Barrel Trail with Braydon Bringhurst

#followcamfriday with Braydon Bringhurst. Uphill ninja beast mode engage. 

In all of my years of riding bikes, I have never seen anything quite like this. In addition to being the nicest guy on the trail, Braydon is an absolute ninja. Barrel Trail is incredibly hard by most people's standards on the way down. Most cannot clean all of the features. Braydon rides them in the opposite direction. Scared of that 6ft drop? Try riding up it. I was in awe. 

Further evidence that there is no "right way" to ride a bicycle. Everyone seems very concerned with placing labels on things. Enduro, XC, DH, whatever discipline comes to mind. Braydon transcends all of this. He does his thing, and does it well. I always jokingly use the word "upduro". Well, maybe if you have to label things, you can call it that. Braydon doesn't care what you call it, he just loves riding his bike. More than most, and in a very different way than most are capable of. Myself included. I was humbled. 

I have never witnessed such commitment or raw determination to clean an unrideable section in all of my life. "Uphill challenge"  is an understatement. This is an uphill grudge match, fist-fight of sorts. Braydon will win. 

This marks week 3 of my "Season of Giving" campaign to benefit The Grow Cycling foundation. Go HERE to enter. My friends over at RockShox have been kind enough to donate a fork of the winner's choice for the giveaway, along with a Zoom chat with a suspension tech to get things all dialed in. What a time to be alive. Big thanks to the wonderful people at RockShox. 

Since beginning this campaign a couple of weeks ago, we have raised almost 27K for GROW. Big thanks to all who have entered to win. So far we have a custom painted Yeti frame, some tires from Maxxis and a zoom call with Greg Minnaar, and now a fork of the winner's choice. Coming next week, we will announce additional prizing from Smith Optics. That is a pretty sweet stack of radness to raffle off to the lucky winners. The suspense is building. 

So remember this, next time you head out the door to go for a ride. Forget everything you think you know about riding bikes, and just go have fun. You might surprise yourself. Try something new. Don't let "norms" define your riding, You do you. After all, riding bikes is fun, and no one should tell you how to fun. Enjoy the ride.