(peaceful music)
- [Narrator 1] Nico Vinc is a, he is a character.
- [Narrator 2] Sending it the way bigger than anybody,
best style ever,
- [Narrator 3] so much bike control yours,
so rare to see Nico Vinc, make any sort of mistake.
- [Narrator 4] Real nice guy, modest mellow guy that
is doing phenomenal stuff.
- [Narrator 5] He has so much flow and the way he rides it,
it's just really good to watch.
- [Narrator 6] Yeah, he was always that one kid that
was just like way brave than everybody else.
- [Narrator 7] Nico Vinc is an interesting guy,
looking to go big.
(hard rock music)
- Oh, yes, oh my god, there he is. Hey Nico!
Hey! wait!
Oh man.
- Oh! Nico! Lead the way dude!
(hard rock music)
Oh my goodness Nic, welcome to Chatel!
- [Nico] Hey, Good to have you.
- [Narrator] Nice, that's the way it!
I have a question, how the hell did you get in track named after
yourself in a big place like this?
- [Nico] Well, I've been an ambassador for a couple of years
like 5 years or so, and that I got the opportunity of
building a line to get with my buddy Kristof,
and yeah, that's it, kinda.
- [Narrator] Building a big trail like that with your buddy,
that's a dream come true, dude. That is named after you!
- [Nico] It's definitely a dream come true, (laughing loud)
- [Narrator] Alright, so that's just the top section,
that was built last year, right?
- [Nico] Yeah, a year ago.
- [Narrator] A year ago, yeah? Okay,
now, this is the mid section.
- [Nico] Yeah, we're just at the start of it, like there's
few more sections coming, a bit easier than the top one.
- [Narrator] Oh hell, way more flow, isn't?
- [Nico] Easier for sure.
- [Narrator] Alright, I'll follow you.
- [Nico] Cool, good.
(hard rock music)
- [Nico] I ride a lot of bikes, daily or two times a day.
I think I'm just, I've always been in love with two wheels
and very dedicated to riding, and if there wasn't, I guess,
if there was a day without riding, I would be grumpy.
I just needed it like it was a necessity to me, to go ride.
- [Tim] Nico is a little kid that I met in the skate park,
and, he was always, you know, miles ahead, before anybody,
you know, like, sending it way bigger than anybody,
best style ever. Yeah, he was always that one kid that
was just like way better than everybody else.
- [Nico] The first time I picked up two wheels,
I must have been at home in Belgium, my dad race motor cross
and he had a bike shop, so I grew up going to motor races
and BMX stuff. Like when my mom was pregnant from me,
she did a BMX race, with me in her belly, so,
so I even rode before I actually was born, and I got a
mountain bike when I was probably 4 or 5 or 6 or something.
So it looked like it could be BMX, so, same thing.
- [Kristof] Well we actually grew up together because we
live like, in the same street.
- [Narrator] Same street?!
- [Kristof] Yeah, went to like, school together,
actually kindergarten,
a little bit further in the street where we lived,
big bite of sand, and just like digging and riding
- [Narrator] So it started at real young age,
building trails
This is Kristof Lassens, Nico's oldest friend,
and an incredible rider in his own right.
I caught up with him while he was maintaining the
downhill tracks at Mojon.
- [Kristof] Yeah it all started just to riding bikes
in Belgium, and then we started riding downhill,
and then once we started with that, you wanna go like
- [Narrator] Yeah you wanna get bigger.
- [Kristof] Yeah, so, now we started like racing.
- [Nico] I started racing Downhill at the age of 15
I would say, it was national champ, and my dad's like,
"oh, let's give it a go, let's try it out."
So we went there, he built me like a bike.
I got some fresh brakes like, hard tail,
hydraulic Magura brakes, and all that stuff.
And, I entered the race, and I won my class, so I became
national champion in age 15 or something.
With Downhill racing I like the diversity of it,
like you push, like you're always looking for that extra
second like, oh it's trying to go a little bit faster,
and I especially liked it in the early days because
like I wasn't too serious, so I just like, went to race,
and then lapse all day as much as we could, like 15,
if we could, or 20 if we could.
And I just loved riding, and it was a bit of a challenge,
you know, like you had roots and rocks and jumps and
like beautiful locations, you don't got that impression
if you're in some soccer field, you know,
it's like you are in the mountains.
- [Kristof] Riding downhill, we did a few races, and then,
I wanna go and check out like bigger courses.
- [Narrator] You wanna progress your downhill riding.
You said racing, did you race world cups with Nico, or?
- [Kristof] Yeah, we did, we did a lot of races together.
- [Narrator] Real? How many seasons, like 2 or 3?
- [Kristof] A lot, that Nico moved in like in two teams and
stuff, so we just said let's do a round. I think it was
over like 10 years when we go race.
- [Nico] I never really was like,
I wanna become a Downhill racer. I always had like,
like bolsters of John Tomac and the legends that the time
Greg Herbold, and all those dudes, Hensrey, and I watch
all the movies, but I never really, I just rode bike and
I enjoyed it. So, I guess I got a bit over it because
it became too much of a workout thing, and not like I wanna
progress my riding, and not my fitness, and I ended up
paying my own gas to go to races, and I wasn't getting the
results I needed to be paid and I still like doing okay,
like top 30s occasionally, and maybe top 20 if a good day.
