Reviews

Rio Nitrus

Mongoose Massif review

The Collective
mountain bike free ride movie

Earthed
mountain bike free ride movie

The Vish Files
mountain bike free ride

Schwinn Rocket 88 Mountain bike

Ricoh XR7 35mm SLR Camera

Happy Days with the Naked  Chef

Morning Rise:
 The Vibes

Dole Mango Lime Fiesta

Dangerous Lives of Altar boys 

Velvet Goldmine

Titus

Swimming

Northfork

Owning Mahonwy

AxisPad (cheap Wal-Mart Joystick)

The collective is a different animal then its mtn bike video cousins. In fact I would call it a mountain bike film, or even perhaps a documentary. The first thing you see is someone loading a 16mm camera with actual film, I knew from right then that this would be a different experience then say, Kranked.

The name is derived from a collaberation between the riders and the filmers. The filmers would no longer just take footage of the riders doing thier thing, but instead would work with the riders to best capture the experience of freeriding on film.

The opening is a very sharp montage that introduces all the riders and has some beautiful images. Accompanying this montage is a sort of tribal chant piece of music. Then you hear someone say, Freeriding is just this big word. This is a film about Freeriding.

The collective then takes us on a tour of the world of freeriding. From riding down desert cliffs, to man made obstacles in the forest there are no start lines or finish lines. The photography is light years ahead of any other video I’ve seen. There are moving camera shots, chase shots, shots from up in the trees, helmet cams, it’s like watching a high dollar Hollywood production. Cuts are not rapid fire, they are smooth, not so long to get boring but long enough to give you a sense of what is going on.

The music is not your standard freeride video fare, it generally has a more natural feel to it. It’s not the assult of heavy punk metal and rap that usually accompanies the bike stunts. Sure there are parts that pump you up and it never gets boring, and there is a rock song and a rap song, it just never gets repetitive.

The riding is some of the best and smoothest I have seen, the riders make it look easy. I would imagine lots of crashes have been edited out but hey make it look so easy. The locations selected cover the widest range of riding, you have loose desert, swooping green hills, urban trials, North Shore, Deep Forest its all there. Not only are there great locations but scenes that let us know how they get there. Scenes that show the riders driving mobile homes, 4x4s, ATVs, helicopters, carrying and pushing bikes uphill.

Beyond all this what really sets apart The Collective is the spirit of the movie. Most mountain bike videos have a sort of In your face, X-treme additude that is in my opinion wore out. In a Kranked video its as if the riders are doing their drops and hucks so they can say F U to the landscape, I just kicked your ass. In the Collective its like, “Thank you for this sweet singletrack and gnarly drop so I can catch some sick air.”

The riders narrate more in the Collective then any other video I’ve seen and while its not as much as I would prefer it is a great start. The narration helps the viewer to better understand the experience of free riding is and what motivates the riders.

My only complaint is the length, its 33 minutes long. It could have been much longer. I imagine that there is always a big push to cut footage that is deemed to boring, but I really enjoyed some of the scenes where they are just riding, every shot doesn’t have to be a ground breaking trick. I would love to see more about the riders, how do they learn to do this stuff without getting killed, a bit about the bikes, and more about the locations.

Essentially The Collective is a free ride video that is grown up, an artistic and stylish production that any free riding or mountain biking fan should see. Oh, and there is no minibike race which is always a plus.