Posted by JA
on December 13, 2008, 7:42 am
Message modified by board administrator December 13, 2008, 7:50 am
I was lying in bed this morning, thinking about the challenges of Maddison's New Year's Eve jumps.
It's been a while since I last talked about big dropoffs. To me, as a rider, dropoffs are the most exhilarating of all jumps. They provide the greatest rush. When I was 18, I dropped off of cliffs as high as what Maddison faces. For the rest of my life, I wanted to do it publicly on ramps, but never pulled it off. With Jennifer Caputo's help at Gil Combs' ranch, I did build an adjustable launching tower and steep landing ramp just for the purpose of dropping off of buildings, but was going through hell and dealing with injuries at that time and the whole project died.
Imagine this, even though there's no way you can understand how exciting it is until you actually do it.
You're on top of a cliff, and it's so high you're scared to even walk up to it and look down. You ride up to it at walking speed, and I mean walking speed! You're slipping the clutch off the top, and the clutch gives you total control of the launch and the attitude of the bike at that low speed. Your rear tire's contact patch leaves the top, and now you're looking down on the world, airborne, and the ground is waaaaay down there.
As gravity accelerates you, you can't just freak out or freeze when you experience the awesomeness of the massive dropoff. You have a job to do, and that job is upshifting. Many motocrossers know that when you go off a dropoff you have to upshift, but imagine leaving the top of a cliff at walking speed and then landing tapped in 4th gear! I've done it, and I'm telling you that it's just stupendously exciting! It's more exciting than just about anything I've ever done! I love dropoffs more than anything!!!
Man. It's so great that Maddison has such a picturesque location to do this thing. When I was 18 and older, every once in a while I would go to the top of a building, just dreaming of riding off the top of it, dreaming of building the ramp for it. Since I've done it before on cliffs, I totally know how it feels and I knew I could do it. There's nothing like a really big dropoff!
Nothing compares to a big dropoff on a motorcycle. Skydiving didn't even excite me at all - it doesn't even compare. Ramp to ramp wasn't as exhilarating. Maddison will truly be doing something that will give him the greatest thrill.
Now let's talk about the step-up he faces.
100-foot step-ups aren't new. There are three guys who have done 100 foot step-ups before, and I've talked with two of them. One of them died doing it. However, there's one key difference between their 100 foot step-ups and Maddo's. Those guys were jumping into a net. Maddo is landing on a structure.
I know that jumping 100 feet high, even into a net, is highly thrilling by any standard. I've never done that, but as a rider who has done some big step-ups, I can tell you that it must be huge. The rush of hitting what amounts to a slightly toned down quarter pipe of mammoth proportions at highway speeds would peg anybody's Excite-O-Meter, and going that high with nothing to look at but the constellations is enough to give the American Heart Association a collective heart attack. In other words, I can't sell those guys short at all. They did something big.
Let me talk about what Maddison has to do.
He's going to have to hit that ramp fast and hard, probably in 4th gear, WFO. Then, on the way up, he'll have to downshift to 1st gear for the landing.
The gyroscopic effect of his wheels spinning at 4th gear speed will keep the bike stable all the way to landing, and he'll be able to correct his yaw, pitch and roll, no problem, unless there's a big side wind.
Let's pray that there are no winds that day!
Here are the two primary dangers of the step-up jump: Going too slow (the worst) and going too fast(the 3rd worst).
If he doesn't go fast enough, he'll Paul Fernandez into the wall of the Arc de Triomphe, which will then be re-named the Arc de Despaire. Hopefully there will be an air bag, just in case, so this talented jumper can possibly jump another day.
If he over-amps and goes too fast, he'll fly too high, and that means a hard flatlander. In and of itself, a hard flatlander hurts, but that alone probably won't do extreme damage.
So those two things, coming up short and going too fast, are the primary things he needs to avoid.
Another nightmare scenario he faces is if he goes too fast off the launcher, flies too high, and then flatlands too hard, but in this scenario a variety of things can happen that will get really ugly, really quickly. I'll just mention two of them.
Let's say he flatlands too hard and his face hits the bars with a resounding THWACK! Perish the thought, but it's possible, and this is what he faces, dammit! Such a landing could knock him silly or knock him straight out. He could then Doug Danger it, throttle on, right into one of three walls, then aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa all the way to the ground. That might be the very worst thing that could happen to him - worse than coming up short.
Another nightmare scenario along the same vein is if he flatlands hard and breaks his right wrist, inadvertently gassing it and being unable to bail before hitting a wall and going over it.
As you can see, this two-jump jump is truly dangerous, unforgiving and spectacular. I am concerned for him, and concerned for his very life. My dad is too. Anybody can see that he is really doing something special here. I pray that he can do every bit of preparation so that he is totally ready and calm on jump day, and that the weather is perfect. This is not the kind of jump for side winds. With the hotel right next door, the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe itself, there are vortices that can bring evil winds from odd angles. What we need is CALM conditions. Even a wind that the hotel blocks will turn into a vortex on the back side, where he's jumping.
One more thing he faces is this: Everything he looks at on-site will just be concept drawings until the last minute, when they set up the ramps. I mean, those ramps are going to be blocking traffic routes into and out of the hotel. Management will want those ramps erected at the last second and removed immediately after the jump. This means that Maddison will have no time to mentally rehearse what he's looking at, on-site. If he had a month to look at it, he could mentally prepare for the mind-boggling view of it all and get psyched up for it. This will look nothing like his practice location! Not only will it look different, the light will be coming from different angles than the practice location. It will be lit better than the practice location, but it will look different.
Another thing is the in-run. He'll have to quickly, and I mean quickly, dial in his acceleration to do this thing. He'll also have to dial in how he's going to get stopped at the bottom after the dropoff, mentally rehearsing it so he doesn't anticipate getting stopped, and therefore blowing something before that. He might be planning to stuff it into an air bag after leaving the landing ramp, since space is at a premium around there.
This is huge, very special, very spectacular, and hard to beat. Let's all hope and pray that Maddison will make it safely, because this whole thing is going to be extremely difficult and dangerous. He knows that this is insane, and there have to be those times when he asks, "What in the hell have I gotten myself into?"
Still, he knows he can do it, and I know he can do it too.
JA
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