The riding community in Nepal is just emerging. In Nepal, walking is the primary form of transportation resulting in a seemingly endless amount of paths, trails and routes connecting people and places throughout the landscape. What’s new for the Nepalese is the concept of riding mountain bikes on these trails. A core group of riders committed to sharing the riding experience with all have kick-started the mountain bike community here. Their enthusiasm and perseverance reminds us of what its like to be part of a movement.
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Strength in Numbers is a new community film project from Anthill Films and Red Bull Media House. Presented by Shimano and Trek, Strength in Numbers is being made available for all mountain bikers to experience through free online streaming of individual segments. The vision is to create the potential for every mountain biker in the world to see and share the film. To see the full film uninterrupted, get exclusive extra features and support the filmmakers, order your copy now at www.anthillfilms.com/strengthinnumbers/buy.
Strength in Numbers is produced, written, directed and edited by Anthill Films in co-production with Red Bull Media House. Presented by Shimano and Trek in association with Contour HD, Clif Bar, Pinkbike.com and PRO Components. Additional support for the film is provided by the Whistler Mountain Bike Park, Kona, Toyota Trucks, Scion, Oakley, Easton, Evoc, Big Mountain Adventures, Verbier St. Bernard and Ride Nepal.
One catch with riding in Nepal - when, in 2002, I hiked the circuit they were riding, there was one 'hospital' in a month of hiking. The 'hospital' was at 4000m above sea level, and had bandaids, antiseptic cream and penicilin.
One of my favourite segments from the Strength in Numbers movie. Having hiked many of the areas you see in this film i caught myself many times thinking "wow that trail would have been amazing to ride." I'm glad that tourism in the form of mountain biking is coming to such a beautiful yet poor and forgotten about country but at the same time those trails that i walked (and they rode) were only accessible by walking, horses or if you were lucky, plane and as i was leaving the area there were already escalators and diggers widening the trails for cars and trucks. I would love to see the country expand via tourism but if the trade off is litter, truck exhaust and the environment destroying the raw, untouched feel of the area then i don't know how excited i am to see that.
Great filming aside everytime such a movie wants to convince me about this peace & unity shit and how mountainbiking evolves even in the most poor and remote areas of our planet I wonder if this is actually true.
tabletop... it is actually true overtime. You just have to look at how many people travel there to go trekking/climbing/mountaineering and the changes that industry and brought with it. I have quite a few friends that go biking there a few times each year. Everytime they go they come back with more stories of how much bigger its all getting out there. However you comment 'peace & unity shit' gives more of an insight to the closed world you're living in, so your doubt its not surprising.
tabletop, you must think yourself terribly clever to see through all the marketing and penetrate the cynical truth. Actually I'm sure that while obviously they needed to shift units and be commercially successful to make dollar, the film crew and director also wanted to produce something beautiful and with a message, and they succeeded. The two aren't exclusive.
Well despite having a questionable product, they do throw a whole heap of money into this sport and many others. Which not only brings publicity to alot of minor sports, but also much needed sponsorship for many athletes. And lets not forget its them who stumped up the cash so we can all watch this years WC live. ... so they're not all bad.
You however, seem to bit a bit of a lost cause. Have you started dressing in black yet? Tattooed a tear under one of your eyes?
Nothing new, it's how it works but it gets a bit unnerving or at least harder to fade it out with those steroetypical crankworx-announcers. Coverage of freecaster was better. (notice I didn't say stream because streaming hardware is a money issue)
And why should I be a lost cause just because I'm not cool with rb?
I think, your pejorative implication aside, that this "peace and unity shit" is more about solidarity than anything. Its about the nature of mountain biking and its capacity to bring very diverse peoples together under a banner that reflects a natural, self empowering, healthy and altruistic world view. To your point about mtb "evolving the most poor and remote areas of our planet", I think you have it backwards. I think most professional mountain bikers would argue that these areas evolve the riders and the sport, not the other way around.
Nothing against nice pics and vids but I can't take that phatos and constructed alturism by a energy drink company seriously. Sorry guys for not sharing your love for rb.
FYI, Rob Warner was the commentator with Freecaster and still is under RedBull too. How is he or even Cunny for that matter a stereotypical Crankworx announcer?
