Hey, I'm Vero Sandler. I'm 27 years old. I live in Wales and I'm from New Zealand
and I'm a pro mountain biker. When the guys told me the roster for X Games,
I was kind of speechless to be honest. I was on Zoom to them just with my mouth wide open, like
I get to be a part of something that's got all the riders that I idolize?
I've known Joe for years, like when I used to race World Cups back in the day we used to hang
out and have like a laugh every now and then and I've always been a massive fan of his work.
I thought it would be the perfect combo and yeah, we haven't worked together on a video for
a couple of years, but the last one we did was one of my favorite ones I've ever done.
When she reached out, I wasn't expecting to see the word X Games in the text message she sent me.
That was cool. I just remembered straight away from when I was younger watching
BMX and the skate stuff on TV, like Tony Hawk or Dave Mirra doing a 900. Being able to be a part
of X Games with the Real Mountain Bike thing with Vero as well is definitely childhood dream tick.
I've been a massive fan of the Real Series for years and I've always watched them and
it's always hyped me up to go ride my bike, but it'll be cool to showcase mountain biking to a
wider audience and hope it gets more people into it and like young people get super stoked on it.
I literally moved to the U.K. because I was too broke to fly back to New Zealand one year
after racing a World Cup season. It was a blessing in disguise because it was actually the sickest
spot ever and it's allowed me to like progress my riding into a career. The crew around me was like,
the number one sort of recipe for me, like finding my passion and it was like an awesome
encouraging atmosphere. It's really important to have like an awesome team around you. It
doesn't matter who it is: Girls, boys, whatever. Anyone can help you progress as a rider and become
whatever you want to be over time. Like you realize which athletes
are the ones you want to work with more, and Vero's definitely one of them. She's a grafter,
she works hard and also has good input on the creative side. This has kind of been the very
first video project that I've directed myself. I've never had the opportunity
to do that before and I've always really really wanted to do it and kind of have like
more creative freedom. Even just like the features that I want or being able to call the shots of how
I want things to look on camera, or how I want to hit things without having like a narrative from
an outside source. If I do my riding the best I can and Joe films it as well as he can then,
we'll both come away with a sick shot and we'll both be stoked so it's just kind of like a mutual
understanding and it works really well. It's been really cool to do something different and learn
a different style of filming and watching the process of the rider battling to get big clips
on custom-built features. I think if I just keep doing my best every day, the best stuff I can
ride, the best stuff I can like film, the best stuff I can, then hopefully opportunities will
present themselves to me. There wasn't too much stress at the start, but we did have a little bit
of struggles with the weather and stuff like, that kind of a struggle to find the dome after
it's all too wet, being able to get be involved and digging all the spots was even more rewarding.
We like built it all make it come to life and then get to ride and film on it, so kind of the dream
setup for me. What's so addictive about mountain biking is basically every aspect of it. You know,
if I'm feeling mellow, I'll just go out for a chill trail ride with my dog or something. Or
if I'm feeling like getting gnarly, there's always the option to go and do some big jumps
or like try and progress my riding. Riding's always been my number one priority and what I
enjoy doing most. The fact that I've been able to become a pro mountain biker and be able to
do that kind of stuff every day that I absolutely love. Doing the whole process of my X Games Real
part has been super rewarding. I've learned like so much about every single aspect of it. Having
the opportunity to do that has been amazing. Competing in this video contest is definitely
at the top of the list of opportunities I've had so far. For me, honestly I'm just, I just kind of
feel like I won being a part of this contest in the first place. So life goal ticked off!
I'm Vero Sandler and this is my Real MTB video part.
Well, Vero definitely just put on a clinic for all of us on how to corner a mountain bike and
she crammed some pretty unique moves in there. Jeff, what did you think? I think Vero's trick
technicality was quite impressive, like she's throwing combinations together that
are very hard. Vero has all sorts of tricks. She did that quick little double suey,
the nothing crankflip in particular. I feel like if anybody in the world did that move,
they would have gotten a huge yo for me, so it made me super excited. I loved the cornering,
it was just overall like pretty good vibe.