Video: Behind the Scenes of Gamble Episode 3 - Steel Lined Streets and Sun Kissed Hills

In Episode 3 of Behind Closed Doors, we go behind the scenes in Sheffield and Madeira to see how the custom Gamble tracks were built, as well as what went into filming Steve Peat and Loic Bruni's segments. Grab a nice hot mug of gravy and check it all out in the video above!

Purchase GAMBLE here.

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MEET THE FILMMAKERS:

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MEET THE RIDERS:

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JULY 2017:

Sheffield, UK


We were really beginning to get properly into Summer in the Northern Hemisphere and July/August was a write off for shooting with current World Cup racers due to their heavy racing schedule. How do we get around this? Well, the obvious solution is to try and persuade the local legend of the sport, Steve Peat, to come out of retirement and mix it up with the kids. Could he match the level set by those young scallywags in the first few shoots? Of course he could, it's Steve Peat for crying out loud!




Building a custom line in the middle of a city is not an easy task and organising this shoot was one of the most complicated. For a start, opportunities for a film-worthy track on the hill were extremely limited due to the size and the type of land that we were working with, but the main problem was the state of the place. Destroyed by fire in 2012, the old Sheffield Ski Village has remained derelict ever since and we wanted to try and do something positive on the land by creating a track which Steve could ride in Gamble. With help from John Dallow and the Sheffield Council, we got in touch with local trail building company Bike Track UK, who went about preparations to turn the very basic idea into reality.



Work began quite quickly once the trigger had been pulled on the Ski Village build. Bike Track were able to start straight away and they arrived on day 1 with a solid crew and a container full of equipment (including 3 diggers). Progress from the top went quite well in the first week, even with the challenging dirt conditions which were part and parcel of working on this site.

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AUGUST 2017:

Madeira, Portugal



Whilst all this was going on in Sheffield, the initial preparations for Loic Bruni's custom track in Madeira were also taking place at the same time. Whilst Joe was taking care of proceedings in England, I flew out to Madeira with Loic to begin the build on the Portuguese island, along with renowned trail builder Nikki Whiles and local tour company Freeride Madeira.


Freeride Madeira needs no introduction, having a huge hand in other big video projects in the past, including Deathgrip, as well as organising the Merdeiran round of the EWS in 2017. John, Filipe, Roberto, Antonio and Alex are hugely experienced in supporting big projects and they know their island like the back of their hand. It has to be said that if you're thinking of heading out to Madeira to ride, Freeride Madeira should be top of your list of companies to call.


John Fernandes, who is one of the founders of the company, took us up to a spot on the hill which he had picked out for us. The area which he'd scouted was a ridge, easily accessible by road and overlooking the main city of Funchal. From a visual point of view we couldn't have asked for much better and Nikki and Loic were just as excited by the potential of the land too. Lots of natural features could be worked into the line which made designing the track a lot easier!


We began digging and it soon became apparent that not only did we have great natural features but we also had the most insane dirt imaginable. Once the top layer had been broken, a brilliant red soil was uncovered, which definitely stood out in the final film. We didn't realise that this soil was underneath all the undergrowth when we walked the line, so this was a massive bonus!

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Sheffield, UK



The track was now complete and we headed back to Sheffield to shoot Steve's segment. We'd already shot the Wharncliffe part earlier in the year so we already had some of the footage in the bag. We had 4 days to shoot the ski village footage and it has to be said we were all a little bit worried about the weather forecast, as well as some issues with the containers which formed the two features at the top and bottom of the course. Luckily, the containers were eventually put into place a day before shooting started and we also rigged up the big banners on the side just in time. Big props must go to the guys at Kelham Steel Yard who really went above and beyond to make it happen.



As mentioned, the weather wasn't really playing ball and on our initial recky mission just before filming started the ground was super sticky due to the amount of saturation in the clay-like dirt. We were leaving huge footprints in the track as we walked it due to it all sticking to the bottom of our shoes. Luckily, a stiff breeze rolled in and the sun came out, drying out the wet parts of the track fairly quickly. We began filming on the bottom part of the track which wasn't so wet to give the top part more of a chance to dry out.


I've got to admit to being very sceptical of the track build in Sheffield. But once filming started it was obvious that the time, effort and financial input into this segment was completely worth it. Steve also really stepped up his game on this track, bringing some fresh style on features which you wouldn't normally associate him with in years past. Here was an old-school legend showing us some new school moves! The style of filming was a little bit different from the rest of the film, too. The track didn't really lend itself to pans and zooms, so we concentrated on using the drone as the main camera, with more cinematic shots with the Movi and FS5 to mix it up, with Andy Lawrence, Robbie Meade, Sam McQueen, Rich Baybutt and Duncan Philpott making up the crew.


Looking back on the segment now that it's finished, with the Arctic Monkeys providing the soundtrack, I think everyone can be proud of what we achieved in Sheffield. Keep an eye on the old ski village too, as plans are in place for redevelopment. We are just glad to have been a part of its ongoing history!

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SEPTEMBER 2017:

Madeira, Portugal



We headed out to Madeira to start shooting shortly after Loic's World Championship win in Cairns and we were definitely stoked to have the Champ in the film! Loic had left early during the build to prepare for the race (we'll let him off because he won) so although he'd seen the top section of the course, he'd not seen any of the work done from the first big left-hander to the bottom. First impressions were really good, and Loic was super excited to get started with filming the next day. One thing which none of us were expecting, was the amount of work done at the bottom of the track by the Freeride Madeira guys. We had left a month previously after only reaching about half way down the total potential length of the line and we definitely weren't expecting the line to be completed by hand ready for our arrival! But low and behold, the legends at Freeride had been up and built us a bottom section which completed the line and offered us a pretty amazing natural contrast to the machine built top section. In hindsight, both sections of track complimented each other really well and I think gave us a much better overall result.

During filming, we couldn't have asked for better support and not only did we have the help from Freeride Madeira during the week but also from a couple of local legends too. Ruben and Fabio gave up their time and helped out a huge amount during the week alongside the Freeride crew and it was evident throughout the year that without people like this, the film would have been much more difficult to produce!



Filming in Madeira went just as well as we could have hoped. Amazing weather, incredible scenery, the World Champ and a great crew of legends to top it off. Check out Loic's segment in Gamble to see it for yourself...

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To purchase Gamble Film click here.

Thanks to our amazing sponsors:

Santa Cruz Bicycles / Maxxis Tires / Fox Racing / Enve Composites / Marsh Guard / Freeride Madeira

Episode 4 of "Behind Closed Doors" will be available soon!

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MENTIONS: @Fox-Head-Inc @ENVE @marshguard @freeridemadeira @SantaCruzBicycles @Maxxis

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