Another early start at 7am to go and meet Jamie McCullough down at the Mourne mountains.  One of the seals has been leaking in his break caliper so he resorted to burning the brake fluid of his brake pads with a blow torch!

It was a really cold day and also quite dark when we started, but by the time we got to the top of the trail the sun had started to rise properly.  

There are loads of downhill trails around the Mourne area. The trail we focused on (the wolf trail) has loads of densely packed trees along it which can make it quite tight at places, but really fun to ride.

We spent around 5 hours on this trail and got some really good footage.  You can see a clip with some blow torch action in the teaser video.

Up Next:

With downhill rider Ben Ried being a full time pro he has to find something to occupy his spare time in the off season.  Ben decided that putting a 250cc engine into his 80cc MX bike would be a good idea.  Check back soon to see what happens.

Andy and I headed to Waterford on Friday for our second shoot with Tom Power and Greg O’Keefe.  We arrived at Tom’s place in the evening and realised that it was Greg’s birthday.  There was no major celebrating done that night though, we chilled out for a bit and planned out the next days shoot then everyone headed to bed for an early night.

Saturday morning we were up at the crack of dawn, packed up the cars after a quick breakfast then drove for about half an hour to the Comshingaun in the Comeragh Mountains, the location of our shoot.  It is an absolutely stunning place, and we couldn’t have hoped for better weather, it was a cold crisp morning with sunny blue skies and there was snow on the top of the mountain.  

We trekked for a good hour or so before we reached the peak where we started shooting. The views were amazing, check out the photos below. We filmed for about 5 hours until we lost the sunlight behind the mountain then headed back to Tom’s camper van for a cup of tea to warm us up, and a look over the footage. Tom and Greg did pretty well pushing their bikes up the mountain time and time again, Greg was worried he wouldn’t be able to dance that night as his legs were getting sore!!

Next up: Filming is a bit behind schedule because of the bad weather.  We also planned to do a session with Belfast rider Ewan Doherty this weekend but he is out with a broken hand.  Hope he gets better soon.  Another day with Colin Ross this week should finish his section, then Irish Pro Ben Ried, and a few other final days out should have filming wrapped up towards the end of February. 

Congratulations to Lee Murray from Wirral, England UK, who was picked at random from our mailing list to be the winner of our MTBMovies competition.

After a break in filming for Christmas and New Year we are now getting ready for a number of exciting upcoming shoots including Tom Power and Greg O’Keefe, Ewan Doherty, and Ben Reid.  Sign up to our mailing list to be the first to hear of these shoots as they happen.

Just before Christmas we headed to Rostrevor where we spent two days filming Glyn O’Brien at Kilbroney Forest for his part in Break the Cycle. One of the things that really stood out on this time  is just how dark in general it is at this time of the year which makes it particularly hard to shoot in a forest setting, and full day shoots are definitely out!  

We made the most of our time though. Shane McAuley came down to set up a few zip lines again. We had Glyn hitting a super smooth step down and attacking a couple of flat out corners for that. The shots turned out quite well. By the time we were finished with the zip line it was starting to get dark so we packed up and headed back to Glyns house in Newry.

We stayed over at Glyn’s that night and got some interviews and footage from around his house. The next day Glyn, Big Ray (the headcam guy), and myself headed hiked up the hills above Rostrevor as far as we could go to capture some more action. The views were pretty amazing, and we were lucky to get clear skies.  It was so open up there and definitely worth the trip up.  Ray helped us out with head cam shots with the new HD camcorder we recently purchased gaffer taped to his helmet!

After that we then headed back to Kilbroney forest. Kilbroney has been home to the Irish Downhill Championships for a few years now and has a couple of amazing trails. The light was a bit better this time so we worked flat out to get in as much footage as possible.

Check out the clip from Glyns interview and some shots above Rostrevor. Fuzz also got a few behind the scenes clips together from day 1 of shooting.  A big thanks to Shane for setting up the zip line and Ray for helping with the headcam.

Top Irish rider Ben Reid and myself got up at the crack of dawn to go and scope out some locations along the coast for the film.  We just about made it there!  One of the main roads on the way had not been gritted with salt so was covered in black ice.  Is was pretty scary because you could not tell there was ice there at all.  That road was about 3 miles long and in that space three cars had gone off the road and got smashed up the same morning.  

When we did eventually get to our location things were looking pretty good.  The scenery was amazing and there was loads of scope for some sick lines on the bike.  There was potential for some fast flowy sections, big step downs, and flat out corners. After a few hours getting some lines ready for the shoot we called it a day and headed into Ballycastle for a chippy.  Not many pics this time but check them out below!