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Absolutely incredible drone footage....
Absolutely incredible brakes...? Or maybe a couple of takes...
Oh boy! I’m still flinching and that just watching it!
Jesus! The sort of thing that if you didn't have a bike, you'd quite like a rope!
He just looks effortless doesn't he!
So many "cannot fall" places - amazing
Wow. No outtakes at the end of this video like many do. Because outtakes = death in this case...
Incredible riding and skills, and balls the size of watermelons.
My God.
Line choice at 3:40 a particular highlight for me.
meh, I've ridden Dumyat, just looks the same really.....
Amazing, puts the slabby stuff I've ridden into perspective after all of 10 seconds.
The sheer commitment involved in some of those sections.
Absolutely incredible brakes…?
Granite is pretty much the grippiest surface you could ever hope for, brakes aren't the issue, its having the balls to let them go in first place!
Gibber! What tyres for slab grip?? etc.
My daughter enquired whether I would do that. I think she overestimates my talent and bravery.
I found myself leaning away from the screen a few times!
Genuinely sweaty palms at the end. He must have huge bollixes.
Was up there in the summer - not on a bike though, the guy who runs the boat trips from Elgol (Seamus?) said Danny had been there shooting a new film & it would be one to look out for - if anyone's ever up in Skye take the boat trip from Elgol & see the area, it's stunning.
That's the best video he's done. It felt like the riding I actually aspire to do, but steepened by about 20 degrees!
The bit where it's helmet cam footage and he's riding reallllly slowly and then the line appears to end then HOP! and he's somewhere I wasn't even able to imagine him moving to. Really great.
I need to watch it again for the background scenery. Didn't really look the first time.
The bit where it’s helmet cam footage and he’s riding reallllly slowly and then the line appears to end then HOP! and he’s somewhere I wasn’t even able to imagine him moving to. Really great.
That's the bit I mentioned above. Looks like he's running out of road, you can't work out how he's going to get past it, can't stop, massive drop to the right, then away he goes. 🙂
My hands hurt after watching that.
Granite is pretty much the grippiest surface you could ever hope for,
Hmmm. Not necessarily true, and indeed irrelevant.
Have you climbed on the Etive Slabs? 40 degrees and properly difficult to climb.
Black Cuillin is generally gabbro. Infinitely rougher than polished granite
Crikey - Looks like it's here - NG 47515 20733 v tight contours i.e. pretty much a cliff.
I was wondering when it was filmed and suspected a bright autumn / early winters day as he was wearing a jacket. Someone mentioned summer on a earlier post though. I'd (hypothetically!) certainly want as much temperature in the tyre rubber as possible....so summer would make more sense.
Um I'm in a minority by the looks of it but I'm bit underwhelmed.....
Dh vid by trials rider, no impressive trials moves and similar stuff done before by DH riders, without the brakes on.
Don't get me wrong it's nuts and I wouldn't ride it - especially from 3.30 in....
Just I expected more/something else from Danny.... His other vids are filled with bangers and id watch many times, this is a once viewed unlikely to return for me - since going to Santa Cruz his vids have become more and more MTB than trials and have lost a bit of appeal for me.
I think the photos help put it in a bit of context-
Any MTB shot taken from directly above that's mostly taken up by the bottom of the valley not the trail ahead shows it's shitting steep.
and similar stuff done before by DH riders, without the brakes on.
Interested, links?
Rampage for a start
Like I said it's impressive, but as rather watch Danny jibbing about than riding mountains on a big bike.
Might actually have been Autumn he was there, I was there slightly later than I thought - surface on the rock is really grippy, no way I would think about riding a bike down it though - it's probably steeper than it looks on the video, past this bit it was a climb, not a walk up
Link to interview which is interesting too
https://www.ukclimbing.com/articles/features/danny_macaskill_on_riding_the_dubh_slabs-13325
^^ now the photos in that story make.it look much more impressive...
Good technical bit of riding, but the beginning was giving me motion sickness.
What immediately got me was him climbing up the slabs as if his bike was a feather pillow on his back. I'd be pooping with the fear of loosing balance and toppling over backwards!
Black Cuillin is generally gabbro
Everyday's a school day. My geologist wife just explained the gabbro is similar to granite but much courser grained so would be very grippy indeed.
I had in my head some of the exposed rock sections at Fort Bill. In your head you think it will be slippy but its like riding on sandpaper.
None if it is anywhere near as steep, exposed or long as the stuff Danny is riding though.
It must have been tempting to dunk the disc brakes in the loch...hssssssss!
What a stunning place, what a stunning rider.
Pah!
What's he done on grit?
(climber's joke)
Hmmm...struck me as like RB Rampage, but slower and without the jumps, but with increased jeopardy. Amazing location and impressive action, but I prefer his trials stuff.
Just read the UKC article.
