
'We live for gravity biking': deadly sport is way of life in Medellín - sjcsjc
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2019/oct/02/we-live-for-gravity-biking-deadly-sport-is-way-of-life-in-medellin
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DanBC
Watching 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.

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Lio
> 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.

