Mountain Biker’s Guide To Etiquette and Vocabulary: “Lawn Dart”

October 22nd, 2008 by Guitar Ted

Today I will delve into the vocabulary side of these posts with a favorite of mine, “Lawn Dart”. You may be old enough to remember what a lawn dart actually is. These fun little projectiles were an outgrowth of the sport of “horse shoes” and other similar games. The reason we don’t see lawn darts anymore should be obvious, as I’m sure your devious little minds are already conjuring up images of pain and suffering inflicted from the skies! This post isn’t really about that though…

No, this post is about how that term came to be related to mountain biking. To be sure, it still is about pain! Now some of you might be thinking, “Ah, isn’t this the same thing as a face plant?” Well, it is and then again, it isn’t. It is sort of like how all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares.

A true “lawn dart” is a direct spike of one’s body head first into the dirt/rocks/or whatever your soil type might be. It usually happens so fast that flailing arms, efforts to try to alter the flight path, or even any sort of “expletive deleted” doesn’t have time to occur. It is probably the worst type of “endo” that you can endure. (Well, that is if you endure it.) Oh yeah, speaking of “endo”, that is a term that can cover all sorts of crashes. It refers specifically to “end over end”, which mountain bikers turned into, (or borrowed, I am not sure of the origin here) “endo”. A “Lawn Dart” is therefore a type of “endo”.

A “face plant” is like a “lawn dart”, but isn’t as sudden or catastophic. It too is a type of “endo”.

There…..now you know!

Lawn Dart: It is pretty rare, actually, and let us be thankful that it is!

6 Responses to “Mountain Biker’s Guide To Etiquette and Vocabulary: “Lawn Dart””

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1 Art on Oct 24th, 2008 at 4:00 pm

Maybe the best idea would be to take a lawn dart and stab your logo plagued tire right in its hot patch.
Most mountain bikes look like rolling billboards for the component manufacturers.
Remember when a product was recognized by it’s unique quality without plastering the name brand on every part.
2 Art on Oct 24th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

Example Trek appears on a bicycle 4 times with the Bontrager name 28 times and the “B” logo over 100 times.
3 Guitar Ted on Oct 24th, 2008 at 6:08 pm

Art: Oddly enough, your noticing that plays right into their hands.
4 sfuller on Oct 24th, 2008 at 10:42 pm

Personaly, I try and remove most if not all of the logos from my rims. I haven’t gotten to the point of removing all of the logos from my bikes, but most of mine are not too bad. Compared to my other bikes, my Specialized cross bike seems like a rolling billboard with the size of their name on the downtube.
5 gordy griffiths on Mar 11th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

god…..who CARES. Advertising….”reality”…..its all b.s. anyway!!!!!!!! I’d like to know the name of the ’80’s band that did the SONG “Pegged in the Head by a Lawndart….” Thanks, and don’t crush your skull in on any mountainbikes, ok?–Gordy
6 Art on Mar 11th, 2009 at 7:06 pm

Ed’s Redeeming Qualities
“Lawn Dart”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ImFlCNYrEA

Mountain Biker’s Guide To Etiquette and Vocabulary: “Lawn Dart”

6 Responses to “Mountain Biker’s Guide To Etiquette and Vocabulary: “Lawn Dart””

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