100% correct, the crossovers are brilliant. Watching Conor and Manon struggle to climb up to the top of Launchpad that time did so much for my confidence. If legends like them struggled, made me feel a million times better about coughing up a lung when I do it! Hank at Mega Avalanche was epic, he's such a star. So awesome to see Dr Ollie try and go down Wormhole. That trail can be a complete whore in the wet, especially on the roots. I love watching GCN as well as GMBN, so having them on here is great.
Oh, poor bugger. You really stitched him up there, Blake. Such hard conditions to learn. On the other side, it is funny and good on him for jumping out of his comfort zones.
I loved my MTB. I loved my racing bike. Since I was 10 years old I have ridden my bike every day, to school, from school, between towns, up the mountain, trails, downhill. I was crazy about cycling. Then I got older. Everyday life caught up with me, time became more and more scarce, the desire disappeared and all that was left from cycling were scars and memories. 20 years later I ordered an Orbea Laufeny. I can't wait to hold it in my hands. And I am convinced that even after 20 years, my passion will rekindle the moment I sit down on the Laufeny.
After 20 years of being sedentary expect gains to take time. I was sedentary for 20 years, and I got into MTB and I got worse and worse for the first 3 months then I just suddenly had a lot more power. You will probably upgrade to full suspension at some point but keep the hardtail for when 2nd bike is in the shop
More Ollie please, just so I can feel comfortable knowing years as a road rider doesn’t automatically make me good at mountain biking. Quite the opposite, totally understand the wheel drifting sensation I’m still trying to adapt to.
Finally a GCN newbie that isn’t immediately better than me. 🤣 I’m looking at you Hank!! (Do get more of Hank on an MTB though, he is great). I’d love to see you take Ollie on just a good XC adventure ride or bikepacking.
I would definitely like to see Ollie progress his skills off-road. His road achievements are incredible and his fitness levels are really high. A cheeky XC race either later this year or next year if he needs practice sounds good. I'm in a similar boat to Ollie with my off-road skills that I am like bambi on ice, but as I have ridden both on and off road my base fitness is decent, but not at Ollie's level. I believe that thw Doc can smash it.
I'd love to see Olli in an XC race too. He's got a seriously good engine. On a course that's pretty pedal heavy rather than technical, and has a lot of climbing, I reckon he could show pretty well. And for all that he's willing to be the butt of the joke, I think it's hard to ride the amount that he does without having decent bike handling skills. Surely he'd learn pretty quick, and is less awkward than he often plays the part of being.
Years ago my older brother took me for a ride trying to get me into mtn and it was terrible because he threw me in over my head with no instruction. I had zero fitness at the time and zero skill so it was scary, embarrassing and miserable. I literally avoided mtn biking for years until my son wanted to start riding last year. It helped so much to start supper basic and build up my skills. I couldn't help but feel like you didn't do Olie any favors in winning him over to the sport by sending him down black trails and trying to get him jumping cold turkey, but it made for an entertaining video.
Loved Ollie's finally thought, he didn't hate downhill but would give a try again once he built confidence. That's how it should be. I'm sure it also helped that Blake is a great cheerleader.
i had someone come into the room and ask "what the hell are you watching? something with elephants?" all they could hear from the other room was the squealing and whining from Ollie's brakes. 🐘
This was great! I'm sharing this with someone who's just getting started. Seeing someone else struggle with the same issues any beginner will face helps a beginner realize that everyone faces those issues and finds a way to overcome. Very inspiring!
This is awesome. Gotta respect a man that can laugh at himself a bit while learning something new out of the comfort zone. Awesome man really awesome. You both seem like you can enjoy all aspects of cycling even if it's not your exact genre. Just being on some Pedals is what it's all about.
Yes Ollie! Brilliant to see how despite experience in one discipline, there is always still learning in another, especially as Ollie is such a beast on a road bike. He defo took one for the GCN team pushing his boundaries there in the wet, mud and on a black run too (cheeky Blake!) I hate tree roots too, it's my nemesis. Love to see more of this kind of content developing skills form one area into another.
Would love to see Ollie and the rest of the con crew lots more on the channel, also you should train them for a cross country race and see who turns out to be the best.
I always enjoy the new perspectives and comedy when some of you get out of your comfy zones. Like some regular cyclist doing MTB reminds me how I'm not as bad as watching your pro MTB videos make me sometimes feel. Getting out of comfy zones, perhaps next winter some of you could pack your bikes to get up North for some new kind of content. Testing your skills with snow and ice.
Just curious. Did Blake spend 3 days deep cleaning his chain, then hot melt wax it to keep Ollie happy? I would really like o see Ollie do an XC race. How about showing Ollie the alterative route off Alpe d' Huez. How about seeing if Ollie can beat Hank's
Much respect for Dr Dry humor, you got this man! Blake's arm waving teaching technique is a very precise science for your own safety pls remember the choreography while mid air...😂
Great seeing Ollie over in the other camp! As someone who rides both, I truly appreciate both perspectives and love seeing these 'crossover' events. Good job all.
