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'We live for gravity biking': deadly sport is way of life in Medellín
- Lio 7y ago> to climb the hills riders hang on to passing trucks, sometimes using homemade hooks on a line Something of YT from Snow Crash about that.
- DanBC 7y agoWatching the video in that article there are some simple things that could be done to make it safer - helmets, leathers, move to sleds not bikes, close the roads to other traffic, develop a culture about how you move when you're in a pack. I'm curious if the barriers to safety are poverty, or if the increased danger is an intrinsic need. Would people still do it if it was on a sled on a track? The BBC has an interesting radio programme about these gravity bikers. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008b9g https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0008b9g or https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07n459f https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07n459f 28 minutes. > Colombia’s Kamikaze Cyclists Crossing Continents > Precipitous mountain roads, specially modified bikes, and deadly consequences. Simon Maybin spends time with the young men who race down the steep roads of Colombia’s second city Medellin. Marlon is 16 and he’s a gravitoso - a gravity biker. He hooks onto the back of lorries or buses climbing the precipitous roads to reach high points around the city. Then, he lets gravity do its thing and - without any safety gear - hurtles back down the roads, trying to dodge the traffic. This year, two of his friends have died gravity biking and Marlon has had a near-fatal accident. But he’s not quitting. So what drives young men like him to take their lives into their own hands? And what’s being done to stop more deaths? Produced and presented by Simon Maybin.