DarkFEST – Pure Darkness 2017 ramps up
January 27th, 2017
By Andrew Dodd in Features
DarkFEST jumps are getting enormous!
The boys from Pure Darkness are back at The Garden Route Trail Park, but this time the plans are a bit different.
Photo | Eric Palmer/AFREAKIN photography
Sam Reynolds has brought 2 master builders with him, Clemens Kaudela and Nico Vink to make the massive jumps even more crazy for DarkFEST!
“I brought Clemens and Nico to help me make the jumps bigger and darker than ever!”
Sam Reynolds
Judging the size of things on video is often very misleading and both the newcomers were very surprised at the size of the DarkFEST jumps, but they dove right in to the diggers and got to work.
Adding new lines, tweaking a few things to make it more friendly for DH bikes and smoothing the eroded lips and landings was first on the cards.
The DarkFEST jumps are based on the Pure Darkness monster jumps – but are getting BIGGER with loads more options. We can not wait to see this! Photo | Eric Palmer/AFREAKIN photography
“When I first got here and saw the step up and the site my thoughts were, go big or go home…man, maybe I should have stayed at home.”
Clemens
The infamous giant step up now has 2 hipped landings on either side and the right line leads into a left hip on the last jump of the line, which looks absolutely insane. They are also busy with a long low jump over the run in to the step up, which will make for some spectacular shots with guys jumping over each other going mach1!
Yeah, there’s a loop too… Photo | Eric Palmer/AFREAKIN photography
“When Sam showed me the DarkFEST jumps, I was blown away by the sheer size of these things. Pretty nervous to ride them to be honest”
Nico Vink
Having 2 diggers here now means that the speed of progress has doubled. You can literally watch the jumps grow. Nico is loving it too much and spending all day in them getting things dialled in.
A bit of rain came through on Wednesday, which slowed down the building, but made the dirt tacky and perfect to work with, so it’s guns blazing again and can’t wait to see the rest of the ideas come to life.
Lots more plans to unfold, keep an eye out for the week 2 update before all the riders come down to shred the goodness!
Watch the video here:
And check out the insane run up here:
Follow the Pure Darkness crew on the Facebook page right here
