Hacker News Reader

Comment by yxwvut | Hacker News Reader

I'm 99% sure that it originated in climbing - it's been a term since the 80s at least (short for ascend - to 'send' a climbing route is to climb it successfully without falling or weighting the rope). Outside climbing I first noticed its use in the mid/late '00s in mountain biking (which has a fair bit of overlapping user base), and then in other extreme sports. In the jump from climbing to other extreme sports it became a shorthand for 'commit and do something difficult/risky successfully' (similar in spirit to its meaning in climbing if not literally given the etymology).

View on HN

I think it has to be mountain biking. It's the perfect thought to have in your head when you're looking at something that is potentially crazy, but you know the laws of physics are almost certainly going to have your back as long as your technique is good.

First time I heard it I was near the bottom of the UC Santa Cruz trails into Highway 9 contemplating this section called "the poop chute" which gets steeper and rockier until you hit a 2-3 foot drop among boulders and the only solution is to have enough speed that you end up in the road. And by "the road" I mean the apex of a blind hairpin turn of Highway 9.

I had been out of the sport for 20 years but kept riding road and my buddy got me back in with a sweet deal on a YT Jeffsy we kitted up with spare parts from all his friends. Carbon everything. A bike that did not exist in any dimension when I stopped riding.

Well, this was probably my seventh or eighth weekend trying to negotiate this chute and there are these 17-20 year old kids at the top and I ask them how to do this. And this guy, with all the confidence of Santa Cruz and youth says, with a big, easy grin, "Yeah, it's just hang way back and full send." And I looked at him. And I looked at the chute. And back at him. And my brain, married with two kids, was like "I see. Ok." And I did it.

Full send. Was exactly what my brain needed to think. It works weirdly well.

in climbing "send" is used in other forms... sending temps = cold enough for the rubber to stick well, usually below 50°F. getting sendy = eager, anxious to climb. sending shoes = aggressive pair of climbing shoes with downturned toes.

sending juice = dirty water left behind after washing your ropes

now you're just making stuff up

YEET, as it were.

That's well and good, but the term comes from climbing. To ascend. You send a route. Skiiers and eventually mountain bikers started to use it as well. I think it's just a ubiquitous extreme sports term at this point.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com