(hip hop music)
- So we've arrived in Frankfurt.
And we're on our way to Audi Nines.
Got my luggage, I'm all ready.
Now I just gotta go through this big green square thing
and go find the shuttle.
I'll see you on the other side.
(hip hop music)
So obviously it's not a bus,
we get picked up in this massive Q8 Audi, it's insane.
Now we're on our way to the quarry
where Audi Nines is gonna be happening.
And if you don't know what Audi Nines is all about,
let me explain.
- Audi Nines.
- Is.
- The best damn thing in the world, it's like.
- In a quarry, we're deep in Germany.
- On a beautiful course.
- It just basically brings the boys together
to a low-stress environment.
- A professional event.
- The world's best riders.
- You'll see people on downhill bikes,
jump bikes, slope style bikes
- Progressing the sport and action sports in the overall.
- And there's some guy riding round on an E-Bike.
- The best session with your homies you never had.
- You ride in your own time
and if you wanna do some banger tricks, you do it.
- Basically having the best time we can for a week.
Yeah, out the shot!
(hip hop music)
- Argh man, now you what Audi Nines is all about.
(Blake sighs)
First run, it's always a bit nerve-racking.
All my senses are buzzing, everything.
Especially my sight one.
'Cause everything just looks so huge
and you need to go so fast to hit everything.
But it's all about working out speeds,
which is the main thing.
Overcoming those fears.
I'm gonna train and I'm gonna see if I can get Sam Reynolds
'cause I like training him in.
And he helped built the course, he helped build it, so,
I'm gonna train him in and work out speeds.
That's the main goal for those first runs.
Wish me luck.
(Blake giggles)
I'm here with O-Dubs, Olly Wilkins.
This is the first drop, it's kinda big, it's big.
And then you've got a jump after it but we just, yeah.
- [Sam] I went deep but, I didn't die.
Like, it was fine.
- And this jump?
- Just roll, if you land this, roll out.
You can't not land this, you just go from there.
- Yeah. - I'll do it now, if you want.
- [Blake] Yeah.
- [Sam] And just cruise off like that.
- That's simple, it's easy, it's alright, Olly!
- [Olly] Hey!
- There's not really much to warm up on here, is there?
- Yeah
- It was the one thing we kind of were,
not worried about, but we were like, hmm.
Just follow me.
- Yeah I'll follow you
(rock music)
Ho!
Whoa!
- [Man] Yes Blakey!
- I cased the, the jump, first jump a little bit
and I thought, oh I need to pedal for this big step down
and I did not need to pedal (laughs).
I went so far deep, it was insane.
I'm gonna go do it again.
(rock music)
Ah!
(rock music)
Running a course like this may seem out of this world
to you viewers.
For riders like this it's second nature to them
and they make it look easy.
I asked Ethan Nell and Clemens Kaudela,
how do you deal with this sort of pressure
and what sort of mind set do you need to be in
to hit these sort of jumps?
- It's crazy to you guys but it's really mellow to us
because this is what we're doing every day of the year,
basically, is riding, doing crazy stuff.
- It's easier for me if I build a jump actually
because I think so many times, in my head
I like, I go for the flied curve, how it's gonna be,
how it's gonna feel, I look at the takeoff from the side
all the time and then I guess the speed
and look at everything.
That helps me a lot, personally.
And then I hit it, but it's still gonna be very scary.
But, other than that, there's no real special preparation.
- It's basically second nature to us, like,
doing what we're doing here is, it's like walking,
we ride as much as you guys would walk,
so, it's pretty normal even though it might be crazy to you.
(electronic dance music)
- It's 6:30 in the morning.
I'm in the car with Matt and Pete from PlusSizeBMX.
We're getting a lift all the way to the quarry.
We're up early because you get the best light
at this time of the day.
It's nice and gold but it's only for, like,
an hour and a half gap.
So we gotta be on it,
so we're having breakfast at the quarry
and then straight in to riding, first thing in the morning.
But first we need a coffee.
(Blake laughs)
(mellow electronic music)
Where's my bike?
