Interesting article. Sorry I suck at sharing properly!
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Thank you!
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There’s so much wrong with the toxic macho culture, and we men should recognize that it’s harmful to us as well. At any point, it’s easy to replace “woman” with “man” when talking about making people feel “less than” for not riding a feature. I’ve long been an advocate for being cautious and living to ride another day. If you’ve ever seen me on the trail, you likely know that I ride with a lot of armour: knee and shin pads, elbow pads, armoured shirt and riding shorts, in addition to helmet and gloves. Why? Because I fractured my elbow a few summers ago and it still gives me some trouble to this day, even after surgery.
I’ve opted out of features that I’ve ridden before simply because I wasn’t feeling it that day. Call me a chicken if you want, but I’d rather hit a trail with confidence. Goading people into something they’re not ready for is a recipe for disaster. When you’re nervous, you’re more tense and tentative; not an ideal way to conquer something new. We should absolutely encourage our friends to progress, but we should also encourage smart riding and not pressuring people into things they’re not ready for. That inclusivity and understanding helps us all.
Aside: I ride mostly with Neil these days, and we have very different riding styles. He’ll hit some features without blinking that I balk at, and vice versa. It’s that diversity of styles, opinions, ways of thinking, etc. that have pushed us both to be much better riders than we were a couple of years ago. That’s one great reason to encourage inclusivity and diversity within our sport, aside from the fact that it’s just the right thing to do. 
Thanks for sharing the article, it’s a good read.
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Interesting read. Of interest too, because of recent discussions about the name for the Mcintosh Run vs. Fight Trail system, and “Chicken Lines” (note the picture chosen to headline the article).
Psychologically speaking, what we find funny often involves contrast, surprise or something mildly shocking, so humor is often riding an edge. There can be a fine line between what’s funny and what’s offensive, and what’s funny varies between cultures, societies, and individuals. As time goes on and society changes, what was funny may not be anymore, and what wasn’t funny may be now, for better or worse (hopefully better).
I can’t think of any local trail names that are questionable, but just because I’m not offended doesn’t mean they’re not offensive to someone else. Any local trails that you can think of that have questionable names?
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Yeah, I was wondering if anyone would mention that. It was a different time and we were different people back then. Actually, not really much has changed.
Also there is Single Mothers, Quick Exit and Money Shot. I was surprised to see a trail named Money Shot at Keppoch, maybe they don’t know what it means.
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The Granite Pussy is a feature, not a trail. You can tell people that have ridden it by how scarred up their left rear QR is. I could probably spend all day correcting stuff on trailforks about wrandees but meh.
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Looks like the above trail has been renamed on trailforks. It’s now the granite hell.
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Cool, now I just have to reprint 5000 copies of the page from the mapbook and send them out. Maybe I’ll just do a .pdf and people can print it themselves if they want to.
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looks like bent modified it 3 days ago.
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I paid my money, I want my updates lol.
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Money Shot has more than one meaning (Not saying that wasn’t the intended meaning)
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Are you 100% sure that maybe its just not you that makes yourself feel that way? And that nobody else cares if you don’t ride a certain feature or not.
Sometimes being hard on yourself is what drives people to succeed.
I personally don’t think mtb has a toxic macho culture at all, its more of a lot of highly motivated self driven athletic folk who normally wouldn’t be in a setting together if it wasn’t for bikes.
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