Riding Lakes Basin With Mark Weir and Ben Cruz | Trail Ninja, Ep. 27

Only 30 miles north of legendary Downieville, California, sits an oasis of empty, deserted old mining trails ready for plundering. The Trail Ninja joins Cannondale riders Mark Weir and Ben Cruz for a 2 day romp around the Lakes Basin area, pulling mile upon mile of flowy turns and endless rocky staircases out of the bag for the penultimate instalment from the Ninja, in his 3 year crusade to show the best of riding locations around the world. If you go ride anywhere in California this has to be the place. And Arnie even makes an appearance. 603720

You Don't Know... Mark Weir

Mark Weir is an icon. He's the tough man of modern mountain biking. The grimacing guy, charging down an ugly stretch of trail at ungodly speeds. The guy who kept pronouncing The Coming of Enduro long before anyone even took the notion seriously. And, despite his getting a bit grey in the beard, Mark Weir is also still one of the fastest riders on the scene.

Weir, however, is a hell of a lot more complicated--and interesting--than any and all of that. This short film begins to shed a bit of light on that fact, but this is just the beginning.

Keep your eyes peeled here for a longer feature story on Mark Weir. In the meantime, click play.

Mojo Trail Diary Morocco Part 3 With Fabien Barel And Mark Weir

A mountain that is 20kms away can look as smooth as a billiard table... So what looked like it should have been a short stroll up a reasonably steep golf course from our breakfast table on day 2 turned out to be an attempt at Jbel Erdouz a ‘proper’ 3600m mountain on day 3! The bit that looked like a Golf course turned out to be a 45-50° boulder field with no real path and brush and thorns tough enough to scratch paintwork!

It’s said that a camera can’t adequately convey the steepness of terrain or the depth of the experience, but when you have riders of the calibre of Mark Weir and Fabien Barel one-footing it down through the scree and the brush you know it’s steep! Look out also for the dirt and small stones being thrown up by the tyres and blown sideways! A proper mountain environment where the boys were glad to get down with the only casualty being a rear derailleur!

Although the Trail Diary gang were quite literally blown away by the big mountain experience, they were quite glad to get back on the road looking for a more relaxed, flowy trail in the grey earth area on the way to the final stop in Marrakesh. Poor Fab’s face when the monkey guys ambush him is priceless!

Video & Photos by Eyesdown Films

Words by Chris Porter (Mojo Suspension)

Music
Ali & Co. - Life is Good
Bird Commando - Atoms
Felipe Castro - Da Janela (EP)
The Corner Room - Kosmos
Aether - Still Life Portrait (Howlings RMX)