When mountain-biking kills...

A few days ago, someone killed himself on a new “designer mountain bike runs” that have begun to sprout around Park City.

While mountain-biking isn't a sport for sissies and sees its share of bloody falls, broken bones and concussions, death has been up to now a rare occurrence.

My sense is that with the introduction to these downhill-only “flow trails”, that are artificially designed and built for spectacular banked turns, jumps and undulations to create a flowing ride experience, riders find themselves in a situation similar to super steep groomed ski runs in which it's super easy to loose track of any sense of relation between speed and control.

These new flow trails and their special features like banked turns, rolling terrain, various types of jumps, and consistent and predictable surfaces promote a high rate of speed and users get so intoxicated by their fast descent that they lose their sense of control and danger relative to speed.

I have experimented a flow trail like the ones described above last year and I got scared to death on it; immediately, I could see the inherent danger of unbridled speed with a hard terrain, rocks and trees all around...