[MUSIC PLAYING]
GLEN JACOBS: They climb the hill one morning.
The weather it was fair.
The peak loomed high above the clouds and no one gave a care.
They walked in cotton and that day,
and they dreams they never failed.
They're out to build a mighty trail for all of us to rail.
The captain said a piece of gold for those who shaped me trail.
So bend your backs and dig me lads.
I know that we won't fail.
So bend your backs and dig the lads,
and build this mighty trail.
Tonight we'll sing and dance, and tomorrow night we can rail.
Yeah, I think all trail builders do that.
I think they all have--
I don't know if they call it smoker, but certainly.
And every now and then you can have a hammock
and/or a little bit of music.
And when it's wet, some shade.
A little camp spot too.
INTERVIEWER: Yeah, so this is a smoko, right?
GLEN JACOBS: This is a smoko.
Yeah, Yeah.
We had a couple of Zingers and some coffee,
and sat around and talked to a bit of rubbish.
But probably the most concerning thing here--
like the dynamics of a team.
And it's been happening a little lately.
I've been noticing it here and there with the team.
Where people decide to sit and have their smoker.
It's a silverback theory.
You know the gorilla?
Like the one who sits the highest wants to be the boss.
And Max has been sitting up there for a while now.
He's been sitting higher than me.
Hoo.
Just looking at each other, like--
[BUMPING FROM CHEST]
[LAUGHING]
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Yeah, I'm Glenn Jacobs, and I come from a land down under.
A place called Australia.
And the rainforests and jungles of far North Queensland
where the crocodiles and cassowaries roam free.
You know something starts, ignites, like skateboarding,
motocross.
Mountain bikes was in this case.
And it could be coffee machines.
It could be anything.
It starts and starts on a growth, growth, growth,
but it'll bump out.
You'll hit the ceiling.
Skateboarding went like that and it dropped,
and they came back even bigger.
Because the designs changed and everything like that.
But with mountain biking, we noticed
that people are getting good money, and the good contracts,
and big teams.
Canada all specialized.
GET had these monster teams, and there's a lot of money around.
And the UCI had some good sponsors.
But towards the end of the 90s, the bubble burst.
It hit the ceiling, and then it came down.
And that's when I left the UCI, along with about
20 other people.
I lost my job.
They didn't have much money for this mountain bike thing
because it wasn't that many sponsors.
And like anything bad, always something good comes out of it.
And for the sport, the activity of mountain biking.
Because the 90s was so race, race, race, race,
and a little bit of recreation, there
was no trails really you could go out and ride, and signpost,
and things like that.
When it died and it came back, of course
it's been growing on this steady arc.
And it's been amazing.
But it sort of veered right instead of going straight
up again where it was before.
It's gone off on its own pathway, and its recreation.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Trail centers, where you can go for holidays, destinations,
is critical.
And that's exploding.
Gone are the days where you'll go on holidays
and sit around a pool, and drink some champagne and beers,
and go this is living.
That's not living.
That's dying because you-- how boring is that?
But I think we've got a whole range of people
now that are-- outdoor culture is so critical to them,
and how they live, and how they want to live in the future.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We did a lot of mountain biking, building trails and everything,
before there was a thing called mountain bikes.
And as a 10-year-old kid, a couple of mates,
we'd be building trails out through the rainforest.
Out the back of our house so we could ride our bikes
on it and stuff.
Going through creeks, and avoiding the crocodiles,
and going up some gullies.
And then one of my mates said to me--
he said, look at the size of that mountain at the back.
A big old dirt road.
Lot of logging road coming down this--
we should go there.
And we dragged our bikes up there
and used to ride down this really nuggety, nasty,
rocky track.
We're probably 10, 12 years old.
About 1990, we started filming.
And we put a little video together
called, Ice Cream Heads From Outer Space
because helmets came out around then.
It was a lure to wear a helmet, and they look
like fucking ice cream buckets.
