Watch How Mountain Bikes Handle Big Hits in Slow Motion

Every year, Pinkbike’s Field Test brings together a curated selection of the best mountain bikes of the season, putting them through a week of back-to-back riding to tease out real-world performance differences. It’s a rigorous process that culminates in the fan-favorite “Huck to Flat” test.

Part finale, part stress test, the Huck to Flat has been a Field Test tradition since 2018. The premise is straightforward: send a bike off a drop and land flat, over and over, and watch what happens. The result is equal parts entertainment and insight. Watch closely and you’ll notice how much is going on—the handlebar flexes, the tires compress, the suspension cycles through its travel, and even the frame moves more than most riders would expect.

It’s also undeniably entertaining. There’s an element of risk—Pinkbike has broken a frame and snapped a crank in past years—but most bikes survive the ordeal. The bigger gamble is often who’s doing the hucking. The team rotates duties, usually roping in newer staffers or even a filmer, since repeated flat landings aren’t exactly fun on the ankles. This year, the most impressive performance might not have come from a bike at all, but from filmer Logan Patrick Nelson—whose ankles proved remarkably up to the task.