- Take 15 unique free-riders from around the globe,
including myself, and stick nine massive jumps
in front of them. This is DarkFEST.
(guitar)
(rock music)
(crowd cheering)
- Whoa, whoa, whoa!
Before we get into that, what is DarkFEST?
Well, DarkFEST is the first round of the FEST series,
a rider-run, rider-owned series,
where the only aim is to build huge, massive jumps,
ride with your friends, and progress the sport.
Since the riders rule the roost, we'll let them explain.
- FEST Series is like the coolest sh- ever, for sure.
- And we just come here for one or two weeks.
- And within a week, you got more than one chance
where you can ride, and you feel good on your bike.
- We're just here to send it and go big,
and kinda show the world what's possible on our bikes.
- Build a sick line, invite each other.
- You can invite whoever you want,
there's no ranking or anything,
so if you want someone to come, then they can just come,
there's no rules, really.
- Amazing locations, riding the best course,
we do exactly what we want, when we want to do it.
- We shred the jumps, we have fun.
- Ride it, have a good time.
- Yeah, FEST is best.
- [Narrator] And FEST takes place around the globe,
each spot is hosted by a different rider
from the FEST series.
For example, Kurt Sorge's Hoff Fest in Retallack BC, Canada.
Fly over the Atlantic and there's Nico Vink's Loosefest,
Makken's Hillbilly Huckfest,
and the only Southern Hemisphere event,
hosted by Sam Reynolds, is DarkFEST.
We find ourselves in wine country,
a place called Vuurberg Vineyard, Stellenbosch,
near Cape Town, in South Africa.
The perfect place to grow grapes
is on the sides of mountains
with steep and undulating gradients,
which also happens to be the perfect terrain
for building huge jumps!
Wine? (laughs) FEST!
But dirt doesn't just fall out the sky,
someone's gotta build these jumps.
Designing, digging, and testing
comes down to three professional riders;
Clemens, Nico, and Sam.
Two 23 tonne diggers,
one baby five tonne digger,
and over 250 hours sat in those diggers,
burning 3000 litres of fuel.
It took them three weeks to perfect, and build,
and move tonnes of dirt, and over 20 hours of spade-work
to shape the whole thing.
This venue is a complete dream-come-true,
because you can see, it's a big, long, flowing downhill,
the average is a big downhill, so it's good,
we can carry as much speed as we want.
But also, there's steep lumps and humps all over the place.
- Yeah, the lay of the land was on our side,
so it helped a lot.
- That's why I liked building with Nico and Clemens so much,
and why I absolutely have to get them to come along.
First of all, they're so skilled in the machines,
it's a pleasure to work with, you kind of suggest something,
and they, it's almost like telepathic, if you think,
'ah, there's a little lump there', as he's building,
that next second he'll just dig it out, make it perfect.
- Together we figure out what is best, I would say,
I feel like Sam has last call, it's his event,
so if he wants it a certain way we do it.
- Well we do like, I would say, 98% digger work.
The stuff we build is so damn big,
that you need to finish it with digger as much as possible,
because otherwise it will not be possible in that short time
to finish a jump with so much spade-work.
It took me maybe, two, three years of permanently,
project after project, and now we start a lip,
and we know, 'okay, in two hours, the rest will be perfect.'
- (deep breath) I know I keep saying this word, nervous,
but this is a whole new level of nervousness.
Alright, I'm gonna get used to these shark fins,
and then see what it's like on that biggun.
- [Man] Roll into it.
- Roll into it, yeah.
(tyres spinning)
(wind blowing)
It's all good. I felt good.
I landed this one good. Did all that good.
Now, to pull my balls out, and hit the biggun.
But I think I might train someone in. Okay.
- But, don't think about it too much, you'll feel it.
- Yeah, I'll try, yeah, yeah.
- You'll the lip coming, you'll work it out.
- Yeah. Yeah, alright.
- And then, enjoy. Get some serious airtime.
- Yeah. - And then as fast as you can,
race jump the next jump, as fast as you can,
blast the hip, and then you know where you are.
- Okay, yeah. Yeah. - Ready.
- Yup, I'm ready. Oh, you recording?
(laughter) - Yeah!
Okay, you'll be fine.
- Let's go! - Yeah Blake! Yeah!
(tyres spinning) (wind rushing)
(techno music)
- Oh my, f-- me dude! That was sick!
- Yo. Clay-day dude. Cased.
- You cased? - Il-y as bit.
Like this much.
- Not this time.
- Not this time!
- To the bottom this time. - Oh, and it's got windy.
- Let's go quick then. - Fuh--
- It is so good. Wow. - Yeah dude.
- Bottom now.
- Yeah, all the way to the bottom.
- Serious jump, huh? - All the way!
(tyres spinning) - Just coming in, following.
I was like, 'just don't touch the brakes.
'Don't touch the brakes.'
And I could feel my finger doing this on the brake,
like, oooh, no. (whoosh noise) Ooh. Oh.
I'm not gonna make that landing. And just, (whoosh noise).
And then, yeah. Carried on.
(techno music)
- FEST series has different riders, of course,
and it brings many different riding styles,
and as for example, the guy behind us,
(metal music)
- He's one of the steeziest and flowiest, I would say.
- Just such a natural on the bike,
so much bike control, it's so rare to see Nico Vink
make any sort of mistake, I mean,
I think he got into a sketchy position one time
over the jump all weekend,
and all the boys were freaking out,
we're like, "Oh, what is Nico doing?"
'Cause he just looks so at home on that bike.
