Seasons Mountain Bike Film Review

Several weeks ago I threw on my mini skirt and my high heels and went out into the snow and ice filled streets of Park City and tried to get in parties that I was not on the list for at the Sundance Film Festival. Okay since I look awful in a mini skirt and the high heels kill my toes I opted not to go party hopping and celebutard hunting. Instead I went to the X-Dance Festival showings. X-Dance is the action sports film festival held at the same time as the Sundance Film Festival. This is something that is really cool for all action sports. Much of the time the film producers, directors, and athletes show up and will answer questions about their films. It is definitely a push in the right direction for action sports a like, including mountain biking.

This year the mountain biking film Seasons was among the films selected for the X-Dance Film Festival and I went to the screening of it. I have to say my socks were blown off when I saw this film. Seasons is a mountain bike film by The Collective and it follows seven of the worlds tops mountain bikers through all four seasons of the year. The four seasons theme was one that I was stoked on instead of a “trick documentary” on who can go the gnarliest it followers the riders on how they prepare to do what they do best, then it shows them out and throwing down their best lines later on in the film. With this unique format you really feel that you get to know the riders of this film and see what they go through to prepare for what we see in normal videos and magazines.

One of the things I really liked about this film is it wasn’t just a huck fest. Don’t get me wrong I love watching footage of the Red Bull Rampage that takes place down in Virgin, UT. I love seeing Utah footage and gnarly cliff dropping footage as well. This film has a lot more finesse style of riding. Bottom line this film has the best trail shots that I have ever seen, hands down no question about it.. Trail footage is defiantly more difficult to capture well than jumps and cliffs. The director was there and he said for one of the segments they had a 500 foot zip line follow cam set up through the trees. It took them over a day and a half just to setup the camera.

Another thing that I was pretty stoked on was showing what riders do in the offseason. What these guys do when they are training make them seem more human than just some nut job freak of natures. This film captures how these amazing athletes get to be where they are at through their off season training. Showing the riders training and learning process made my respect for these riders grow even more by seeing how hard they work to do what they do so well.

There was a decent amount of contest and race footage in this film as well. The way captured these events was only on the riders that were in the film, so it wasn’t much of the other competitors. This was a different approach most films try to show the best and worst footage of what went down in a contest or race but this film showed as much of the riders’ runs as possible. Some of the trails that these downhill guys hit for the races are insane. Plus in the contests the features that they have are just as insane as some of the freeriding hits that they take.

One of the biggest highlights of the film was the end. The filmmakers got all the riders in the movie together at a house up at Whistler and did some freeriding group rides. Since this is such a dynamic group of riders from racers to freeriders that is made for some awesome shots with the different backgrounds.

Seasons is defiantly a movie to pick up, this video will totally motivate you to get out and ride and push yourself to new heights on a bike. It is hands down my favorite mountain bike movie of all time.

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