Building and Testing a TERRIFYING New Gap! #mountainbiking #remymetailler #gopro

What's up YouTube? Welcome back to the channel. So today's plan is to do the massive gap behind me. This is stage 5 of the Squamish enduro. This trail is called Cougar Ridge here in Valley Cliff, Squamish and it's gonna be gnarly so let's have a look. Okay I'm going to walk you through the different changes we've made to that trail in order to make the gap possible. First off, the run out. We removed a couple of the hazards such as the big logs behind me just in case something happened. We made it a little bit wider, safer. Right there there was a bit of a compression because a lot of people were braking right here and then regaining momentum after so there was a little bit of a build-up of dirt so we made it a little bit flatter to avoid the compression and right there we added a bunch of dirt to also limit the compression and to make the transition from the rock to the flat part smoother. We also made it a little bit wider because ideally I want to jump and land on the right hand side of the slab because it's going to be smoother and it's going to align me better with the rest of the trail. Now let's look at the upper part. So this is where I want to put my rear wheel and up there is the takeoff so that way you have an idea of the size. So the biggest part of the job was the landing pad which is right behind me. Before that you had a little bit of a hole on the right hand side and the rock wasn't smooth so we built up that little rock wall in order to support the dirt and we got the landing pad. It's about two to three feet wide and it's probably six to seven feet long so about one and a half bike length so I'm gonna have to be really precise and regardless of how I land I'm most likely gonna bounce a little bit towards the outside which is why having a wider landing was important but yeah it looks pretty good. We got some rain so hopefully the dirt is compacted enough to take on the impact. Now let's look on top. So here is our takeoff. As you can see it's a little bit of a downhill takeoff which means I can spot the landing which is very nice but the landing is also really far down so it's gonna be a huge pull with a big compression and talking about compression one of the bigger challenges for me was the fact that you come into that rock slab and if you have any amount of speed it's gonna want to send you up in the air so I'm gonna have to keep the wheels on the ground and right there there used to be a 15 to 20 centimeter drop which will actually be really tricky to manage the compression on the bike and have time to reset, preload and bunny up for the actual jump so we added a few buckets of dirt and I think this is going to give me a lot more confidence at least for the first attempt not sure if I actually need it or not but for the first attempt I'm really stoked that we have this behind me we've got the actual running as you can see it's pretty steep and gnarly a couple of rock faces a drop and I'm gonna have plenty of speed if anything I'm probably gonna have too much speed for the jump and if I have too much speed my big concern is that I'm gonna struggle to keep the wheels on the ground on that rock slab therefore it's gonna impact how I'm able to carry speed to the takeoff and push on the bike to preload and get the air I need to reach the landing so I'm not gonna try to overcook it I just want to come in really stable line up properly push pull and hopefully make it so let's get gear up and get going it's actually really long like this part is gonna be really tricky I'm glad we put the dirt and in terms of bikes so this is my propane spin drift obviously I feel like it's a good bike for the job but I recently swapped the carbon v2 bars from one up from a 35 to a 50 millimeter rise so I'm a little bit higher which I believe is gonna be better for running gnarly steep terrain but I need to get used to it a little bit more and one modification I've done on the bike obviously I've added some air on the fork on the shock I slowed down the rebound that's gonna make the bike bigger better on bigger impact one thing I changed also is the pedals I went for the time shisto which has domino pedal more platform I think it's gonna give me more support for that landing so all those little things like are going to help my confidence so okay I'm going to roll the feature I think that's gonna be insane actually there's so much going on before the actual jump yeah I don't know what I launched myself into not sure that was a very good idea so I'm actually gonna start from here because this adds a big compression another one here and then I need to control the speed again so I think starting from here is better that was definitely a bit better still a long way though a very long way before we keep on riding I'd like to give a quick shout out to the sponsor of this video Jensen USA Jensen is an online retailer that sells most of the product I'm using you can actually find in the description a link to all the products all the parts I've been using on my bike and anytime you make a purchase using those links on Jensen that does support my channel actually I've been riding for Jensen in 2020 and 2021 and they've been a huge part of the success of this channel so big shout out to them as always if you want to support the channel make sure you subscribe leave a like and a comment that helps out a ton now let's get back to