You often see the cool builds on movies and it’s a great feeling to build and hit something you’ve made. It’s a unique experience for clients that brings a group of riders together and often delivers some cool challenges and classic memories. Here are a few of my favourite builds.
This was a chance find that was owed to someone else, and we’ve had a sweet few sessions here. The location is perfect. The building gathers loads of snow for shaping and theres a steep drop in, so speed isn’t an issue and you get some sweet views. The only issues from early sessions was the corrugated edge of the roof and the bolts holding those panels in place. Only a few cheese grater moments 😱
I’m not sure how we even considered this to be a sensible idea. Typically we ride in between the rocks, yet after investigating the gap we found a decent transition for a landing so a high chance of success. Luckily we had James and Jack to inspire and entertain us along the way. Although the videos of their slams look way better than their landed tricks from the photos. 😂 It’s well worth having the sound on.
This was a brilliant feature that made the most of some awesome snow with many of us stepping it and having a wicked time riding and watching the action. Hopefully one day we can make this work again.
Mid-way cruising I spotting this cool looking tree. You see some sweet tree gaps in the movies and re-creating this on a mini scale would be great fun. We had to make some serious refinements to the terrain to make it work. Trimming some dead branches away that reduced the chances of being staked was a start. We then needed some serious block stacking to create a suitable landing and build up the kicker. I defiantly wanted a nice gap to provide a bit of consequence. After spending an afternoon on the prep, we camouflaged the kicker and took off back to the resort.
The next day is was game on. Damo did his usual cheerleading and radio communications as taking photos meant being blind to the rider flying over your head. The only issue was getting the guys to commit to the gap. It’s not everyday that you’re pushed throw a gap in a tree. It certainly too some persuasion and for some it was a bit too much on that day. They sat back and enjoyed the carnage and great moves in the blistering hot Austrian sun.
We’d revisit this tree in the future and have a reboot to see if more of the boys could step it up. You’ll find out in a future posting.
After looking back over some follow cam footage of a secret off piste spot I saw this sweet tree that looked like a pole jam. We pulled the crew together to try and track it down and GPS locate it. We found it without too many issues and planned a day to get a crew together for a build.
The run in was tricky and good deal of shaping was needed to make it usable. We needed it to be as smooth and straight as possible. Not as easy as it sounds in the woods. This run in required a little turn and some proper board control to get onto the feature safely. It certainly took some souls as you’ll see from the footage, but most guys managed to complete it.
Eddie’s battle was especially motivating. He battled hard to get over it. Resulting in one of the most brutal slams I’ve ever witnessed. The thing is, he just kept going. When he did it the whole team rejoiced, and it was time to head home and sooth our battered bodies after another epic build.
