Evermore Bike Movie

we’re very happy to be one of the HEADLINER movies at the international glasgow bike film festival! it’s a great pleasure to be part of this great selection of films at such an energetic event. big thanks to david and his crew for their invitation.

screening on sunday, 8th october 2006

international glasgow bike film festival

infos:

• infos on mountain-bike-scotland.com
• glasgow film theatre
• infos on singletrackworld.com
• e-mail to festival organizer

on the escape from their homeland snow masses norways slopestyle cracks trond hansen and niels windfeldt stopped by in switzerland. a great opportunity for us to get some footage from the new indoor dirt tracks in payerne. an awesome location inside the glashouses of an old gardening, where some determined locals from magic downhill set up a great dusty playground! together with two of switzerlands finest dirtjumpers, pascal and mischa breitenstein, trond and niels gave the place a good going over… no one was holding back! we got some really great shots of the riders styling their tricks in front of this glass and steel architecture and some great lipstick footage as well. what a fine two day session… thanks guys!

just before flattening the world championships downhill track in livigno (italy), switzerlands fastest man on a dh-bike, claudio calouri, gave it its final rodeo ride. and what a blast it would become! claudio just couldn’t get his foot off the gas pedal. without any bothering advertisement banners or track-marks, we got to move really close to the action and were able to reduce the content of the images to only the rider and his pounding bike. the lipstick cam also gave us a great possibility to grasp of what’s going on during a mind blowing downhill descent. Because claudio edits the way he rides, will edit his riding part by himself! chances are good, that it will turn out to be a real audiovisual downhill explosion…

mr. megavalanche rene wildhaber is so in love with la reunion that we decided to make the trip to the indian ocean with him. the french tropical island offers a similar diversity as la palma, although the dimensions in size are far greater! while rene was preparing for the race, we enjoyed some lazy day vacation at the beach. hard work for sure… after the megavalanche, where “wildi” turned out second in a foto finish, we started shooting. the peaks of la reunion are all volcanoes and offer a dramatic scenery and some rough lava single trails. rene worked himself through grotesquely beautiful moon landscapes and then moved closer to the cost, where smooth and dusty single trails wind themselves through green meadows, sugar cane plantations and tropical forests, often showing the ocean as a backdrop! as easy a person “wildi” is, as relaxed the filming in la reunion turned out! cool trip!

from zürich we headed straight to laax, a supreme snowboarding resort and quite a cool area for biking. hosting the red bull trailfox every year, the resort a freeride track with gondula access, some dirt jumps and dozens of miles of enduro and crosscountry bike trails within a unique panorama. together with carlo and joscha, we met up with german jan stötzer and the french scott-rider carmine falco. a 4wd pickup brought us the to glacier at a 3000m elevation. instead of ripping lines we got lost in the fog… after staggering around for hours, we finally found some nice freeride lines and two cool gaps to work with for the next day. We only barely made it back to the truck and were hoping for better conditions the next day. an easy night at the famous capricorn hostel, where the owner “gusti” did everything to raise our spirits, mellowed us out again.
the next day offered great weather and our crew spent nearly half of it shaping the kickers and the lines we needed. the session turned out to be great! the guys rocked as if there were no tomorrow. within a scenery of crazy moss, smoothly shaped rocks and bolders, rough mountain peaks and gloomy fog, josha, jan, carmine and carlo worked hard to give us some great footage! two days of hard work really paid off in the end!

we’re really lucky…  we got to shoot with one of mountainbikings most fascinating women, anne-caroline chausson. near montpellier (france) annecaro hit some great freeride lines with some hefty drops, in a landscape that could be mistaken for utah or arizona. the clouds sure kept us biting nails, but after a day we had enough sunny moments to get some excellent shots and leave the location with a big smile.
our next destination was andorra, one of the smallest countries on our planet! the dwarf state showed it’s best side with a cloudless, deep blue sky and beautiful autumn colours. despite it being the end of a very tough season, anne-caro put up all her energy and skill and shot through the pine trees on the downhill track with such speed and cat like grace, that everything blended together to a perfect shooting. anne-caro not only surprises you on her bike, but also turns out to be a very special girl of many facets, with a clear, down to earth mind, interesting plans and a good sense of humor! sans doute,tu a gâgner des fans en suisses anne-caro! En chanté…

from the pyrenee mountains of andorra to the mediterranean sea climate of narbonne (france). here we met up with the french “bon vivent” and “enfant terrible” of french street-biking: titou. one thing’s for sure, titous veeeery laaaaayed back and stress is not what he’s looking for... together with his friend “jesus” and a young photographer, we cruised the historic wine country town for riding spots. he definitely did pull it off as “dure” as he could. you’ve hardly seen a guy take landing hits as titou does. heavy drops and rock hard landings on flat concrete are he’s regular diet… we watched him ride some spots in the historic town, jump a roundabout in full traffic or hit a huge concrete gap. after the days work he took us to his little picture book village in the vineyards of the corbieres mountains. we spent the night in an old stone farmhouse with him and his friends, tasting his homemade wine, enjoying french hospitality and some great stories! merci monsieur…

the week on the canary island la palma (spain) was like taking a vacation! holger has friends there who own the bike station la palma and showed us some of the most spectacular locations we’ve seen so far. la palmas diversity is amazing! we filmed rides on trails zigzagging down the cliffs above the glittering, deep blue atlantic ocean. we found great, snaking singletrails in a mystic, foggy rainforest where the trees were all covered with thick green moss and huge cobwebs. but the lava fields topped it all! resembling great slopes of black powder snow, holger could choose his lines like a snowboarder and surf the fine, black lava gravel with his brand new “scott ransom” freerider. it seemed surreal to have such a huge playground with hardly any limits to the riders choice of line and not having a single soul in site. we captured some extraordinary lipstick angles and fantastic landscape shots with holger getting some of the best rides in his life! together with the great hospitality ottes and chris gave us in their green paradise, everything added up to a real freeride pleasure! no doubt we’ll be back to la palma soon! the riding’s just killer…

berlin’s the place to be in germany! especially when the dirt master timo pritzel himself is stomping his homegrounds! The town offers a whole bunch of great street spots and some of the best dirtlines in Europe.  Thank’s for the tour Timo!