Where is she?
Gabby!
Oh there she is.
Great!
Gabby!
Urgh.
(mellow electronic music)
- [Man] Good job.
Morning. - Good, yeah.
- [Man] Feeling good?
- [Blake] Yeah.
- [Man] How's it Blake?
- Just B's out but, I reckon it'll buzz there.
But there will be fine.
It's just soft.
- [Man] What's going on Blake?
- Well I'm gonna try and ring Brendan Fairclough
'cause he obviously he rides a Gambler.
I need a stiffer spring.
I'm running a 550 spring on this, pounds,
550 pound spring, which is Fox's maximum they do.
But, it's not too, it's not stiff enough, for jumps.
Probably good enough for dirt, for downhill, but.
He's at World's right now.
So he's in Lenzerheide.
(voice on phone speaking)
How is it my (speaking in foreign language)
How you doing man?
Aw, Brent, savin' my bacon.
- Present, for you.
- A freshie.
Look, aw.
- You can put a 300 psi and do double backflips now.
- Thank you very much.
Well Brendan was at World's, the World Cup,
and I was like, dude, can you, can you stop off at Fox
and get me a new shock please?
And he was like, urgh, if I have to.
So he did,
'cause he's the man. - Did him a little favor.
- He's the man.
- Nice.
- Thank you very much dude. - Put your own hardware
in that though.
- I'm gonna put, yeah, I need that.
I'm gonna swap out that coil.
When I sat on it, it was like nearly 30% sag.
Now I'm 10% sag.
It's good when you're out in the woods,
but when you're here hitting some big jumps
with some crazy forces in those lips.
You're just going to blow out through your suspension.
And your tires gonna eat your rear seat.
And it's not good because if it does bite hard
it could stop you and throw you over the bars.
And it's not comfortable, just hearing that,
(imitates grinding)
it is horrible, so I've got the new shock.
- This year we've got three different choices
of lines basically, we got the big air,
which is one massive jump for insanity.
'Cause then we got the slope style line
for any bike you wanna ride.
We got freeride line for the big jumps
and the downhill bikes.
So there's just so much stuff to do this year
and it's like super hard to get bored and it's just epic.
(mellow hip hop music)
- It's time.
It's time to hit the big line.
It's a big hit, I'm not gonna lie.
18 meters, but I'm gonna follow Sam Reynolds in.
- [Sam] Or follow me in if you want, Blake.
- And follow Sam Pilgrim.
Ahh.
No, I'll follow Sam Reyn.
How was that drop?
- [Sam] It was alright.
- [Blake] Did you land flat?
- [Sam] Yeah.
- It's quite a heavy landing, eh?
- [Sam] My head almost fell off behind my back.
- [Sam Reynolds] Ah look you got the DarkFEST forks,
you gotta represent still.
- [Blake] Yeah, yeah, (laughs).
- [Sam Reynolds] You'll be fine on these.
Either ride it so crap that you lose all your speed,
like, landing like, and then over the roller like,
and then you're fine.
- [Blake] Yeah.
- [Sam Reynolds] Or like, if you land fast out the drop
and, like, smooth and just like
(imitates buzzing)
- [Blake] Okay.
- [Sam Reynolds] To be fair, you carry good speed,
like me, so, I was great.
- [Blake] Okay.
- [Sam Reynolds] Welcome back.
Am I your least favorite person to ride with?
- [Blake] No, you're my favorite.
- [Sam Reynolds] Oh, cool.
- [Blake] You have to be.
Oh man.
- [Man] Good luck.
- [Man] You got it, Blake.
- [Sam Reynolds] Chill Blake.
Ready?
- Yep. - Here we go.
(tense music)
- [Blake] I got it.
It's easy.
That was nothing.
It's easy.
I just landed deep on that.
- [Man] Yeah.
- And then. - It's well easy.
- [Blake] Yeah, I know, it is.
- [Man] (laughs) I'm joking.
- [Blake] Yeah it is easy.
- [Man] Saw my prank?
- [Blake] Yeah, and I went deep and I thought, still brake.
