Winter has set in. Days have shortened considerably. The weather has turned damp. As a result riding opportunities are harder to come by. What do you do to scratch the mountain biking itch in the deep dark months of winter?
At Emerald MTB we turn to YouTube and watch as many MTB videos as we can lay our eyes on. We do this year round of course, but now there is so much more time to kill we started running out of content from our usual channels. Thus the search box on YouTube has been hit to find out what other channels are out there that we may not have seen or heard of previously. Below are some of our firm favourites, some channels we watch regularly and a few new ones that we’ve found more recently and that look promising.
TOP 3 FAVOURITE MTB YOUTUBE CHANNELS
Our top three favourite YouTube channels that we watch weekly if not daily.
GLOBAL MOUNTAIN BIKE MAGAZINE – GMBN
This is probably the favourite channel at Emerald MTB. GMBN add at least one video every day. Regulars include Ask GMBN and the Dirtshed Show.
“The Global Mountain Bike Network is the best MTB YouTube channel, with videos for everyone who loves dirt: from the full-faced helmet downhill mountain biker to the lycra-clad cross-country rider along with everyone and anyone in between. With the help of our pro and ex-pro riding team, we’re here to inform, entertain and inspire you to become a better mountain biker.”
SETH’S BIKE HACKS
Another must watch in our book. Seth’s Bike Hacks posts new videos frequently, several a week on average. These follow Seth as he rides his mountain bike on trails across the US and Canada. There is a lot of POV footage for trails, but also some How To videos, product reviews and other more loosely bike related content.
“These mountain biking videos are for everyone—from advanced riders to those who have never ridden a mountain bike before. Here, you’ll find tutorials, documentaries, and reviews on everything from bike parts to camera gear.”
NATE HILLS – #FOLLOWCAMFRIDAY
Nate Hills is a pro racer and again based in the USA and Canada. He releases a new video every Friday called FollowCamFriday. Good quality stabilised POV footage of pro or skilled riders riding some amazing trails. Another one we look forward to watching every week.
“Nate Hills is a professional mountain bike racer and creates this Youtube content for fun. Nate started Follow Cam Friday to get people stoked and motivate them to ride. These videos are for personal use only, and are not sponsored by, paid for, or commercial endeavours”
OTHER FAVOURITE MTB CHANNELS ON YOUTUBE
When we have a bit more time on our hands and we’ve caught up on the videos from our top 3 favourites, these are the channels we watch regularly.
SKILLS WITH PHIL
Phil Kmetz is a pro downhill racer that posts some really easy to follow skill teaching videos. He doesn’t limit his channel to just How To videos though. There is a good selection of trail POV videos and plenty of Phil messing about on his bike (like 10 Dumb Mountain Bike Tricks).
“My name is Phil Kmetz, but I’m better known for the dude from Skills with Phil. This a channel dedicated to exploring the wonders bicycles from View. From mountain bikes, BMX, to Cyclocross I love all kinds of bikes. All the videos (with a few exceptions) are filmed and editing by me.”
TRAIL PEEK
More North American based GoPro trail riding footage. The quality of the footage and the amazing trails these guys get to ride make their videos well worth watching.
“Northern Californian brothers and pretend pro mountain bikers Dane and Zach bringing you videos of the best trails on the West Coast and beyond..”
THE SINGLETRACK SAMPLER
The Single Track Sampler is Alex, who you will see regularly riding together with Seth from Seth’s Bike Hacks. Seth lives in his car, car-life before van-life, and travels all over the USA riding different trails meeting up with friends and fans.
“My name is Alex, and here on my channel, I show you how I strive to live life FREE of constraints and full of BIKES! Come learn how I travel everywhere and ride my bikes anywhere! My mission: inspire more people to get outside and enjoy an active lifestyle outdoors!”
FURTHER VIEWING
These channels are not as go to as the ones we’ve mentioned so far. Either they don’t update as often or the content is not as gripping. Most of the mountain bike YouTubers are still on our subscriptions list though and get viewed regularly.
ALEX CHAMBERLAIN
“Professional Class Mountain Bike Rider based out of the Bay Area, CA, but my Mountain Biking travels take me World Wide. My Channel covers mountain biking Reviews, POV’s, Bike Hacks, and How-To’s. The most important thing in life, for me, is exploring! I always want to find out what is around the next corner. Come join me for the ride!”