I thank redbull for bringing countless extreme sports videos and events that I wouldn't have without them. Some of these events and videos got me into riding. All I saw in this video was unbelievable riding in a great setting, and a great advert for mountainbiking, not redbull. Maybe you were too busy sticking it to the man and fucking the system to see all the gnarly shredding.
Warner never found his announcment mojo this season. Don't know if he had to turn it down a notch because rb wanted to make it more accesible to prude americans.
Word. It's about expanding the riding community. Good to see people and companies dropping dollars into the local economy there. Damn impressive riding.
No chairlifts there, they earned their keep.
It just makes me uneasy. These guys ripping through the villages on their $10,000+ bikes - with multi million dollar helicopters filming them through the foot paths of the locals - who themselves probably never even make $10,000 their entire lifetime... I say, sure go there and have fun if you have the luxury, but just don't have any false pretenses and keep your naive philosophical musings about the world community and mountain biking to yourself.
Solidarity? Peace and Unity? Self-empowerment? Altruistic world view? Ah, puhleeez. These pro mountain bikers grew up in a pampered first world, and as their full-time profession, they have won the lottery and get to ride mountain bikes. What do they know about the real Nepalese life?
I say this as someone from a region not much better off than Nepal some decades ago. Back then, if we had seen two blue-eyed white skinned foreigners coming down with a helicopter following them, they might as well have been aliens from another planet. They can take their solidarity and shove it up their ass.
What false pretences did they go under? or have you seen a different edit of this segment? What do you know about real Nepalese life? And bear in mind that I lived there for over 3 years, my little sister was adopted from there (her mother died at birth, she wasn't bought the Madonna way), my parents and sister go back there a few times each year and she finished a six month sabbatical working at a Nepalese hospital back in Feb.
You don't have to go to Nepal (or any other country) to change the world. If you can help anyone there then thats your call and your judgement (although its better to give to or help, local charities as they'll have a much better idea of what is actually needed).
Like I said, i do not think there were any false pretences here, but you can be certain that the guys got and saw more than they bargained for. How they react to that is their call, not ours.
If you're coming to a country, and spending money on helis, food, accommodation, guiding, transportation, porters, and a ton of other things while inspiring others to do the same, you are helping a country economically. And I think a lot of mountain bike pros do understand where they're at, and are very appreciative, and feel that they have won the "lottery" of life, travelling and doing what they want to do. This section was really cool. Nice work Darcy and crew!
Amazing segment Anthill! Congratulations. NAPALMJEFF -- the actual Anthill trip is priceless, realistically - it could not be replicated. We know as we helped them produce it! But, you could do it on your own for $2995 Canadian. We run this trip and the next departure is October 22: ridebig.com/adventures.php. Come ride Nepal with Big Mountain Adventures and you'll ride the same trails as the Strength in Number segment!
What an inspiring video ! Unlike the freeride junkies flick "Where the Trail Ends" this one actually shows culture, development of the sport, interaction with locals, and what scenery the place has to offer. Point made : Enduro riders have more brains and their film producers better production values, but the same lame energy drinks at hand..hopefully they did not get the locals to drink that poison..Nepal.. I think I am ready to sign up for a trip !
I think it's way cooler to watch the whole thing as it's intended at once. The pieces are great for free, and reach a broader audience, and feed the advertising engine that supports the films, but the whole thing at once is the best.
props to tabletops. He is dead on. Alot of us live in a fantasy world made up by companies to sell more product. That's the truth!! Money is the only motivator of these huge corporations. Wake up kids and see the truth at least and then go about your fantasy way of a life.
Yeah, but I argue that the riders, film companies and the progression of the sports relies on these sponsors. As a guy that makes movies, I have a dream, throw out a plan, and basically beg companies to support the idea. I think the product being marketed is the adventure lifestyle, and Red Bull is grabbing onto that. Not the other way around.
Just wondering.. Why don't they just give us the full movie to watch whenever we want? I'm not talking about that one time that they gave us the opportunity to watch the movie for one day (that was great, really). I think it's ridiculous, for us who would like watch the hole thing, and at the same time, if I had spent money buying the movie, i'd also be really pissed right now because i'd feel like it was just a heist.. So.. for me, whether you give it or you don't.
