good. Look at where we are. Yeah, pretty windy today, though. Pretty windy, but beautiful. Like, this is actually beautiful, yeah. It is very beautiful. It does look worse from down below. Yeah, yeah. As you get closer, it kind of flattens out. It's not super hard. It's just extremely exposed. Let's walk on it. And the faster you go, the easier it is. Because I think the catch is, when you pedal, because it's off-camber, if you clip a pedal on the rock, that's where the big danger is. Yeah. Like, see this? Like this, this is a big catch. Wow. But it's quite off-camber, huh? I think, to me, the corner is the easiest part. Right here, it's super narrow. I couldn't walk that yesterday. Johan, are you scared? Well, a little bit. I am scared. Okay. It's a bit windy. It's a bit wet. Conditions are not ideal. And this is very exposed. Okay, well, let's do it. Let's get it. It's like biking, huh? I trust you. If you fall, I fall with you, so. Okay, cool. You guys good? Okay. Ah, where is it? Yeah, I'm not too sure where it is. It's super windy. Following you is scary because I try to go as fast as I can on some section and then I catch up with you. Yeah. So I have to brake. I have to brake on the off-camber. I'm like... Oh, that's cool. Did you see the video of the guy with the unicycle? No. Oh, I saw. And then the thing fell. Yeah. He dropped the unicycle? Well, he like, he crashed and then he cut the rock or something and then the unicycle... All the way down. I mean, at least he's got only one wheel to replace. Sorry, that was a bad TV joke. That was a TV joke. I'm gonna ride the right line into that new exit that I've ridden about three years ago. But I'm gonna show him first that it goes. Okay. It goes! You ready? White line number two with a little option. White line number two with the spicy option. So I have done it but Yoann hasn't yet. So now I'm gonna follow him. Yeah. Wow, Yoann. Nice one. Yeah. And the crowd is on fire. I definitely left some space because I thought you took the wrong line. I saw you going really far left and I was like... Yeah, that was my entry. Instead of going straight down, I just opened it. I had the little front wheel. Yeah. Yeah, that surprised me. So I was like, oh, did he make a mistake? So I waited, you know, make sure you were safe before I dropped in. Thank you. Have a great day. ****, Yoann. I was taking my phone to film you because I'm like, his bike is gonna fall. And as I go to press on video. Okay, let's go to ride the hard line. I don't know, Yoann. I'm not a local. I don't like the mud. Me neither. We left Squamish and Whistler to avoid the rain. And it's about to storm. So dirt is really nice. Hey, how are you? Have a wonderful day. Yeah, my girlfriend calls me crazy. It's so fresh here. Yoann, you're so polite. Can't believe people call French people rude. What a beautiful feeling. Yeah, it's unreal. The colors are insane. I hope we're gonna get some sunset. I think Saturday, Sunday. Yeah, I never thought I'd say that, but I quite enjoy the climb. Yeah, it's not too hard. Interesting. I'm actually pretty bad at the tech climbing because I never do it. Yeah, Zach. Okay, high line. Oh, yes. Yeah, yo. It's a style. You could be on a different bike with different clothing and still recognize your style. Okay, we go hard line. New trail. Uh, Lars Romming. I think was the first person to pioneer the line. And it used to be, if I'm correct, a trail that was pretty, well, it was unsanctioned and it was just a line. And I actually did a video with Nate Hills back in 2022. And the video was really popular. And the community ended up making it a sanctioned trail and it just opened. So I'm excited to see, yeah, a couple of weeks ago. I'm excited to see the entire work they've done. I think it's quite different than what I actually rode. It's gonna be cool. Hard line. Hard line? Take one. Let's do it. I also was going a bit fast. Oh, ----. That's a lot of work. And one day that might also be the bottom of the ocean. And one day that might also be again the bottom of the ocean. Uh, yeah, but the hard line is on your right, I believe. I think it's in that goodie. The hard line, yes. So we are on the famous hard line. This is supposed to be the newest and gnarliest sanctioned trail in the US. Starts from up here. And the original line is right there. You manage the off camber, go on the edge of the slab, and then you go on the right hand side of the crack all the way down to where Johan is. And you really want to manage the compression. Otherwise, you're gonna get bugged and go over the bar, which will be terrible. Yeah, if you accelerate too much here, get bugged, not good. Yeah. So really important here to like break the speed, active, engage the shoulder, bam! Yeah. Control. So we're gonna start by warming up on the new line, which is right there. So it's like along the rock slab here. Pretty off camber, but you got a nice exit. Definitely a bit narrow. And we're gonna go and check out what's behind. If I can walk on it, I can stop. That's the science behind it. Do you agree? I agree. That's science. Oh, that's a beautiful corner. Like if we can manage that well, you can actually open it right here and then tap a little bit. No stern right here. Like a Florian Nicolai. Oh, slippery. Oh my God, that's very slippery. Yeah. It didn't look like it when... It's crazy how the rocks get very slimy. Yeah, it's called slick rock. Is that what it's called? Yeah. The slick rock? Yeah. I guess that, yeah. Makes sense. And then straight down. Wall ride. Wall ride and they put a ton of work down there from the video I've seen. Are we coming down here? Yeah, if you are just on the side here, it's