So we called it Ice Cream Heads From Outer Space.
And then that went on to Mud Chaos,
and we filmed everything.
Riding bikes off the top of the bungee tower,
and riding waterfalls, and trying
to do everything you could think of you could do with a bike.
And that was a lot of fun.
And at the same time, that whole thing
was happening with the World Cup.
Let's bring the World Cup to Cairns.
And people go, Oh, the Cairns.
That's where the video came from.
And it just sort of tumbled on from there.
And then we had a world championship in 96.
You could become professional at track building and stuff
like that.
That was then.
Lo and behold, within maybe a month after that,
the UCI called.
And they said, listen we think we need somebody on the world
circuit.
And the riders, and the team managers, and the media
suggested that we get you.
Yeah, fair enough.
And that's when I knew, hang on, shit.
My life's about the change.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
We are sitting in a beautiful little timber
cabin in a place called Hogevrade in Norway
not far from a little town called Fla
which is fucking unbelievable.
How could you have a place called Fla?
And here we are.
HAROLD HAALAND: You've heard about Derby
and these names that pop up.
And World Trail is obviously connected to those names
so that sounds like an interesting thought.
And when Glenn showed up here to do the footwork himself,
I sat down with Glenn and I introduced Hogevrade and Fla.
And I said it's a really, really nice area,
but not that spectacular.
And then he walked around here for a week looking
at the terrain, and then he pulled me aside and said,
you're wrong.
This is spectacular.
And he started talking about how we found the terrain
to be really well adapted to building a mountain bike
product.
MAX: This land-- she's asking for it.
Yeah, it's a good canvas and we've
got a fresh canvas as well.
And we've learned so much in the past,
and we're taking all our new knowledge,
putting it into this, and starting fresh.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
Graham has an eye for quality.
You may have fucked something up back 700 meters on the trail,
he'll make you hike the excavator back up and fix it.
He doesn't care that they have the money, the business
sort of size.
Finn he's like, fix it.
Our names on the line.
Finn is quality and you could probably
take that in his personal life, his persona, or his attitudes
to life.
MILLIE: Growing up, I wasn't really
allowed to ride on my own.
So there was two trails that my dad would be like,
you're allowed to go ride these trails on your own,
that's fine.
But any other trails, you have to take someone with you.
And I thought, that sucks.
Like there's only so much fun you
can have on these two trails.
They're little cross country loops.
And so I had these rock slabs in my backyard
and I needed something more interesting to ride.
So I just cut these really difficult trails in my backyard
that I could barely ride.
Like I don't think that opportunity to do
this professionally would have ever swung by.
Like I'd always wanted to work outside because I just
want to do something physical, but I
was pushed to the more academic side of things.
Yeah, to be able to work outside all day, and build trails,
and then like enjoy the fruits of your labor.
Like it really is a dream.
HAROLD HAALAND: I mean World Trail has brought
a way of thinking, or a philosophy you could say,
into this project that is not seen in many places
around Norway, or any place really I think.
They go about the work really gently I think.
And they open up a hillside or open up
a face of a mountain, which was inaccessible before.
So I was hiking along with the planners up here for the trail
that they're building right now.
And I think we spent like one hour
just to criss cross a small section because it's
so inaccessible.
Dense forests, big rocks, all that stuff-- now there's
a trail there, and it opens up something
which was completely unavailable before.
So we've already gotten that feedback from guests coming up
and say well, I couldn't access this mountain before.
Now I can.
And that trail looks spectacular and it
doesn't look forced at all.
It looks like it was always there.
It kind of criss crosses in between the rocks,
and over and behind the trees, and over the streams.
And it just feels natural.
It flows in the perfect sense.
Connects really good with the name doesn't it?
It flows.
GLEN JACOBS: Well, what makes it a great travel-- there is--
certainly you have to have passion.
You have to have an understanding
you're going to be a rider.
That by itself doesn't mean you're a good traveler.
