Must Watch: ‘RIDGELINE V – RESISTANCE’ feat Gee Atherton
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Gee Atherton and the crew re-define the Ridgeline riding series with the latest episode on board the A170. Filmed in the stunning surrounds of Engelberg-Titlis, Switzerland.
Gee said “From the start, the Ridgeline Series has been about taking mountain-biking to the limit… exploring what’s possible on a bike and creating the most stunning footage in the most amazing places around the world. I love that feeling of being on the very limit of how far we can go…
I’m super proud of what we achieved in the Series so far, but I wanted to move beyond the adrenaline and glamour of a four minute edit. I wanted to show the reality behind those action highlights, the hard grind, the setbacks, and the absolute trust in my bike, my crew, and my equipment that are essential in the making of these films. I want to keep on pushing boundaries and this film gives an unvarnished insight into what that takes. Every single step felt like we’d picked a fight with forces way bigger than ourselves.
People ask me how I forget or block out the injuries I’ve sustained on previous Ridgelines, but you never forget, I’m never without those injuries, in my mind and in my body… for me it’s about how you operate with them and learn to be ok and accept and carry them-this is who you are now. These extreme locations make all of us dig deep into a zone you can rarely access elsewhere.”
Every Ridgeline film has presented a new challenge, pushed the team that bit further, but moving out of Wales into Alpine terrains super-sized the challenges – instead of hiking up to Terren y Gesail 666m above Dyfi Bike Park Gee and the crew faced 3,600m ascents with crumbling rock faces and 600m sheer drops… every step they took the mountain resisted their efforts.
Ridgeline V was co-directed by Gee and his long-time friend and collaborator Dan Griffiths (Moonhead Media) a veteran of the entire Ridgeline series. Rather than honing in on only spectacular riding shots they set about showing the whole process, 8 days of physical and mental overdrive. Gee said “We’ve grown accustomed to fast-paced riding edits, with awesome skills in stunning settings but it’s always harder than it seems, every time we do these edits something unpredictable happens, I wanted to go beyond the wow-factor of those edited highlights to show the true cost of those 120 seconds or so.”
The film is the second in the series to feature the A170, Gee said “Without 100% trust in the bike these films would not exist. I needed something with raw power, precision, and reliability to tackle these extreme terrains. The A170 checked all the boxes”. It’s also the most intense and personal film to date revealing a side to Gee we’ve never seen before. Advised by Camera Operator and Lead Mountaineer, Brodie Hood, a hugely experienced action and adventure specialist, the team abandon the final 50m ascent to the summit and head back down the mountain.
Gee said “It was so hard, absolutely gutting. We’d had two quite unproductive days because of the weather, but we’d found this spectacular peak and had scouted right up to 100m from the summit before it got dark. Next day we’d headed back up there, bike on our backs, gruelling hours of anaerobic climbs across this vast 45 degree slab, we were at all at our absolute limit. And then we saw it, this really tricky ridge, no anchors, overhangs, crumbly rock…
I’ll admit I was in full turbo mode my default mode is always “Let’s get it done” …. I kept walking back up to the difficult part and looking down the 600mm cliff edge, the rocks crumbling away in my hands, it was terrifying – such a slap in the face. I was so, so close to just picking up the bike and going for it, but even at time I kind of knew…
Brodie said “Look, you might get up there but there’s a 50/50 chance you’re going to kill one of your crew, I want to take these guys home to their families ”He’s a pretty adventurous dude, he’s constantly charging ahead, fearless, never gets tired – so when he says “don’t go” it’s sobering.”
As hard as it was to walk away from what could have been some of the best footage we’d ever captured, we had to face reality and next day we went again with a different approach to the same ridge, the front face was (just about) manageable so we got our shot after all.
Big thanks to the crew – Brodie Hood, Dan Griffiths/Moonhead Media, Jamie Robertson, Nico Turner and to the town of Engelberg, Titlis Cableways, Deuter, Red Bull and Prologo for their support.
