This post has been a while coming for various reasons and it’s mostly all been said elsewhere a few weeks back. But I will say, that it was a great event with plenty of local familiar faces, either riding, organising, media-ing (yeah I know) or just coming along to watch.

Joe Bowman and Nick Hamilton from ThisiSheffield.co.uk, amongst others, were organising.

Rob Jolley was marshalling in the open section and also chief overseer of rider encouragement.

Bamford locals Alex Megson, Oliver Spence and Jack Read where racing, with Oli beating SPS sponsored Jack, coming 1st and 2nd in Youth, receptively. Irwin probably summed it up best: “I still can’t believe Oli beat Jack!”.

(THE) Alex Rankin (who made the Earthed series of MTB films) was filming for Freecaster along with a motley band of local video men (including myself), with a range of video cameras from camcorders and DSLRs to a GoPro helmet-cam in use as a zip-line camera. Alex explained the sort of thing he was after from us and gave out plenty of tips and advice while we walked up the track before the race runs. Having felt quite unprepared and like I was winging it for a fair bit of the race run filming (I’m used to having Saturday to scout the track and then know where I want to be for the Sunday race runs), I was very pleased with how most of it came out. A fair bit of my footage went into the official Freecaster video, including the novelty-tree-shot (which took about 5 minutes of shivering and hoping the tree would hold while waiting for a rider to come), so that was good.

After the race many headed straight to the Showroom cinema for Progression, Alex’s special edit for ShAFF of his Sprung and Earthed series of MTB films. There were plenty of laughs (mainly at Peaty crashing) and vintage footage from the early days of Downhill, it gave an idea of where the sport has come from and got to: its Progression – or, failing that, plenty of drunk racers to laugh at!

Following the film came Rob Warner ‘interviewing’ Steve Peat, I say ‘interviewing’ because, in classic Warner style, he hadn’t actually prepared anything and just relied on the audience for questions.

“Yes, you with the straight arm.”

“Josh Bryceland has just come in wearing a cap he thinks makes him look ghetto and cool.”

I think this actually worked better, with Warner providing some great banter and entertainment, while Peaty thought up good and in-depth answers. It was a laugh a minute, on a par with any stand up comic’s show, but also very interesting at the same time – a great end to a great day of mountain biking!

My video from the race:

Alex Rankin’s official race video from the event:

Some other videos are on RootsandRain.

Some of my better (edited) and general event pics are in the Image Gallery, all the rider pictures are on RootsandRain:

11-03-05 Peatys Steel City Downhill, 45 Pictures by Jeff.

Steel City DH, Greno Woods, 5th March 2011, 163 Photos

Other related pages:
Swinny’s Race Report on ThisiSheffield.
Joe’s Organiser’s Report, top results, thanks and sponsors on ThisiSheffield.
Full Results on RootsandRain.
Jack Read’s blog entry on Factory Jackson.

As you will have hopefully known, ShaFF took place last weekend. With Monkeyspoon having a short film being shown, entitled “Downhill Mountain Biking In The Peak District“. The film showcased some of our best downhill riding in the Peak District. It was shown as part of three compilations, shown twice on Saturday and once on Sunday. In the “Bike” compilation, which we went to see, it was shown alongside such classic mountain bike movies as “Between The Tape” and “NWD 8”. It was a funny thing seeing our riding being shown on such a large screen, alongside other movies that I really respect and have inspired me to ride my bike. I can only hope that our movie will have inspired others to get out and ride there bikes in the Peak District.

James Irwin – Main Rider and Owner of Monkeyspoon

I very pleased to have our film shown on a massive cinema screen in front of what was quite a few people. I was amazed how good quality it looked on the huge screen, considering it (and the other films, as far as I know) were only DVD quality. I though the editors did a good job with choosing what to sections of the longer films to show. In particular Between The Tape, its quite long if you’ve seen it once or twice, but the edit keep the best sections, mainly the WC rounds, it was a comfortable length, and there was also quite a lot of Peaty in it, which added a local connection and relevance.

The one film I hadn’t seen before was “Vicious Circle” was interesting. It didn’t seem to have such a big budget or be as well equipped as some the big names on shown, but there were some good sections made more interesting by the choice of music. It was quite different from most MTB films with older but well known tracks like “Jolene” by Dolley Parton and “Poison” by Alice Cooper, they worked surprisingly well (for me) with the footage and made for something a little different from the norm.

It was great to see the trailer for the new Collective film, Seasons, it looks even better on a cinema screen. It would also have been nice to see the Virtuous (in HD) and F1rst (new from Clay Porter) trailers, perhaps in between the longer features.

Anyway, well worth going to see it and I’ll try and do something even better for next years one. I’ll leave you with a piece of advice in case you ever find yourself having your film shown at a big event, don’t drink a pint of coke before you go in…

Jeff R King – Cameraman, Editor and Film Producer.

Also worth mentioning are the guys from DHP, Joe and Sam, who also contributed to the film but couldn’t be there as they were at a race. And thanks to the other riders involved.

If you went to ShAFF don’t forget to fill out a feedback form, you might win something. It will be available to the end of the month (31/3/08).

See you there next year! 😀

A medium quality version of the film is now available for download, it is 90MB and you may need the 3ivX codec do view it.

Irwin, Jonny and I are going on Saturday to the 3pm Bike showing.

Between The Tape – 43 Minutes
Downhill Mountain Biking In The Peak District – World Premiere – 4 Minutes
NWD 8: Smackdown – Festival Edit – 28 Minutes
Seasons [By The Collective] – World Premiere – 3 Minutes
Vicious Circle – 16 Minutes

There are also loads of videos being shown not just mountain biking so make sure you get yourself to the showroom cinima this weekend and support this great local event.