E.J.'s Trials

On Monday in my first framebuilding session, we went around the room for introductions -- each person saying where he was from, any relevant bike building or metalworking experience (none in my case), and what type of bike he was going to build ("he" in this case since there are no women in the class, in contrast to the mechanic's class being taught across the alley in another room).  One student, E.J. Jensen, said he rides "trials" and wanted to build a sturdy 29er trials bike, since he keeps breaking them.

I had no idea what he was talking about, or why he would be breaking bikes (was "trials" shorthand for "time trials" ... which don't seem likely to cause many frames to break?).  I asked him a few days later.  He said "trials" involves getting points for how you maneuver an obstacle course over a set time (2 minutes), and is sometimes called "parcours for bicycles".  He could have just said "what Danny MacAskill does" since I think most of us (well, at least 29 million) have seen this video and the ones that followed.  In any event, E.J. gets my respect.  Here are two videos of his riding, one of which also picks up on Occupy Portland, from a few months back.