good. Half line, take one, neutral. Let's do it. Yeah, so good, dude. It was super narrow. Look at the work that went through to build this. Attention, these trails have extremely steep drops, exposed cliff edge and high technical features. Experts only. Horses not recommended. Well, thanks for the tips. I won't bring my horse. Yeah, Rémy. So good. It's smooth, it's really nice. Clean, controlled. Yeah. Really. Yeah, it's definitely super exposed, but that's the skills we practice every day at Dominique Squamish. The rock is just a little bit more slippery and it's not the same color. Other than that, pretty much the same. Yeah, yo. Yeah, how was that? That was good. Nice job. Very controlled. Controlled, first time. A bit nervous, you know, entering it, but then it was OK. Now we're going to redo it. You're going to follow me. We're going to go slightly faster. Let's do it. So Johan's done it. I've done it. Now let's pick up the pace as we always do. That was sick. That was really good. Such a good line coming into it. Yeah, man, that was sick. We did it. That was fun. That was fast. Very fast. That was very fast. My God. Dude. That was fast. Like, really fast. Good job, Raymond. Thank you, buddy. That was a good display of skills and bike handling. Thank you. Like we both, you went down and then as soon as you disappeared, we looked at each other. You can see. It's for me, for a lot of my sponsors. So I got to show them, you know, doing good work. By the way, make sure to check out the links down below. Every time you purchase on Jenson USA, that supports the channel. So thank you so much for that. And buy a DaVinci. Good job. Yeah, that was English. Yeah, you jumped. Yeah, you jumped and then you jumped and then you bounced. It's really windy. Like, this was OK. It's OK in the wind. Yeah, it's the top. It's so windy. The top. The bottom is really windy. But there's nothing. There's no reason to race down the thing again. Yeah, yo. So I am now near a trail called T-Cup in Sedona. It is actually behind that little mountain called Sugarloaf. I discovered this zone with Nate Hills and my buddy Ryan Rodriguez from this crazy line. It's basically a 10 foot drop into a super tiny landing, probably the length of a bike, into a riverbed to make things even trickier. It's super slippery. And there's basically a step on the way that can catch a rear wheel. So you have to be extremely precise. The running is very difficult. But me, to make things even trickier, I mean, I come this way, make a corner onto that slippery ground and do basically a 270 degree turn on my front wheel, line up, one pedal stroke, jump into that tiny landing. Let's give it a go. Yeah, that was a bit sketchy, but it worked. So my front clip was definitely smoother. Fun one though. As you can see, it is snowing today in Sedona and that's a bit of a bummer because originally, I had planned to do the video on the Hardline Trail with a pioneer of the line and the person at the origin of the trail, Lars Rommeck. But Lars is with me today. So we're going to ask him a bunch of questions and he's going to explain us the entire process to turn this line into a sanctioned trail. So you live in Sedona and you are the first person who has ridden the Hardline. Can you tell us a little bit about the story of this line? Yeah, so when I first found this line, it was actually 2016 and I looked at it, the friend, Jeff and I, that came here to Tex and we found this just kind of exploring on what we would call our Freeride Friday rides. And this thing, we came upon and looked at it and none of us at the time had near the like capacity to do it. We did, just didn't make sense in our head yet. And so as time went on, like I've always been really active in advocacy here. I had the thought, you know, I can actually make that line more palatable. And at that time, I still had not ridden it yet. So I was actually fixated on making it a little bit easier for that. And then had the idea of this big line in my head that, man, that works, but I couldn't quite process it. And then some years later in about 2019, my friend Simon and I were riding and I watched him do a move and I watched how you manage this section of a long, slow corner on this big roll. And as I followed him, it kind of clicked that like, oh, over there in that gully, I can actually incorporate that technique to come down that piece. And sure enough, came out here with Nate Hills and a handful of other guys out here and had that in my head of how that was going to work and just kind of, like they say, envision yourself, your success. And it worked. A little bit rowdy on the exit of that day, but it was, it went quite well. Awesome. And that was the first time. So yeah, you made it work. And then you thought, why not making an entire trail? Yeah. So I think that, that, that working just got me super jazzed. I mean, Nate and I came out here multiple times riding it and then I showed numerous other people just like coming out, session this thing. And then it just got me like, like, I know I'm not going to make that the real trail, but it just made the whole rest of it. It was so beautiful and so many cool moves all the way down that it just sounded like it really motivated me to be able to share that with the rest of the bike community. Yeah, that's awesome. And I had seen that first clip you posted and, you know, in where I live in Squabish, we do similar type of riding where we look for like cool features. And so seeing that definitely inspired me to come to Sedona. And when I first came here in 2022, like I had one idea in mind was to check out this line. And we actually were supposed to do that video together that I've