- He doesn't have the big tricks, that's for sure but,
if you watch him ride, like, shred down the line,
he doesn't even need the big tricks, you know?
He has so much flow, and the way he rides it,
it's just really good to watch.
(techno music) (cheering)
- The riding style of Adolf Silva is absolutely mad.
- Yeah. (laughs) Um.
- Wild. (laughs)
- He sometimes looks so out of control,
but there's no way he feels like that in his mind, you know?
- He's so talented, like, good air awareness,
and he's not afraid to send it.
- And no matter how bad things go
from the start to finish of his airtime,
there's no moment in there where he freaks out,
you know, he stays composed.
- When I first met him, he actually was riding BMX,
so he's a very trick-orientated guy,
and then I think he kind of came to mountain-biking
because he could do bigger jumps, really,
and be more crazy than he already was.
(rock music)
- Yeah, Nicholi is a trick-orientated rider.
- Nicholi doesn't have the modo-style,
or the big whips and stuff,
but he adds ten-eighty, you know?
So it's cool to see, it's really cool
to see the different styles.
- [Man] Like you can tell he's not riding
that size of jumps quite often, but he manage it super good.
- Every one of them has their unique things
that makes them so special to watch.
- Watching Nico and Sam ride is like the coolest thing ever,
with big whips and the style, with the big jumps,
but it's also cool seeing Nicholi doing crazy tricks too,
so, both are really rad.
(rock music)
- So that's just a few of the riders
and their riding styles out here at DarkFEST.
But I wanna walk this course and get the precise numbers
on how big this course is.
I got the huge tape measure.
Right, this is the start gate.
You come into it, you're on the brakes a little bit,
down this rough bank, oh my gosh, look at that.
(tyres spinning)
This is a shark fin berm, so you have to jump out of it,
and land over here, and I'm saying that's 17 foot,
so about five metre 20.
That is six metres.
So you've done five metres, six metres,
now onto the penultimate sharky.
Okay.
Eight metres. Look at that,
two metres bigger than that one.
Right, that's 26 foot, eight metres,
now onto the last sharky over the road.
You brake into that one, this one you don't brake.
Okay, coming 'round... it's 11 metres.
It's a sweet spot. 11 metres. 36 foot.
And then from here on, you tuck. No brakes.
(tyres spinning) (R&B music)
Yes! Ah...
this is 76 foot, to the knuckle,
but that was on a close shave,
you don't want to be landing too close to the top.
Can you see that? That's a landing.
That's 86 foot. 86 foot!
There's a landing there. Is there any more?
Oh my gosh! Look at that one there!
Look at that one, that's a landing! (gasps)
That's quite far, that's a deep one.
Do you wanna know how big it is?
- Yeah. - 96 foot.
(laughs) For you guys that wanna know it in metres,
okay, so, 96 foot, 29 metres. Holy fffflip.
What the hell am I doin'?
(tyres spinning)
It's a big race jump, it looks massive,
but it doesn't feel massive,
'cause you're going really fast.
So, how big is it actually?
So the gap... 50 foot. 50 foot gap.
But you don't want to land there,
'cause that's a bit of a close shave.
We're landing up here, that's a Der Kaiser,
that's my tyre, I'm landing 58 foot.
(tyres spinning)
This monster of a hip,
this, where we land in, that's 34 foot.
How the hell am I going to measure this?
This take-off, from the bottom to the top, is eight metres.
Eight metres, that.
So you steppin' up, eight metres,
maybe seven metres to the top, plus you gotta clear it,
so you're going... about there? 10 metres?
18 metres from the floor.
Right, this is the last feature on the whole course,
and look at this non-existent landing.
But that's the beauty about this step-up,
because to be honest,
that is the fastest part of the course,
you're coming in flat-out down there,
but you lose your little bit of speed in the bowl,
then you hit that massive, massive kicker,
land up on this, it's great,
because you can do all your tricks, and crash,
but you don't crash so far, and you don't go crashing
at high speed either.
Well there you go, that is the course,
from one side of the valley, all the way across
to the other side of the valley,
at the bottom of the side of this mountain.
(tyres spinning)
Okay, so we've measured everything, we know the distance
and how big all the obstacles are on the course,
but now we need to know how fast you're gonna have to go
to clear these jumps.
So I've got the trust speed-gun, and I feel like
this part of the course, the last bit, is the fastest bit,
so I'm gonna test this out.
We got Cam Zink comin' in... niiice Zink.
44 mile an hour, Zink got 44. - That was fast.
- Now, Kyle Strait. The big guy!
He's definitely going faster.
Yeah. One mile faster. 45 mile an hour.
But right, let's just put this into perspective.
Just think, when you're next driving your car,
or if your mum and dad are driving a car,
tell 'em to go 45 mile an hour, look outside the window,
see how fast everything is moving past,
but then just think, what if it goes wrong
and you have a crash?
Imagine crashing on a bicycle at 45 mile an hour.
I'm gonna stop imagining, actually. Just sounds horrible.
(R&B music)
It was a dream-come-true to be invited
to one of the FEST series stops, DarkFEST.
And I hit the biggest jumps I've ever hit
in my mountain bike career, a milestone for sure.
The boys Sam Reynolds, Nico Vink, Clemens Kaudela,
did a fantastic job building the best course
I've ever ridden, and to top it off,
I got to ride this course with the best dudes in the sport,
freeride slope-style and downhill.
I couldn't ask for anything more.
Thank you very much to everyone that was involved
in making this event happen,
and big thanks to you lovely viewers for watching!