Plymouth and the Olympic MTB site in Essex provide the epic locations for this weekend’s action.
The huge tiled Plaza at the centre of Plymouth will always be one of the Animal Bike Tours favourite places to come build and perform the show – from the images and video it should be obvious why!
Photography: Robin Kitchin
Plymouth city centre holds the record for most bike show attendances since its conception – Saturday we took that into double figures – and all for very good reason as the city again delivered big excitable crowds to bring out the best in our riders. Rare though was the scorchio breathless summer weather that taxed our supply of Vito sweatbands for both riders and the fevered fans – liquid hot action has never been such an apt description!
Martyn Ashton and Blake Samson were joined for the day by MC Toby Phillips. Having only ever witnessed the show as a spectator he loved every minute of his VIP access in to the danger zone, his rad new wardrobe of shiny Animal clobber, and most importantly how easy it is to get caught up in the adrenaline of the show. Good work Toby!
The day ended with a finale show full of wild tricks, huge grins and an exhausted crowd – special thanks to Bob Bogdan Williams for helping capture some of this from the barriers.
But this was just the start of our weekend as on the Sunday we were to be performing near Southend-on-Sea some 280 miles away – good job we have an amazing rig that packs down in a super efficient Tetris style into our lovely trailers and luxurious vans!!
As Martyn and Blake got a head start and drove the Vito Sport via what was supposed to be the faster route on the main roads, Robin took the scenic route. Detouring via Lyme Regis to check out the finals of Redbull Harbour Reach wakeboard contest and collect MC Thorne who’d been loaned out for the day to give a bit of wake-banter. It was a really cool event and I’m sure the after party would have been fun, but there was no time for such antics with it being 9pm and the Olympic XC course a solid 4 hours away.
Photography: Sim Bradley
Martyn and Blake were being real team players and found a closed section of M25 to detour around and make sure they arrived at the same time as Robin and James, in the early hours of Sunday. Four powerful hours of sleep later we were sat down for breakfast laughing and sharing stories about the lovely drive – fortunately the excitement of the day ahead was providing the kick required to shake off the need for pillow time!
Bright eyed, we set up under the toasty morning sun, atop our hill of glory overlooking the Hadleigh Farm Olympic Cross Country course. We had been asked down as part of the London Prepares event among an invited field of national and World Champion riders to give the 5,000 spectators some fast paced, alternative mountain bike action during the breaks in racing.
The infrastructure was in place, marshals and officials dotted the course, an enormous screen kept us up to date with lap times and leader positions, and the constant commentary from ex-Bike Tour MC Dan Jarvis informed and entertained. It was easy to envision how amazing it will be on the Olympic weekend, a year from now, with four times the amount of spectators lining the course – fingers crossed for similar weather!
You could view almost half the course from our commanding position on the hill, with a breathtaking back drop of fields rolling away towards the Thames river mouth, it was arguably one of the most picturesque backdrops the show has ever had – on par with the beauty of Croyde bay at Goldcoast Ocean Fest, or the Lord of the Rings style epicness of Sea Sessions in Bundoran, Ireland.
“It been an amazing day, I think everyone is in awe of what the actual event is going to be like. After today it’s that little bit easier to comprehend what a historic moment for London and mountain biking it’s going to be. I feel very privileged to have been a part of the Olympic build up…hopefully we will be part the main event.”
Martyn Ashton
“Is that an Olympic torch or are you just happy to see me?”
Blake Samson