short shooting short news! eric called us up right after the “eurobike” and we met for a quicky at champery in the southern swiss alps. it was a perfectly sunny day, his friend ben had organized an excavator and after shaping some dirt jumps and a quarter, porter exploded before a postcard backdrop of snow caped swiss mountains. throwing some backflips, 360 tailwips, some handplants over the excavator and finally a nice flare, we wrapped it up. right on eric, we sure had a good day with some of great footage!

there’s this timid, young guy somewhere in switzerland. coming out of nowhere, he tried to set a world record by jumping a 16m drop this summer. he barely made it, so we decided to give him some space in our film. we loaded some lighting equipment into the car and set out for the heart of rural switzerland, the emmental. by the way, that’s where the famous cheese with the many holes comes from… we spent a day shooting an 8m drop over a service road, at the edge of a beautifully coloured autumn forest and perfumed by the smell of a pig farm nearby. nice little one day shoot!

carlo diekman and joscha forstreuter, two up and coming german talents on the dancefloor of pro freeride mountainbiking. after rocking with some of the worlds best at the district ride in nürnberg (germany), they dropped by in downtown Switzerland where we introduced them to some nice little street locations. especially carlo got to show his skills on the concrete as the two friends were jibbing around town, shopping for spots and having there fun. after a cool obstacle line, a loading ramp, a few wallrides and a beautiful bank, we climbed over a fence to hit a huge empty pool. in the golden evening light joscha and carlo ripped a load of wall taps, wall rides, foot plants and drops enjoying the alternative tourist program of zürich!

Definitely a highlight: filming in the superb mountain range near st.moritz (switzerland) with one of mountain biking icons, thomas „frischi“ frischknecht! almost a national hero here in switzerland, a thorough pro-sportsman, frischi’s most of all a really great guy and fun to work with! awesome to see, that a pro-rider, having achieved so much and spending thousands of hours on his bike, can still get his kicks and big smiles out of what he’s doing. in his mid-thirties, the guy’s still pedalling as if there was no tomorrow. being on his favourite biking grounds, he got everybody fired up with his jokes and energy. When we did the heli shots after two days of shooting, frischi was so stoked to finally get a long run, that he took off like a rocket for miles, kicking his cross country “scott-genius” along a supreme, nearly endless single trail, truly evoking the pure spirit of the mountainbiking. By the way: CONGRATULATIONS TO YOUR MARATHON WORLD CHAMPIONSHIP TITLE!

spain’s suffering the worst drought in 60 years. it certainly helped to make our days with greg minnaar a visually unique. a 20 hour non-stop drive took our filming crew to granada, in southern spain. near the medieval town with it’s impressive combination of arabian and european culture, greg showed us a beautiful free ride trail with a nice variety of curves, burms and drops. fuelling him with swiss espressos and then off to chase him through the dusty pine forest, he nailed the snakelike trail over and over again, wrapping us in a never ending dust cloud, which made the images look surreal at times. amazing how smoothly he glides through even the trickiest terrain, almost without effort it seems! ever see him hit dirt? he unpacked a big bag of super solid moves infront of our lenses. greg’s really modest, a hard worker and alot of fun to hang out with. we all had a great time! we enjoy seeing you do so well in the world cup greg, right on!

riders and film makers have set’em up and drop the gate! evermore’s project started right at the heart of it’s origine. we met up with one of the worlds top ten 4-cross riders, roger rinderknecht for an all night shooting on his home ground bmx-track, near zürich. our idea was to create a unique and dreamlike athmosphere with special lighting, crane shots and special camera angles to feature rogers powerful performance. he patiently repeated one technical run after another in the same quality, bearing low temps and a nasty drizzle. only thanks to a terrific team of helpers, we were able to handle the crane and the mass of lighting equipment we had on the set. thanx guys! after nearly six hours on his new “commencal” bike, roger was completely drained at four in the morning. everyone was! we’ll give the airs and some tricky transfers another go, after the season. see you soon for another night time rumble, roger!

whoever’s into smooth single trails, italian lifestyle and mediterranean kitchen, has to chill out at ernesto’s “albergo podere” in massa vecchia. a week of work seemed like vacation, when filming in italy with daniela bosshard, a swiss national team-rider. actually a downhiller, daniela chose some smooth single tracks that wind through crooked trees and brush, all wrapped into the sounds of twittering birds, humming insects and the rich smell of mediterranean herbs. it felt like being in a commercial  for bike vacations. hopefully the layed back atmosphere, the countryside, the supreme riding conditions and the fun we had, will have a magic reflection on our film materiel. and by the way: thomas frischknecht’s got his own vineyard down there! so have a taste of his wine when you drop by…