Mountain bike trails are perfect for mountain bikes, nice sized jumps, plenty of opportunity to keep your flow and no other trail users… well normally.

We’ve gathered together a list of trail imposters who really should have known better than to take to our territory. Warning, most of these end in disaster:

Rickshaw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUeKb4hTuQk

You would normally associate a Rickshaw with South East Asian cities or, more recently, a night out and a greasy kebab in Covent Garden. You certainly wouldn’t have placed them in the Chicksands bike park though.

In the mountain biking episode of the recently released Indestructibles TV series the presenters challenged themselves “to modify and race a clapped out 3 wheeled Rickshaw and some 4 wheeled toy trucks” on a downhill track. Even with Chris Akrigg at the helm this Rickshaw was wildly out of control, we just hope the rest of the challenge went better…

Skis

So, we don’t know much about skiing but we’re pretty sure there’s some trickery going on here… Ski’s don’t work without snow do they? Forget the physics of it though and just enjoy the visual feast that’s on offer.

The segment comes from the Valhalla ski film and was totally mind-blowing on release (similar in impact to Brandon Semenuk’s one-shot or the more recent Darklight). It was awarded Powder magazine’s film of the year, understandable really when you consider how similar to mountain biking it is.

Kids’ bikes

Taking kid’s bikes down the trails is actually quite a common trend now and many local clubs organize one off races on them. We still think no-one’s done it better than Peaty and the Sheffield Mates Raace crew

Peaty’s sponsors pulled together and put him together a Santa Cruz V16 with specific small wheels for better cornering and grip. The scary thing is that Peaty’s probably quicker on this than most of us are on our normal bikes!

Barbie Jeeps

Fancy the thrills of racing a kids bike but with even less control? Then EXTREME BARBIE JEEP RACING is for you (caps lock mandatory).

We’re not sure what possessed these guys to thrash these plastic, pink toys down a hill but it looks like a riot. Best of all the winner of this particular race got to take home $200, which should be just enough for his first session at the chiropractor.

Unicycle

Here’s the one thing on the list we genuinely can’t believe is possible. Riding a unicycle on the flat is hard enough – never mind down slick, rooty gullies.

This rider takes on one of the trails at the Serfaus bike park on one wheel and lives to tell the tale pretty much the whole way down. He even goes off piste at some point for a techy root action ‘ respect!

Road bike

Ok, we know you’ve seen this video loads of times already but that doesn’t stop it from being absolutely amazing. The sheer talent of Martyn Ashton, Danny MacAskill and Chris Akrigg is unreal whether they’re on a road bike or not.

There have been plenty of imitators who are keen to show us their skinny-wheeled skills but the Road Bike Party series is the original and the best.

Skateboard

While we really appreciate this guy tried to shred the trails on a skateboard it doesn’t look like the most of fun.

He fitted his skateboard with dirt specific tyres but even they seen to struggle away from the marble-smoothness of skate parks and he quickly grinds to a halt. Ah well, at least the dog looks like it’s enjoying itself.