Eventide Part 2: Mitch Ingley and Matt Simmonds

April 15th, 2011

By in Features

Part two of the Eventide blog is the section of up and coming super racer Mitch Ingley tackling a super icy and steep Llangollen track before whizzing off for a session with Wrekin local Matt Simmonds.

Riding at Battlestead Woods

Day 1: Filming with Mitch at Llangollen; Woke up absolutely stoked to go and film there, last year I photographed the BDS race that was held there, the venue is spectacular! It is so steep when you look down from the top you think, should I really be riding this? The track looked great but having never ridden it before i didn’t quite know how it flowed which made it more challenging to film.

I woke up in the morning nice and early to see the sun shining through my window, but didn’t’ realize how damn cold it was! There was no snow or ice on the roads and I thought we where defiantly onto a winner. So I went and picked up Mitch and we set off, great the whole way there. Until we drove into the bottom field! Ice, frost and the ground was rock hard! We walked up to have a look at the bottom drops, ‘no way!’ Where it had been muddy the weekend before all the ruts had frozen solid in the landing of a 10 foot drop! Mitch was a bit worried by this point, and so was I! The only day I had to film and it may be un-rideable!

Never mind, as we started driving up the road that takes you to the top my old Focus was struggling, not helped by a frozen stream running across the steepest part of the road! If I couldn’t get up/down in a car what was Mitch going to do! But we struggled through some sketchy uplift and Mitch told me the new, easier track was rideable so game on!

The ice was weird, it made the ground rock hard a sloppy on a bike but walking didn’t seem too bad. But we got to it and no doubt Mitch was slaying it! The only problem he was having was pushing back up. We got the first straight and first section of the easier track filmed and Mitch thought he could manage the track they ran for last years BDS! He walked down the top corner and slid straight onto his arse, as did I! Fun times! Never the less he stuck it and I think thats one of my favorite shots in his section! From this we carried on making our way down and luckily there wasn’t any spills on either of our part, the only problem was one of my tripod legs snapped off as it got so cold and brittle! Meaning that from last 2 mins of this section I was integral to a tripod! Ha.

Matt Simmonds racing at Rheola

Day 2: Filming with Matt and Mitch at the Ercall in Telford; One of the best sections to film I think, I have always enjoyed the jumps and downhill at the Ercall and was so exited to film them! Having photographed Mitch on them before I knew how good they would look. It was a Wednesday morning we set off to film with Matt and both of us where pretty exited, having met him at races before he had come across as very friendly and just a great character! But when we got to the Ercall car park at 10am I had a text on my phone from 8 in the morning saying ‘Sure you want to film its pissing it down,’ Ha! We unpacked unsure of what was going on but surely enough Matt arrived and we got chatting, especially about the new bike! Those Nukeproofs are beautiful.

Mitch and Matt hitting the Ercall

We slowly headed up the hill to the bombhole to bombhole gap which is super photogenic, so I let them get warmed up while I scoped out a few shots and we got filming! This section I think is really pretty, I love the scenery at the Wrekin as its never really dull, theres lots of trees and a strange green plant that grows like grass thats great for shooting with. After a good trek around the hill we got lots of shots and left Matt to his ‘rest’ day, or not so much after we drag him out for a filming sesh! Good times!

Anyway, enjoy part two of the Eventide film release!

More Mountain Biking Videos and pinkbike.com

Big props to Matt for coming out to film and to Mitch for braving the ice at Llangollen! Enjoy and part three with North shredder Dan Eastwood at his locals!

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