SPECIALIZED BICYCLES
The official YouTube Channel of Specialized Bicycles. They feature some amazing professional quality videos featuring their sponsored riders, not all mountain bikers, or to promote new bikes. Generally well worth watching.
PINKBIKE
The YouTube channel to go along with probably the world’s largest mountain bike community website, Pinkbike.com. This channel is updated frequently with videos ranging from product reviews, through mountain bike riding tips, Friday Fails videos and pro-rider trail.
VITAL MTB
This channel accompanies the Vital MTB website. Videos include bike & product reviews. Our favourite though is the Vital RAW series featuring different professional mountain bikers riding incredible trails.
“Mountain bikes are awesome! You can ride along as we test the best mountain bikes and see riding from the best downhill and enduro riders on the planet.”
FLOW MOUNTAIN BIKE
Flow Mountain Bike is another online magazine with an excellent YouTube channel. The videos they post are always of fantastic quality and the vast majority are riding videos, with just the odd bike test or product review thrown in. Just what you need to scratch that itch.
SINGLETRACKS MOUNTAIN BIKING
Singletracks is a, mostly US-based, online mountain biking community. Their frequently updated channel includes quite a lot of product features and POV trail footage.
WIDEOPEN MAGAZINE
Unlike most of the other channels in our list, Wideopen is a UK based mountain biking magazine. As a result, their channel features more European trails, races and riders. New videos are added most weeks.
SANTA CRUZ BICYCLES
Another manufacturers channel, and unfortunately Santa Cruz don’t upload new content that often. But when they do, with the big name sponsored riders on their roster – Danny MacAskill, Josh Bryceland, Greg Minaar, to name only a few – they are always worth watching.
IRISH MTB CHANNELS
These channels do not have the largest amount of subscribers. They may not have the highest quality professional grade footage. They may not update as frequently as some. But they are all based in Ireland. What better way to motivate yourself to brave the conditions and get out on your bike than by watching people ride trails that are local to you?
EMERALD MTB
We may be biased, but in our opinion, this is the best YouTube mountain biking channel there is! The Emerald MTB channel includes videos of trails we ride, outings we go on and some fails and bails videos.
MOUNTAINBIKE NORTHERNIRELAND
Mountain Bike NI, unsurprisingly, promote mountain biking in the North of Ireland. Their channel includes interviews with some of Northern Ireland’s better-known bikers and some really nice footage of the trails centres in that part of the country.
PETERTISTAKEN
Peter Taylor is a Mad Elk Cycles supported rider and Pole brand ambassador. Earlier videos on his channel, which is part vlog, show him riding trails around Dublin and in the north of the country. This year, however, he has relocated to Canada – Man With a Van With No Plan – and you can now watch him riding in and around Whistler.
SOME OTHER CHANNELS
These channels are once we’ve found recently. We’ve not had a lot of time to watch their content, but they appealed to us and look promising.
BKXC
“My name is Brian Kennedy and I live in Vallejo, California. My mission is to mountain bike the best trails in the world and bring you along with me. Mountain biking is the best way to get fit, make friends, see the world and to get an insane adrenaline rush.”
50TO01
We have actually seen some of these videos before, but its not a channel we’ve followed actively. 50to01 are a group of pro and semi-pro riders in the UK that get up to all sorts on their bikes.
MATT & JASON
“Matt Dennison and Jason Lucas are two best friends from Vancouver, BC who travel the world to film and ride mountain bikes. If you love bikes and good vibes you’ve found the right place. Mahalo my dudes!”
MTB YUMYUM
“My name is Jason. I live in Salt Lake City, Utah and some of the best mountain biking trails in the country are in my backyard! I love biking. I also really like YouTube and while I’m far from being a public speaker or narrator, I’d like to share my experience on the trail including some thoughtful ideas and comments on the awesome bikes I get to ride.”
JORDAN BOOSTMASTER
“Mountain Biking is the greatest sport out there, I am a mountain bike rider and filmmaker. My favourite kind of riding is downhill freeriding and dirt jumping slopestyle. This is the Official Youtube Channel for Jordan Boostmaster!”
CHRIS AKRIGG
Chris is a Mongoose Bikes sponsored street and trails trials rider. Some of his videos look amazing.
There it is, hours worth of mountain bike videos to watch and keep you from pulling your hair out while you watch the rain come down outside. We promised the 20 but we’ve actually listed 23, but who’s complaining right. If you have a personal favourite that is not included in our list, please share in the comments and help all of us to pass these winter months.