this crazy line what do you think I think it's naughty the landing is tiny but I think my biggest concern is that because of what's on the running I'm not actually 100% confident that I can land past the stick which is where I know I'm gonna be able to handle the impact here we have a little bit of a case pad but it's not enough for how much drop there is because it's well above twice my size so I think it's worth it if we take a ball of wooden log stack them up to here add some dirt so that way I have two less feet to jump I think that will make me feel way more confident for the first attempt and then once I'm done we can remove it and jump it as it is but the way I see it it's a little bit like someone doing slopestyle learning tricks first on a foam pit or on an airbag before doing it to dirt if you have the opportunity to do that you may as well not worth the risk so yeah I think we should do that squamish gold some really good dirt right there still big but that looks much better really glad we built that case pad that gives me a bit of a confidence boost I only saved a couple feet but that couple feet was where I was not 100% confident that I could land where I wanted to land so the plan I'm gonna jump it this way hopefully I land where I wanted to land in the first place which will mean that I don't need the case pad remove the case pad and I'll jump it how it was supposed to be jumped in the first place but regardless if I do that or not we have to remove the case pad because now that becomes a hazard for people that are just riding down the trails so let's get going okay run in it's still long I need another so if I actually ride the entire trail I might be able to get a better flow I think I just need to do it I had like a good flow and a good run in I know what to do control the speed pump the roller go fast and hold on I got this roll drop control the braking push like I didn't even have to to try for it I was actually braking all that stress for nothing that was actually way more chill than I thought the impact was really not bad and I definitely didn't need a case pad I think we're in business now if I did try I feel I could have land on that steep bit at the end the impact would be huge I didn't even try to go fast I was on the brakes and I could really go much faster and bunny up further but now I felt really good I think what was playing with my mind is that you train your brain to slow down because before that was a danger and the drop wasn't possible and now it's essentially the same feature but instead of braking you want to carry speed in order to jump the entire thing and I was struggling with allowing my brain to switch from braking to accelerating but now it felt really good I'm gonna do it again with a case pad then we move the case pad and it's business time so this is my rear wheel and that's actually exactly where I wanted to land in the first place so I really didn't need that case pad but I played it safe played it smart so I'm pretty stoked with that I'm gonna do it again case pad is there and then we'll remove it and we'll send it nice dude your back tire was in exactly the same spot it's funny because when I was at the top I told myself to be consistent like consistent with the speed with the line with the pop so here we go like that compression before even though I'm going slow comes up so quick that I don't have much time to like pull a nice bunny up so it's all about being strong on the bike feeling like the suspension are really balanced and helping the bike jump but you can't really be super proactive and you know properly bunny up and correct it so your speed at the top is actually key if I was going too slow and I need to bunny up that'll be tricky how about we remove that case pad and properly do it look at you you look like a lumberjack okay first attempt without the case pad come on it's the same same same not faster same hell yeah I land exactly on the same spot every time and it's just such an awkward pop but it rides so well I'm really pumped on the vision for this gap I actually asked Jackson Goldstone that I wanted to see what he could do on his bike here but uh I guess he'll have to come back from the world cups to do it he'll probably land right there though this is the living proof that sometimes I do some trail building not very well though here we go second attempt with no case pad that'll be a really sweet line for the enduro no way I will do that after eight hours of racing and my heart rate at 190 and a ton of people around not knowing if someone is too close from the landing but that's definitely the winning line thanks everyone for watching that video I hope you enjoyed it honestly I had a blast taking off that feature pretty iconic trail now and I'm stoked on the different step we did in order to achieve the gap I was definitely on the cautious side but that's the image of mountain biking I want to share it doesn't have to be insane it doesn't have to be reckless you can make those small steps in order to progress if you enjoy the video make sure you like it subscribe leave me a comment and if you want to support the channel simply check out the links down below you can save some money while you support me a little bit you can save on noble wheels DVO suspension propane and you can find a bunch of the product or I guess all the products I'm riding really everything I really appreciate your support thanks for watching I see you next week