Watch Cam Zink overshoot an 80 ft canyon gap

Says a lot for the safety gear these days. While that was a hard landing, that was far from the worst crashes I’ve seen in vids. Still nasty and something this XC racer would never try.

Ryan – there were guys competing with out armor.

hearing cam say ‘ohmygod’ when he hit the eject button got me queezy. glad he’s good considering that.
he’s gonna want revenge on that gap next year.

Not even gloves?

Holy crap. In the POV video, that sh!t looks completely insane. Those guys are nuts!

@dave – i watch people texting while driving by me on my bike. got some crazy disgusting wright brother footage for ya. bikes tryin to be planes?! wtf?

The comments on this post (along with any of the other finely crafted ones posted by Saris) should be reason enough to understand that forcing DH/FR content the frequenters of this site is not worth your time anymore. Some folks have a very very narrow worldview of cycle sport. It’s a shame.

Free Will… people think we are crazy here riding our bikes in the woods at OMG 25 miles per hour…

I am serious here… but why bail off the bike? it seems like the 8-12? inches of travel the bikes have it would be a safer bet? I really don’t know so I am asking…

If you watch it from the exterior camera angles, you can see that the bike was over-rotating, he would have gone in face first if he had hung on. No amount of suspension is gonna save you from that kind of digger.

I agree with some of the posters here on letting these guys do what they do. This is much safer than F1, NASCAR, big wave surfing, blah blah blah.

Also, my fav part? “Hey Bros” at :30 before he drops into the final run-in. Reminds of Cam McCaul (?) who had conversations with camera crews while back flipping.

these guys are the .00001%. They have skills beyond what dave the spandex roadie could ever dream of accomplishing. So to call them foolish, this event disgusting, or to compare it to suicide, is simply pure ignorance. Any athlete has the right to refuse any event if they deem it unsafe. Is it dangerous? Obviously. But any more dangerous than popular sports like American Football, F1, MotoGP? Absolutely not, as the consequence of death is an actual reality in some sports, but not really freeride.

based on the comments, it is incredible to me the lack of knowledge some people have — and yet are willing to say *anything* about something they clearly don’t understand.
First “dave” calling it disgusting and comparing it to russian roulette. Really dude? How about the fact that only 19 states require the use of a helmet on all motorcycles, and 29 states have no bicycle helmet laws? That is way more disgusting IMO.
and then to claim that “this isn’t cycling” is total BS. Like comparing one form of art to another and saying oil isn’t art but sidewalk chalk is.
At least these guys don’t dope or shave their legs. They don’t blame the $ or their coach or their team for going astray and doing illegal stuff, then deny deny deny until 12 years later when admitting doping turns out to be quite lucrative since they can’t compete on a bike anymore.

Nope, these dudes just RIDE, they throw all that BS out the window from day one. Like a kid who loves to ride at 5 years old, these guys just continued to love riding. INjuries won’t stop them. One day, if they lose the love, they’ll stop. That’s the cleanest form of Cycling there is.

And to those who wonder why he ditched the bike in mid-air: his bike has roughly 8″ of suspension travel. At that height and speed, landing on flat (he clearly knew just after takeoff that he was going to overshoot the landing transition) would be almost more dangerous. He’d definitely blow through the travel and likely bottom out his crotch on the toptube, his hands would have blown off the bars and maybe taken the stem to the face. Who knows, but the point is having a 40 lb angry piece of sharp metal between your legs when you huck 60 feet to a flat landing is not a good idea.

Somebody said there were sports on tv more dangerous than this? What sports are those? I did find it odd he wasn’t wearing gloves, but this speaks to the fact that this was probably a routine jump for him. Its kind of like one of us riding our local x country trail that we’ve done a billion times, if i forgot my gloves no big deal, for them, its amazing it takes super confidence and skill to be able to do this. Confidence so unshaken that they aren’t wearing protective equipment.

In fact some of these guys might even think the equipment somehow hinders them or something.

I find it funny when pots call kettles black.