But then, I just got over it, I rode a lot of skate part
on my side, like I just loved riding. And, you know that BMX
fight kinda or the free ride fight, there's a bit different,
so I kinda like, why am I not doing that stuff
that suits my personality way better than the racing.
(hard rock music)
- [Nico] Needing Ben Walker as well
during the Shital mountain style.
- [Ben] Nico was finishing world cups and he was
getting into free ride stuff.
I was always really impressed with his
riding and knew that he had kind of a BMX background or
sort of, kind of like a playful jumping stylish background
as well as speed and the world cups in Shangri
I get to see him
riding with the best riders and holding his own, and so,
I was kind of excited to see what he would do if he went,
if he took that sort of like, speed and amplitude, but then
took it to sort of more free riding.
- [Nico] Ben hook me up with Scott the next year.
- [Ben] I think it was just, just between us, short of
underground and then he got a dirt cover, and then I took
that to my boss and said "check it out", like it's where
we get covers for ride athletes with no salaries. And so
it just kinda like grew between us and then sort of grew
out bigger, but we sort of had to prove what Nico could do
in the beginning.
(hard rock music)
- [Nico] Like I feel like a part of riding is creating
new stuff and building new stuff, then when you're racing
worldcup, you just race tract sac, get offered to you by
organizers or UCI, and there is margin to go so much bigger
than they are doing. Like that's one of the things
I was like, I wanna ride bigger jumps, like everyone's
talking about big finish jump and I'm kinda like I did it
first lap, that's not a big jump, you can go way bigger.
And, I guess, it might sound cocky,
but I don't wanna be cocky, it's just like, I just saw
potential to go bigger, and then I got into riding more
motor and I was like motor guys, they jump like 60, 70,
and then riding motor, I kinda like just started like, yeah,
let's go bigger on mountain bikes because we're not even
close to what we can do even now I think we still can go
bigger and yeah, there is risks that come with it, but
it's worth it, I feel like.
- [Kristof] It's just like what we used to do, just build
stuff and then ride it, and I think like, building those big
jumps, you have more of the opportunity to build
what you wanna ride.
- [Narrator] That "do it yourself" build and ride attitude
and the feeling that mountain bikes could just go bigger
were shared by a few riders around the world.
This common mentality lead
to the creation of Fest series, where ride is take control,
organize, build, and ride their own free ride courses
around the globe.
(hard rock music)
- [Nico] Yeah Fest series definitely opened a lot of doors,
first year I did royal hills, I invited Markin and Andreal,
like we did royal hills and Mark invited me to Hoff fest
which was actually the original, the first fest.
We were riding the bigger jumps and we had like the
best week of our lives, and we are just having fun,
progressing, feeling like we're doing what we love, so we
kinda, at the end of the week, like we need to do more
of these, and over winter we started like chatting, and
let's do it serious, I'll do it, Aggy's like I'll do one and
so the first year like at Aggy's reunion, I did Cruz fest,
I think Sergy did retaliate Hoff fest, and then Huck fest,
and then from there on, I kinda doing what it is now,
and then definitely been a good timing fest, like definitely
a lot of fun, and a good crew, it's been good.
Like after Luis Fes you end up going to Crankers and
you are like crabapple, which are big jumps, and then you
are just like,
that's fine, that's cool, we're having fun.
But, in the back of your mind, then you see the other fest
dudes like hicco man, like (beep) you,
I shouldn't say that, Nico what do you do to us,
like I don't have fun anywhere anymore. (laughing out loud)
- [Narrator] If you wanna ride the biggest and most
progressive trails in the world,
you're gonna have to build them,
just as on the bike, Nico has his own style when he's in
that excavator. (happy music)
- [Tim] Whenever I ride anything that Nico build, it just
feels like a giant part of a skate park. You know, it's got
like shark fins, bans, or he hides little kickers left and
right into jumps so you can do these kinds of transfers.
Maybe you ride it like 20 times
and you are still discovering little things.
- [Kristof] Just all the building that we do is already
quite, it always get out of hand with Nico because he never
just wanna settle for the basic line or he always wants to
do something extra so it's like, he really wants to be like,
perfect, so sometimes it takes a lot of time or if you're
not really satisfied, just destroy them and start again.
- [Ben] That's one of the things that I enjoy about Nico
the most is that he is willing to do something a little bit
farther, put everything he's got into it, and then be the
first one to try it or the only one to try it. So for me
that sort of explains Nico, it's him, it's kind of for him
inside of, you just wants to take those ideas and put 'em
out there and see if he can do it. And so, I think that's
really cool, that he's doing it for good reasons and that
he's making the kind of big sacrifices to see if his vision
or his reasons make sense or work, and then, lucky for him,
and for all of us I guess, it does work out.
Sometimes I tell him like we gotta save some money for you
to get you a new band, you can't put it all in the digger.
And he's like yeah, but I just wanna do this and he explains
this feature where you kinda like what are you talking,
really? Are you serious?
(hard rock music)
- [Narrator] So we got a cool look inside who Nico Vinc is,
he's super inspirational dude, to all those man biking fans
out there, as well as us professionals that look up to him
cause of his style, but if you wanna see some more of this
action, you wanna see another documentary, click over here
for Dark fests, some of the world's biggest free ride dirt
jumps, in the world, and eyes on Sonafrica but it is time
for a bs mash that like button, because Nico Vinc
is super stylish and I actually need a BSB a long week.
I'll see you at the next one.