John, among many others, have made it happen and have stayed behind the
riding and driving force of MTB. MTB Mountainbike downhill that is.
Depending on where you live, you might have a small hill or if you are
lucky a small mountain, but as you will soon find out the extreme scene
of Sweden collects in a place called re, Jmtland in Sweden. re is
Sweden's most respected mountain biking destination. Most people are
familiar with it from the Downhill World Championships in '99. First
off, 're Mountain Mayhem' is a rider's event. It is a freeride festival
that is a week long.
Apart from buying your lift pass, the
festival is free to enter and take part in. There are a great variety
of downhill trails, everything from technical rocky sections to fast
rolling singletrack. There are numerous downhill loops and we are
continually building on these. There are plenty of jumps and drops and
even a north shore section to keep the most extreme of riders happy.
There
are two lifts which are continually running for the week of the
festival. Therefore there is no time waiting in ques for getting up on
the mountain. The emphasis is on having a good time, hanging out with
other riders from all over northern Europe, partying at night, gorging
on a great mix of local food and BBQ's, shaking your booty to some
kickin'
music, and soaking up the beautiful mountain scenery. Combine all this
and roll it together with the chilled re vibe, and you have got the
line up for one amazing week. What more could a mountain biker ask for?
In a nutshell, its for people who love challenging terrain,
like pushing their limits, and like to have as much fun as possible in
what is considered the best mountain bike terrain Sweden has to offer.
15 Minutes by car towards the west and you are in Norway. Just like in
Norway the prices are expensive, so it is best to buy your food about
200 km away if you are going to stay. The local grocery store has a
20-30% above average prices!!
The guys on the mountianbikes
take it seriously and they stay for weeks at the time. That means some
have to save and then head straight back to there jobs. Most of them
are actually the owners of bike stores or other retail establishments.
Now
back to John, not the superstar but still unique. The producer and
maker of the first mountain bike downhill video ever in the world.
John:
"About ten days prior to Mayhem 2003, a bunch of us arrived to start a
project which was to build re a North Shore section. Well, the first
thing we had to do was check out the area which was designated for us
to build on. It turned out be a jungle of overgrown everything, and it
was way steeper than we expected.
After walking up and down it
a couple of times, the same question kept popping up 'so how the f**k
are we going to build it.....? 'Man with the plan', Tobias (Frost) set
the line, and picked the route we would take and then what north shore
bits we could build and what natural obstacles we could use."
The Course:
The
entry point was off one of the main trails down from the mountain, and
we had a huge Red Bull Arch to use as the gateway. First you have to
contend with a steep rooty section before you get to the start of the
north shore, which is a long, steep ladder about 25m, that hooks you
around into an S-bend. As soon as you are out of that, you have to ride
the teeter-totter, which leads you quickly onto a ramp. This gives you
the option of hucking it straight onto a berm, or you can take the
chicken run on your
left. Following the berm around, you can
get a few pedal strokes in and then set yourself up on the log ladder,
at the end of which you can either huck off to the right, or take the
natural path that brings you on to a couple more ladders and then a
steep embankment.
At the end of the embankment, the north
shore forks off into two separate sections (that eventually fork off
again). To the left (Vnga Freeriders route), you drop into a laddered
berm and then log, at the end of which is a wide but steep and quite
tricky transition onto a skinny thats about 12m. You can ride this
straight through and onto a large rock which you drop off, or take a
left at the end of the skinny, onto another platform, with a near
vertical ladder to exit on.
Going back to the embankment,
if you take the route to the right (Frost / Huckfest), you ride a
ladder that brings you onto the root end of a fallen tree. With the top
shaved off, you ride the tree length (approx 12/13m). It isn't high off
the ground, but the slope on your left is well steep. If you mess up
your balance
here, you are going to roll, and well, keep
rolling!! At the end of the tree, you simply glide or slide down some
S-bends that bring you onto a long ramp, which hass a sweet 4.5m drop
off over a gully. This is the north shore exit point, but the path
continues down the mountain with a couple more jumps and a road gap
(5m) to keep the hucksters happy. All in all, for those who like to
push their limits, this is one ride guaranteed to kick your adrenalin
into high gear.
I would like to thank all those who put in a
huge effort building the north shore and getting it finished on time
for the festival. Tobias, Erik & Mange (Frost); Chride, Pontus
& Casi (Huckfest.org); Angus, Robert & Roger (Vnga reeriders),
Dave and myself (MTB Freerider). We were banging away (ahem, and I mean
building of course!!) from 9am in the morning up to 10pm at night, or
later. Nobody will forget the swarms of 'knot' eating us all day long,
and the almost tropical weather we were enduring that week (30 - 31
degrees). It almost resembled working in the jungle, as the sweat
constantly dripped off us. All we were missing were the sounds of
crickets, cockatoos squawking and the tribal drums beating in the
background.
The final result of that week was a north shore re
could be proud of. Indeed, we had Wade Simmons, Kyle Strait, Vanderham
and Cedric Gracia give it the thumbs up. Not bad, eh!! "
riding and driving force of MTB. MTB Mountainbike downhill that is.