I convinced my best friend (also a triathlete) to do the Telluride 100 (XC mountain bike). Two laps, 50 miles each. First lap, he crashed (at least) six times and DNF'd. He and Ollie would be great mates.
Amazing video, I've enjoyed every second of it. Its great to see that an even very good roadie without the skillset for MTB is failing miserably on trails, basically in the same way I'd fail in road cycling. We are definitely not the same, but we all enjoy our time on a bike and that is what count in the end. No matter if you count watts or the meters of descent - we all love being outdoors and pushing our limits.
The key to understanding XC is this; every lap has a gut splitting, vomit inducing loooong sun baked climb, followed by an immediate turn off into pitch dark, evergreen covered, narrow stony switchbacks. That's the easy part.....
as a beginner mtb-er, I'd love to go mtb-ing with Blake as my teacher. Super energetic and overloaded with confidence in his students' capabilities. sign me up
Love this crossover! As a mediocre off-road rider, road racer, and adrenaline lover, would love to see Blake or other GMBN presenters try some sort of road race like a criterium when the season in right!
30 Years ago, I started with MTB, after 2 years I moved to road bike and never looked back, but after 10 years I did looked and how unsafe and came back to MTB. I like road bike more because it's like meditation, you focus on one thing, but MTB is a real fun and more safe.
In my twenties I did jumps and cross country. Technical routes through forests had both. Falling when your brain forgets to register leaves on the ground on a turn sucks. Paranoia that snakes are under leaves don’t help either. Now in my thirties I like road cycling more.
That's so impressive with the downhill. One could see that Ollie was scared but he came through in an awesome way, would love to see him spend some time with downhill and XC!
When I was younger I alway rode MTBs and loved jumping off anything I could and messing around in the woods and local hills. These days I’ve been a road rider for years and that definitely has a negative impact on confidence off-road. If you spend years trying to avoid mud, gravel, ice and obstacles on the road and being cautious on anything that looks slippery then that doesn’t carry across to MTB very well!
Got a Mountain Bike first, tried it, kinda liked Cross Country, hated everything else, too dangerous. Recently got a Gravel Bike and mostly use it on the Roads and LOVE it - I'm with Ollie here
You two make a good team...............I want to see more of you two crossing over and trying new stuff. Let's see Blake in the velodrome.................Those sprinting legs would be a powerhouse at speed.
The train whistle brakes at 10:43, the slow tip-toeing down there combined with "Aah... Oh god.. aaaah.... This is horrendous. BLAKE THIS IS HORRENDOUS" made me laugh so hard 😂 I've been there
What a hoot! I've loved watching Blake on gcn so I was interested enough to click on Ollie doing off road. Great show and huge respect to Ollie for getting so out of his comfort zone!
As a roadie, I've never been more convinced that MTB is not for me! LOL, this video just shows how terrible MTB would be. Great video and fun to watch.
Ollie really is a champ! I would have predicted that he would not like this, but he gave it a try, and at the end of it, he said he would be willing to try more. It just leaves me wondering when he is going to take you on a 20+ kilometer climb Blake. 😜
I’m totally sympathetic with Ollie, I have done only one spin at cross country with steep descends and is fun but very, very scary for any roadie without off-road skills.
Love this. Ollie is clearly a roadie through and through and if someone has a genuine fear it takes a lot to push through that. It'd be good to see GMBN take Ollie under their wing, teach him some skills and see how he can improve.
Send Ollie to a XC marathon in the alps and he will love it. (Also requires some DH skills). Concerning the jumps, you clould pull out the old video with Dan Lloyd who can actually jump to get him motivated.
Im more in love with the idea of mountain bike than mountain biking. I have a nice bike but don’t go when it’s cold, muddy nor wet. I don’t want all that in my car. Spring thru fall and that’s about it! But same with road biking. I don’t want to have to clean after every ride. I’ll be in the gym on bad days.
This was a good one! I would like to see Dr Ollie racing XC. And I'm sure from now on he will talk more about MTB tires and how to gain confidence in them
The advanced was probably way too much for Ollie, who I didn't know was a Dr! I'm a roadie at the moment, but I grew up in the woods on a BMX bike. I'm looking forward to being able to afford a proper mountain bike and getting back into that
some race XC tracks has also very very difficult downhillsections. As a rooky i know it like it was yesterday, back in the days mid 2000's i went to a race with my 7,4kg 26'' 80mm Race Hardtail. I trained fast wood and backcountry trails, but never ever a realy tecnical track. My Saddle was very very high and i rode a 120mm stem. The second Downhill was like a 5 meter nearly vertical hillside. Bear in mind that there were no dropperpost in this era of MTB Sport! It was impossible for me to master this route. So I took my hat off to everyone who coped with it. The sooner you learn a good mountain biking technique, the better for the rest of your life
Loved the video! 😊Ollie is great! I'm full of respect and admiration towards MTB riders - that's why I subscribe to the channel. Still, maybe aside from less technical XC, I don't have the guts to do it myself.
