Former Wideopener Monet Adams headed to the sun and dust of South Africa armed with a bike and a camera loaded with film.
There was a time when every photo in the mountain bike media was shot on film, developed and scanned in to print magazines. You’d need a dark room, plenty of time and enough skill to know you’d got the goods …or you’d be back out into the woods for a reshoot.
Thankfully (for many of us atleast!) the age of digital has made life a lot easier we can shoot, reshoot, edit and refine to our heart’s content.
As a little tribute to the old days, Monet shot a few film photos on her trip to South Africa and got them developed and scanned in for us.
For the camera nerds, these were shot on a Nikon EM 35mm camera – made in Japan and sold until around 1984.
The tracks snaking through the Garden Route Trail Park were varied groomed trails full of poppy corners, drops, short up hill sprints and fast flow sections, fun on any kind of trail or xc bike. You can ride to the top of the hills for incredible views of the surrounding farm and coast line or dive into the thick undergrowth and skid through the trees to the sounds of the forest.
My little Scott Genius Contessa, fun and responsive on the descents, efficient on the climbs, my battle ship to tackle the drop with. This was my bike of choice to take to South Africa knowing there wouldn’t be much I wouldn’t riding on it …except maybe the world biggest step up!
You can’t help but want to join in when you see the boys sending, they are incredible, their riding is beautiful and I was completely in awe of their skill and confidence in their abilities. The comradery between them is great too, giving advice and motivation to each other if needed, and putting the wild young ones in their place, which was also needed.
Loads of people who were coming to see the jumps asked me if I would ever hit them, and the answer was not on the trail bike if ever! Sam suggested I should hit the roll in tower though, Its half a challenge and half a compliment when Sam suggests stuff I maybe wouldn’t consider, so I climbed to the top, got a bit scared that I might smash my BB, clipped in and dropped in any way.
As you’d expect from Africa, the sun beat down unforgivingly. However we were victim to a series of storms and rain showers which made things pretty difficult for the jumps, the clay soil packed hard as rock, but still took a few days to dry.
Luckily the Monster guys had organised activities like shark diving to keep us entertained on the down days. It was hectic!
We stayed in a little solar powered house on the Garden Route Trail Park farm, the windows had bars on to keep the Baboons out and with so many of us squeezed in, we moved around by candle light in the evenings in an attempt to not run out of power.
The evenings were spent waging brai (South African/Zimbabwean for BBQ) building battles and feasting on the results. There was usually a huge spread of steaks and sausages and salads. We ate like kings (and a queen). The BBQ master was Dylan, despite breaking his foot riding his crosser round in his underpants. He was the king of the party, made great food and kept the group in check.