done with Nate Hills, but at the time you were injured. So now we get to do it together. Obviously the weather today is not with us and you've ridden it hundreds of times and today is definitely not the time to do it. But can you tell us about the process of getting a line that's essentially at first an illegal line, turn it into a sanctioned trail? So the whole process to get this trail into a real trail is essentially having those relationships with the Forest Service, the land manager in other cases, and coming up with a proposed action of what that proposal is going to be. And that was putting the line on the ground and a GPS file to give to them, showing them the different work sites to how we would manage the risk and make it at an acceptable amount of risk for a double black. And then put it all together and then have them put that out to the public and have the public comment on it in what they call the whole NEPA process and proposed action that Forest Service creates. And we created that plan. We went out, got public support behind it, the club behind it, the Red Rock Trail Fund, Broody Bicycles Coalition. And that's how we got it out there. That's awesome, man. So the trail just opened. You have a movie premiere that's supported by Specialized. We actually run the same helmet. You got the ambush today. Me, I've got the tactic. And yeah, can you tell us a little bit about the movie? So the movie, I reached out to a couple of my friends at Specialized with my call and then they contracted a guy with Kaysen Schumann that helps out with the rooted group of doing leather filling. And Kaysen came out with us and we did our big push of about two weeks of work here with the trail crew and myself, a bunch of volunteers. And we just knocked it out and Kaysen documented the whole build process during those two weeks. And just to really highlight the build itself and then capture also some of the processes that go through with NEPA and the Forest Service and the public portion, just to try to really inspire people to like go out and do this the right way. Because the really cool thing about this whole process is this is one of the first really progressive trails like locally here that's official this way and it's permanent. It's not just going to go away. They're not going to close it. I mean, it's here and it's like good to go. And so if we get more people able to do that, it's pretty positive for the community in general. And I think it's going to inspire other communities, not only around Sedona, but other places in the US, obviously Canada and a bunch of other countries to actually start making sanctioned trails with a higher level of difficulty because bikes are getting better. Riders are getting better. Everyone is progressing. And the nature of the sport is to go steeper, bigger, faster. And without a proper network of legal trails, people are building illegal trails without those lines anyway. So may as well have a process to make those lines official. And so people can find the trail on Trailforks and what would you advise people to ride before riding this feature? Because obviously that's probably the nuttiest one around. Is there anywhere else people can warm up before doing this? I would say if you're visiting Sedona and you're curious to ride the trail, definitely tackle highline, hogs, hangover. And when you go to do those rides, if you get through them, if your stress levels are up in those areas and you feel a little bit uncomfortable with it, you might want to check that a little bit for some of these crux moves on this trail. Don't be honest with yourself and don't ever set yourself on it. But if you enjoy those trails and it puts a big smile on your face, this one will put an even bigger smile on your face. Sounds good. Well, thanks a lot. Now let's ride the bottom of the trail. Sounds good. Oh, it's cold. I can't feel my hands. So you can be with a really good group of buddies and you're having a blast like today and there is the flow that we can create ourselves on the bike with the trail. And that's that flow that we're going to focus on today. OK, the things that we can manage. I place myself. I stand tall. My shoulders are above the bars. I can track stand. I can look ahead. OK, I have the right line. I'm going to start rolling, which means that now I commit. Slowly release. Again, I do my little run in. So me, I choose to take off on the left of the rock. That's a little bit more distance. But for me, that lines up a little bit. That makes more sense. And for the story, I've done it 50 times yesterday. And like when he says 50 times, he did it 50 times. I mean, 50 times. Thank you so much for watching that video. I hope you enjoyed it. Once again, I had a blast riding in Sedona and I look forward to going back next year. Hopefully we don't get any snow this time. If you want to support the channel, simply subscribe, give me a like, a comment. And to save some money, check out the discount codes down below. You can save on a lot of the products I'm riding such as Devious Suspension, Haze Brakes and many more. And if you purchase on Jenson USA, just consider using the links down below that support the channel. So thanks so much for that. As I mentioned earlier, if you have any interest on listening my podcast, you can find it on Spotify. But it's also got its own YouTube channel. It's called Breaking Down the Line. You'll find the link down below. There will be conversation with Yuan Bareilly, Steve Vornell, Jesse Melamed, Jackson Goldstone, and many more. It's going to be a lot of work, but I'm sure you guys will really enjoy it. So thank you for subscribing to that as well. See you next week.