Darren Berrecloth Backcountry Freeriding on a Motorized Snow Bike
Darren Berrecloth hops on a motorizedsnowbike to do some backcountry freeriding in BC.
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This is a highly inaccurate statement, and you don't have to take my word for it. Talk to anyone who guides, performs mountain rescue and trains people on how to travel and survive in avalanche terrain. They will all tell you the same thing, there is no substitute for knowledge and practice of proper route-finding in avalanche-prone terrain and burial recovery skills (which requires a beacon, probe, and shovel).
Further, Airbag backpacks are not a silver bullet. There are plenty of incidents on record where they failed to save the person wearing them when they were buried, and they are not effective in most terrain trap situations.
Additionally, a beacon is a tool with two distinct purposes, to find, and to be found once buried.
Airbag packs, nice to have, sure...
However, they are not a replacement for knowledge, practice and widely accepted avalanche tools (beacon, shovel and probe).
On a side note, I'm absolutely loving this progression of Berrecloth ripping on the snowbike! Year after year its just getting better and bigger. Those carves/slashes and tranny snipes are so sick! Next step, superman seatgrab over Pyramid Gap!
Two pairs of socks, a lighter, grass, canned “water” in a back pocket and a death wish is how it’s done. Travel light weight and don’t make a mistake is how y’all’s “back country” is done.
www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(07)70258-2/pdf07
The biggest thing to keep you safe is line selection and avoiding real Avy terrain. Followed by knowledge of when your steeper terrain becomes safe.
My point is in terms of equipment, I think the airbags are the thing that is best going to prevent injury or death in an avalanche. Airbags have been saving people by keeping you afloat above the heavy snow debris where a lot of the trauma happens. I spend a fair amount of time in the backcountry, but mostly in terrain I’m never worried about sliding, I just don’t take as much risk as I did 20 years ago. But when I do go in legit Avy terrain, (along with my beacon, shovel, and probe) I take an airbag. Have you ever thought about how long your buddies are going to take to get to you and dig you out if they are all below you and have to skin back up from their safe zone? Give me an airbag any day. Airbags work and have become a standard for many that travel/ work in real Avy conditions. The only downsides to an airbag are weight and cost. And FWT athletes can put up with the weight during their comps doing tricks, so it’s more a weight weenie issue for the climbs.
If any of you have been doing this long enough, you will have known or known of incidents where people died wearing their beacons and their friends couldn’t get to them fast enough. I’d rather take the float above the chunky debris than getting pummeled 3 feet under Avy chunk. So yeah, in my weighing the priority of stuff in my gear bag, I put the air bag priority 1.
www.wildsnow.com/3736/airbag-overview
Basically, they will help save your life in 50% of avalanches. However, 1/4 of those are because of terrain traps, so use caution to avoid those. But, also notice the Swiss study that shows 50% of people fully buried do not survive (so, a beacon won’t really help you 50% of the time either).
The part of thinking about an airbag as your most important piece of gear in this circumstance is you don’t take it off for a photo shoot thinking you are safe with just your beacon because you are the only one in the zone, and relying on your crew to come get you.
I don’t know how many of you have ever had to deliver a dead body to grieving friends and family. It’s the worst experience you can ever have.
The only avalanche I ever got caught in was 25 years ago because I was a young dumb 20 year old. Fortunately, I was able to ski it out. Knowledge, training, and experience have been keeping me much safer for the next 25 years of backcountry travel. So, yes, knowledge is the number 1 safety thing you bring with you, but this feels like the arguments we were having 25 years ago getting people to wear beacons. In the next decade, I hope, most people won’t even consider the airbag optional equipment. It already is on the Freeride World Tour.
“ In our opinion here at Wildsnow.com (with caveats, see below) it is time to set priorities and make air bag packs just as important as your beacon/shovel/probe combo (indeed, if forced to choose, in many situations you’d actually be better off with just the airbag).”
Hard to believe given your original post, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt hoping that means that you actually are smarter than you sounded and that you won't become a statistic.
I will say this, your post above points to a heuristic trap, relative to "gear"... I'm not going to get into a dick-swinging contest regarding experience, however, I will say this, the mountains and nature don't give AF about anyone's level of avalanche training and experience, or what gear you are packing.
"I’d say it’s more important than a beacon if you are in real Avy terrain."
Again, this statement is a contradiction to your following posts. Perhaps it's an unintentional semantic misstep, I really do hope so.
Have a good Winter, and stay safe and smart out there.
“Some studies originally done by ABS and the Swiss government claimed 97 percent positive outcomes out of over 220 deployments.”— Outdoorgearlab
“Snow safety professionals say that out of 100 avalanche fatalities, somewhere between 35 to 70 more people would have survived.”— quote from an outdoorlab article. When you are at a 54% chance of dying when fully buried (based on Swiss studies), the odds are remarkably improved with an airbag.
And of course, the best measure is to never get caught in an avalanche by good decision making.
youtu.be/1-4Bh6xPiGc
the one guy was digging randomly with his hands as all his gear was sitting on his sled while he was filming his buddies drop off a cornice directly above him.
The savvy conditions were insane bad that day and we were crossing the lower slope in single file to be cautious and homie drop in on skis and the whole shebang ripped.
Be safe out there. With all the money we spend on gear, we tend to be cheap on safety gear (as we think, I could buy another pair of skis for the cost of a bag that I hope to never really use) Probably took me too long to buy one (took a lot of pressure from my peers to make the purchase) especially when I have a wife and kid to support.
But until then the struggle is real lol.
When was this filmed? This can’t be this year with that much snow already, is it? We’re hurting for coverage in Montana! Gonna be a while before we are riding or skiing much.
Looks fun either way.
Eventually they will be the future...but we're 10 years off...and by that point the e-sled and e-snowbike will have had some amazing mythical baby.
There is a proliferation of used bikes that look otherwise fresh that hit the market in the Spring that have thrashed top ends and poor compression as they get turned over. Dirt bike engines were not engineered to deliver lubrication in the volume needed to keep up with sustained high RPM's.
I also come from a sled background, got to love large bore 2 strokes!
But how is this related to bicycles?
It's not that I don't see a connection, but it is Motorsport, which I love doing as well, but is not bicycling. There are totally relatable skills that cross over from even road racing cars to bikes and from bikes to road racing cars. I just thought it was an interesting choice to have a Motorsport video on pinkbike I guess.
love me some good toast
1- Can you explain me what is ``backcountry``, imagining that there must be a ``frontcountry`` somewhere...
2- Are you sure it`s a Motorized Snow Bike? I`d rather see a regular MX, so already motorized, equiped for snow riding.
The right word for the right notion at the right time at the right place. Dig it.
sooooo a snowmobile?