- [Man] Yeah.
- [Blake] Don't still--
- [Man] That's why I don't brake anymore.
- Yeah.
(hip hop music)
Oh!
Okay, I just had the biggest case of my life.
And no, I wasn't in court.
It was on the back of that landing.
The second one, I dropped in, I did the lip,
I did this good, got in good, I landed quite far right
as right on the shark fin.
And then when I came in I was like, tuck don't pedal,
'cause tucking is better than pedaling,
and I cased the hell out of that next jump.
Oh!
My legs gone a bit numb.
So I'm gonna chill.
Plus it's a bit windy.
Plus we got all week.
Eh!
At least I did that.
Alright, you wanna see our crib?
What us athletes, us riders, get to have?
Come look at this.
Right here, over my left.
This, that is a crazy Spanish boy.
Over here, this is where all the athletes hang out,
chill there, and then you can come over to the Audis,
look at this.
These things are glass cubicles,
you can open these things up, they're insane.
This is where we chill out.
This is where we have our dinner.
It's been mind blowing, actually, for a mountain biker,
dirtbags like us, having all this is pretty cool.
You got Monster on tap, coffee machine on tap.
Slush Puppies, this juice, to die for.
Apples, there's some cool bars.
Come this way.
This is where we get our dinner, lunch or breakfast.
At the moment we haven't got any yet
because we're going out for dinner tonight.
But we got bread.
So you wanna come and have a snack you can get some fruit.
Got some french stick.
Got some pretzels, I've touched that
so obviously I'm gonna have that one.
This is basically full of food.
On the menu we had pasta, we had a salad bar,
we've got main course and then we've got desert,
so that is a one, two, three, four course meal.
Plus, you got deserts that comes out here,
which is insane, but you got all this on tap.
You got some cheeses, if you're feeling a bit peckish.
Man, that's not it.
These vehicles, we have at our disposal.
These things have bike racks put on the back of them.
These are Audis, these things are not cheap,
they've got Alcantara, like, leather inside,
carbon fiber inside.
They're running on low profile tires
and we're just bombing around this place.
That's the most expensive uplift I've ever experienced.
We have our own massage, people.
So if we have a big crash, and we, like,
move our shoulder a little bit,
we come to Navelo.
These people are at our disposal as well.
And then this is the athlete lounge.
Look at that.
More Monster on disposal.
Big screen watching Monster stuff.
And yeah, this is it.
That is our crib, thank you for watching.
And, yeah, I'm gonna eat my pretzel
and carrying on, chilling out.
(rock music)
It was alright.
I'll do it again.
Bigger.
Faster.
Watch this though.
(rock music)
Alright, if you don't know what an airbag is all about,
well, it's a huge, crazy, thick, poly-plastic, like,
tarpaulin kind of thing, huge thing.
And you got these two fans that feed it air.
So you're landing, basically, on a big air bed.
A great place to start learning some crazy tricks
that you would think you would do it in your dreams.
This thing makes dreams come true.
That's for sure.
(mellow music)
Having the airbag in and then removing it means
that riders can send their tricks straight to dirt
with added confidence.
Having this sort of setup available can only lead
to one thing.
World's firsts.
(mellow music)
Like this, Adolf Silva doing the first body varial
on a mountain bike.
Watch as the bike carries on straight
and his body rotates 360 degrees before jumping back on
to the bike.
(crowd cheering)
(mellow music)
And there's one more thing I really wanted to tick off.
And that was completing the freeride line.
- [Man] Blake is dropping in the freedride line.
- Whoa.
Wow.
Holy!
There you go everyone, thank you so much for watching,
this is Audi Nines and I've had a blast
and thank you so much for having me.
If you wanna see more of this content,
please give it thumbs up, like if you love it.
Don't forget, if you wanna see what Audi Nines is by numbers
and how big all these jumps are, click over there.
Don't forget to subscribe by hitting the globe.
And this is a pre-recorded end board
because this is just about to kick off.
The gala night.
Where all the prizes get given out.
(electronic dance music)