You have to have an understanding
of drainage, or sustainability, safety.
And the biggest one, which everybody throws a word around
called flow, which is called predictability.
And that predictability could be the smoothest, nicest, flow
trail.
Or it could be a janky hardcore down little track.
It still has predictability.
You have to nail that correctly.
And you could build the best trail in the world.
Construct ability, build the best thing in the world.
But if it doesn't ride well, it's not really a good trail.
Or you can build the best feeling trail in the world,
but if is not designed for 50, 80, 100, or 1,000 riders
a week, it's not a good trail.
It's going to fall to pieces.
So you've got to have an understanding of all of this
and still have your passion too.
You've got to be dedicated.
You've got to do it seven days a week if you want.
Even if you're employed or if you're working as a traveler,
you're happy to pick up the phone at 9 o'clock
at night or 6 o'clock in the morning
and talk mountain bikes.
And on the weekend, when you go out on the weekend.
And it shouldn't rub you the wrong way.
That's just part of your life
[MUSIC PLAYING]
MAX: Shit, I wouldn't come here if I didn't like travel.
Even if I didn't like bikes, I wouldn't even do this job.
Like what's the point?
So it's all about these things.
Like this thing got us here.
This thing got me on a shovel in the Bush.
Sort of a hobby that we had as a kid.
You progress.
You down to the local jobs, you move out of that stuff,
go up in the bush making the tracks, go a bit further.
[MUSIC PLAYING]
GLEN JACOBS: What World Trail really stands for is,
working with nature instead of against it.
You don't want to disrespect the trail.
You don't want to build anything gaudy, or ugly,
or cheap, or unsustainable, or fighting against nature.
It's all blending.
And over time, nature will gradually
come in and embrace the trail.
If you do it right, not pushing against the soil
or pushing against nature.
It has to be one and that's critical.
It's real for the sustainability of our industry too.
I'll walk through and tag lines.
And this is where the trail is going.
And somebody like Reese, Ryan, or Max will come through
and they'll adjust it or go somewhere else.
You can have five or eight DNA style trails
in that same corridor.
It comes in the individual designer, and we promote that.
That's your own core style and you're experimenting.
Somebody like Max for instance.
To see him come into our business as a 19-year-old kid.
His unique style, and that's a beautiful-- everybody
is different in the world.
And the more different are, the more creative you are.
MILLIE: I don't think anyone's ever going
to meet anyone like Max, ever.
You're so different.
He's very creative.
Like you've seen the shapes Max makes
and you're like, what the fuck.
GLEN JACOBS: If you look at a piece of art
and you don't really understand much about art,
you just go, oh yeah.
But if you know a bit about art, you just go,
I know where this guy's going or where she's going.
Wherever the artist is-- well I can read into this.
And if you weren't into mountain biking,
you would look at this strip.
This dirt ribbon going through the bush.
Oh, yeah looks all right.
It's just going through there.
But if you're a mountain biker, you
know exactly why it's shaped like that
and why it feels like that.
And that's why a really good trail--
people appreciate a good trail.
And Yubee rigged some dynamite and lit a faulty fuse.
It blew the rock and took them too,
leaving nothing but their shoes.
Now 100 years have passed since the captain
and his crew split the Earth and cracked the rock that trail
came rushing through.
The trail it goes on living, for that rock it bares a scar.
And if you ever drop that chute, a voice calls from a far.
Bend your backs and dig me lads and build this mighty trail.
Tonight we'll sing and dance and tomorrow we can rail.
We'll carve and shape the loam and dirt and a prouder folk
they'll be.
To carve a trail that plummets from the mountains to the sea.
ALL: (SINGING) From the mountains to the sea
To carve a trail that plummets from the mountains to the sea.
Die, die, die, die, dida, die, die.
Whew.
Yeah.
Hey, see that's the way it should be done.
[WHISTLING]
Talking a little bit.
[INDISTINCT CHATTER]