Depending on where you live, you might have a small hill or if you are
lucky a small mountain, but as you will soon find out the extreme scene
of Sweden collects in a place called re, Jmtland in Sweden. re is
Sweden's most respected mountain biking destination. Most people are
familiar with it from the Downhill World Championships in '99. First
off, 're Mountain Mayhem' is a rider's event. It is a freeride festival
that is a week long.
Apart from buying your lift pass, the
festival is free to enter and take part in. There are a great variety
of downhill trails, everything from technical rocky sections to fast
rolling singletrack. There are numerous downhill loops and we are
continually building on these. There are plenty of jumps and drops and
even a north shore section to keep the most extreme of riders happy.
There
are two lifts which are continually running for the week of the
festival. Therefore there is no time waiting in ques for getting up on
the mountain. The emphasis is on having a good time, hanging out with
other riders from all over northern Europe, partying at night, gorging
on a great mix of local food and BBQ's, shaking your booty to some
kickin'
music, and soaking up the beautiful mountain scenery. Combine all this
and roll it together with the chilled re vibe, and you have got the
line up for one amazing week. What more could a mountain biker ask for?
In a nutshell, its for people who love challenging terrain,
like pushing their limits, and like to have as much fun as possible in
what is considered the best mountain bike terrain Sweden has to offer.
15 Minutes by car towards the west and you are in Norway. Just like in
Norway the prices are expensive, so it is best to buy your food about
200 km away if you are going to stay. The local grocery store has a
20-30% above average prices!!
The guys on the mountianbikes
take it seriously and they stay for weeks at the time. That means some
have to save and then head straight back to there jobs. Most of them
are actually the owners of bike stores or other retail establishments.
Now
back to John, not the superstar but still unique. The producer and
maker of the first mountain bike downhill video ever in the world.
John:
"About ten days prior to Mayhem 2003, a bunch of us arrived to start a
project which was to build re a North Shore section. Well, the first
thing we had to do was check out the area which was designated for us
to build on. It turned out be a jungle of overgrown everything, and it
was way steeper than we expected.
After walking up and down it
a couple of times, the same question kept popping up 'so how the f**k
are we going to build it.....? 'Man with the plan', Tobias (Frost) set
the line, and picked the route we would take and then what north shore
bits we could build and what natural obstacles we could use."
The Course:
The
entry point was off one of the main trails down from the mountain, and
we had a huge Red Bull Arch to use as the gateway. First you have to
contend with a steep rooty section before you get to the start of the
north shore, which is a long, steep ladder about 25m, that hooks you
around into an S-bend. As soon as you are out of that, you have to ride
the teeter-totter, which leads you quickly onto a ramp. This gives you
the option of hucking it straight onto a berm, or you can take the
chicken run on your
left. Following the berm around, you can
get a few pedal strokes in and then set yourself up on the log ladder,
at the end of which you can either huck off to the right, or take the
natural path that brings you on to a couple more ladders and then a
steep embankment.
At the end of the embankment, the north
shore forks off into two separate sections (that eventually fork off
again). To the left (Vnga Freeriders route), you drop into a laddered
berm and then log, at the end of which is a wide but steep and quite
tricky transition onto a skinny thats about 12m. You can ride this
straight through and onto a large rock which you drop off, or take a
left at the end of the skinny, onto another platform, with a near
vertical ladder to exit on.
Going back to the embankment,
if you take the route to the right (Frost / Huckfest), you ride a
ladder that brings you onto the root end of a fallen tree. With the top
shaved off, you ride the tree length (approx 12/13m). It isn't high off
the ground, but the slope on your left is well steep. If you mess up
your balance
here, you are going to roll, and well, keep
rolling!! At the end of the tree, you simply glide or slide down some
S-bends that bring you onto a long ramp, which hass a sweet 4.5m drop
off over a gully. This is the north shore exit point, but the path
continues down the mountain with a couple more jumps and a road gap
(5m) to keep the hucksters happy. All in all, for those who like to
push their limits, this is one ride guaranteed to kick your adrenalin
into high gear.
I would like to thank all those who put in a
huge effort building the north shore and getting it finished on time
for the festival. Tobias, Erik & Mange (Frost); Chride, Pontus
& Casi (Huckfest.org); Angus, Robert & Roger (Vnga reeriders),
Dave and myself (MTB Freerider). We were banging away (ahem, and I mean
building of course!!) from 9am in the morning up to 10pm at night, or
later. Nobody will forget the swarms of 'knot' eating us all day long,
and the almost tropical weather we were enduring that week (30 - 31
degrees). It almost resembled working in the jungle, as the sweat
constantly dripped off us. All we were missing were the sounds of
crickets, cockatoos squawking and the tribal drums beating in the
background.
The final result of that week was a north shore re
could be proud of. Indeed, we had Wade Simmons, Kyle Strait, Vanderham
and Cedric Gracia give it the thumbs up. Not bad, eh!! "
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