An Alex Honnold/Danny Mac collab on something would just be next level awesome. Danny seems keen, not sure Honnold would be interested though.
That gabbro is supper grippy rock, and if anything it just adds to the horror. A slide, let alone a fall would be horrible. Some insane exposure too, plus the challenges of staying on the scouted route and all this after the effort of getting there with your bike too. Really well planned, ie, non-linear drone filming too.
Onza Octopus tyres for the win though...
Really enjoyed that, so improbable.
It's a moderate grade rock climb, i.e. you would rope up for a lot of it unless you are experienced and confident. Would love to see a making of and know what percentage of it he did!
On the temperature thing, you get more friction when climbing (rubber and skin) in cooler weather than hot.
I've climbed the Dubh Slabs, I believe it's the longest graded rock climb in Britain. The rock is incredibly rough, even though there are no "holds" the angle is such that you can pretty well climb/walk anywhere but there is a "line" - you can see one of the small marker cairns at one point - that folk have taken over the years. We did it in running shoes. It's not an even gradient as evidenced in the video but even the steeper bits are only just past the "hands in pockets" gradient.
He started just above the crux of the climbing route - the part where the video starts and the drop off over the small overhang. Can't remember now if the climbing route takes that line near the edge at the 3:40 mark.
Given the roughness of the rock I'd want full body armour on that - it'd make road rash look like just a scratch.
That was amazing.
Incredible scenery
Incredible rider skills
Incredible drone skills - shows how far we have come. They were once a poor man's helicopter - they are now getting footage beyond impossible from a helicopter, or anything else come to that.
Given the roughness of the rock I’d want full body armour on that – it’d make road rash look like just a scratch.
My thoughts too. Gabbro is amazingly grippy but a fall is hellish.
No long shots of the super techy exposed section at 3:40 so he could've been on the end of a safety rope for that, but we know he had no such thing on Collie's Ledge in The Ridge (
so I'm only speculating as to the possible, not the probable.
Awesome video.
Line choice at 3:40 a particular highlight for me.
I didn't even have to check to know exactly which bit you meant. Turned my ballsack into half a walnut.
Line choice at 3:40 a particular highlight for me.
When you look back at the aerial shot just before it, you can see the carefully placed stack of rocks letting him roll onto that ledge on the left.
I wasn't suggesting it was a spur of the moment decision to go left 🙂 . All carefully 'curated' prior to sending, obviously. The way it was executed on the video was good, though.
Absolutely. On first watch I was like "err, where on earth is he going to go now????"
TBH, I was also expecting some chalk marks or other markers but didn't see anything (on first view at least).
It was the bit at 1:07 that first grabbed me.
I think there were occasional rocks placed to mark some parts of the line.
anyone’s ever up in Skye take the boat trip from Elgol & see the area, it’s stunning.
+1 Even though its been over 40yrs since I was last there ☹️
I think there were occasional rocks placed to mark some parts of the line.
I think some of those are marking the normal climbers line too. I suppose he's actually piecing it together in small chunks, so it's not like he has to remember the whole route.
Um I’m in a minority by the looks of it but I’m bit underwhelmed…..
Dh vid by trials rider, no impressive trials moves and similar stuff done before by DH riders, without the brakes on.
Rampage for a start
Now that's where I have to disagree. Whilst Rampage is beyond amazing, those guys spend weeks beforehand digging the trail and creating the lines and the drops. All the big stuff has a run out built in. In most cases if they do fall they're looking at 50 odd feet onto a sloping, dirt landing. Whereas Danny is looking at 800+ feet via rocks onto rock.
Given that video footage always flattens out the steeps, the fact that you can clearly see that it is very steep means that it is actually insanely steep. Not sure you'd get many, if any, of the current DH crowd, or indeed the freeriders, riding that, some of the control and moves that he applies are very trials specific.
Horses for courses though. I think it's awesome
There's no doubt he knows exactly where he is going. We're watching nicely edited Youtube vids, not race day on the Hahnenkahm.
I think there were occasional rocks placed to mark some parts of the line.
Pretty sure there are for the climbing route. It's almost a sea of rock in front of you so there's a few little cairns here and there as way markers. The one at 3:40 wouldn't be one of those since it wouldn't be visible from below. There's one at 1:43 for example.
I watched Danny's video a few times now, the off camber section near the end makes me genuinely queasy.
Its weird, I think as a mountain biker you have a good feel for how much the camera flattens stuff so you can really feel how steep it is. Or you can relate it to much milder stuff you might have ridden yourself and appreciate just how utterly bonkers some of those lines are.
All the big stuff has a run out built in. In most cases if they do fall they’re looking at 50 odd feet onto a sloping, dirt landing. Whereas Danny is looking at 800+ feet via rocks onto rock.
