#31 - WHY I'M QUITTING MOUNTAIN BIKING - Year-end Review | Snowed In With Panda HD

I’m switching to CrossFit. This week’s episode of Biking with Panda was supposed to be recorded in Waterloo but the highways were so bad they closed and nearly left me stuck in the worst whiteout conditions. Driving has been treacherous even in my home town with plows running constantly never clearing the roads. For grocery runs, the fat bike works perfectly, now modified to pull my grocery trailer, and decked-out in eL wire for illumination during night missions. I did try to do some actual mountain biking, but the trail is more than 6 feet deep, and the grooming team cannot keep up with the snowfall.. so I’m waiting for some skis and snow shoes to arrive in the mail. Just a quick PSA here; basically, never use your front brake in the snow. Every morning I see more and more snow – this clip is from a week ago. I can’t get out to make a new video, but since it’s a new year, I wanted to look back on how far I’ve come.. I started this channel to show our trails to those who hadn’t been to Ontario, and lure them in. With each episode, I learned new ways to express my vision and found new purpose and meaning in my art. I discovered and became addicted to lift access downhill and had gravity show me a how out of shape I actually was (am?) I tried to teach you things as I learned them. Remember my tubeless video? Or that time when Seal showed up to help install CushCore? I realised early on that exploring new places is rather exciting. You really never know what you’re gonna get. The gimbal and GoPro 3 really helped with my audio and video watchability.. and those Minion tyres truly changed my perspective on traction! Some people say, if you’re not crashing, you’re not progressing. My time at a downhill park was the epitome of this. You can certainly make epic gains in a day, but should also expect to pay for them with bruises and soreness! It can be scary and can shake your confidence, don’t be afraid to move back to easier trails until you feel more comfortable reattempting one you failed on! There’s no shame in playing it safe and you’ll have fewer broken bones as a result. Getting lost and throwing up in 3-Stage was rough, but look at that view! It makes it all worthwhile. It’s certainly nicer looking than the MTB Adventure Park, but it was the first pump track I’d ever been to, so it’ll always have a special place in my heart. Hydrocut was the first public trail system I’d been to that could compare to Blue Mountain, since workers are always maintaining the trails and ensuring a smooth ride. The Mount Trashmore BMX park was one of my more popular destinations. It also marked a change in my production format to a shorter featurette style. If you haven’t watched it, there’s a a little kid who faceplants the ground, so go check it out next. The changing weather made it hard to ride, but I still found systems that supported it, and I ventured out to record and share them with you. Around this time I also hit 160 subscribers and fell