There is a reason they use those mountains in Utah for Rampage, the dirt is pretty forgiving. Don't get me wrong the exposure is still huge but I know what i'd rather land on if I had a spill.
Whereas Danny is looking at 800+ feet via rocks onto rock.
Actually the rock is so rough that you'd grind, literally, to a halt pretty quickly unless you were rolling. The video makes it look steeper than it actually is. There are sections that steepen but generally the lower bit is the steepest, maybe 40deg, but once you get above the first 100m or so it's more like 30deg. I'd say the slab at Dalbeattie is steeper.
is this the first video Danny's done without Stu Thompson?
Amazing video he really is worth his weight in gold for his sponsors. I think it also does wonders for Scotland when you see vistas like that. I think the little endo turns at about 45 degrees incline are what amazed me . I actually prefer his mtb videos to his trials ones.
Well done Danny .
Can we crowdfund Danny and Chris A racing down that? Their videos seem to be covering on a similar 'trail trials' style.
TBH, I'm not much fussed how it was put together or chunked up to make it 'easier' (a really relative term here I think)... The skills and balls on show are stunning.
Gibber! What tyres for slab grip?? etc.
Downhill super soft are mentioned in the UKC interview, for when you definitely, positively don't want any skidding.
@donald 👍
The drone footage was really lovely and well thought out. It also means that he had to ride a big section of it in one take. He has such a fantastic set of skills for the different parts of that descent.
What tyres for slab grip??
Sticky Slab
Gabbro Grab
Rocky Ricky
Dangerous Danny
Danny Mac? Pfft. Hold my beer... https://singletrackmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/is-this-the-uks-biggest-drop-mtb/
Great skills for sure and stunning riding but, this wonderful drone footage everybody is going on about made me feel sick.
Far too much whizzing about and changing pitch during the first half of the film.
Can't take away the billy big balls skill level but spoilt the film for me it was that annoying.
@stwhannah - impressive, lacks drone-age... 😉
The Ridge plot line:
Friction: that's your limit.
Danny: hold my beer.
Brilliant. There's just enough balance between awesome skills and puckering up. I can't wait until the uncut footage gets out on Danny's insta and YouTube accounts, which it will eventually and undoubtedly.
I think that we're pretty close to peak drone pilot, especially when there's a scenic backdrop like that. Makes sense when following someone hammering from jump to jump in a quarry, like nine Knights or darkfest, but not so much when the background is as awesome as here. I don't imagine for an instant that John Ford or David Lean would have been whooshing around the landscape if they had the technology at hand.
Anyway bloody plagiarist, stealing my favourite biking earworm. Boards of Canada's Happy Cycling is too sedate for when I'm busting out across open countryside.
Granite is metamorphic, gabbro is volcanic like basalt, porphyry and andersite but IANAG! There are parts of the Cuillin made of a gabbro variety called peridotite that just brushing your hand against it draws blood.
I'm not remotely fussed about the lack of stunts, the riding and control is incredible.
Sgurr Ban slabs at Fisherfield are the other huge area of slabs in Scotland, rock is Quartzite with nowhere near the same grip levels. Not in the same difficulty bracket mind>
Boring
Boring
Horses for courses and all that. But, wrong.
😛
Granite is metamorphic
Granite is very definitely an igneous rock!
Love it, prefer this type of vid over the over produced glitzy stuff. I poo myself on Dalbeatties slab so would be a quivering wreck there!
They had that amazing side on shot of him in a newspaper and were talking about it on BBC Breakfast this morning.
Naga Munchetty was remarking that he must have had to be going so fast to ride up that... 😂🙄
What tyres?
Schwable Big Apples Plums
Granite is metamorphic, gabbro is volcanic like basalt
Welcome to the internet
Both Volcanic. More silica in granite more mafics in gabro. Bothe slow cooled and large grained
WOW.
Thanks for that OP, that was a much needed pick me up.
Can see his street skills in use.
Very impressive and ring-clenching, but curiously a bit boring to watch - I say that because I spent much time marvelling over the drone piloting, the Arcade Fire soundtrack and spotting the little piles of rocks. Like Mayo and Kermode say if you thinking about how they filmed it, you’re not being immersed in what they filmed. Preferred the one where he finishes by pivoting over the fence to get to the beach.
Just incredible.
Next video: Chris Akrigg riding up it 😂
There's a good interview over at MTBR here where he explains a lot of the details.
Both Volcanic. More silica in granite more mafics in gabro. Bothe slow cooled and large grained
plutonic, not volcanic. Granite is felsic, gabbro as stated is mafic.
Superb riding and the use of a drone, my palms were all sweaty watching that!
A great video!!
There is a Behind The Scenes operator listed in the credits, looking forward to watching a BTS video.
Next video: Chris Akrigg riding up it
Now that would be the best ripost ever...!
Going to be interviewed on BBC Breakfast this morning.
On now
Came across good.