Video: Mark Matthews Hits Big Jumps on a Small Bike in 'Hometown Trails'
Words by Mark Matthews
Video by Scott Bell Visuals with additional footage from Danny Gariepy
Photography by Cole Pellerin, Mark Matthews, and Ale Di Lullo
We spent a couple days down in the greater Victoria region to highlight some of the areas I grew up riding. All the way from Sooke to Sidney. I chose the Marin Hawk Hill for this project to see how hard I could push the bike. The bike is designed to be a playful trail bike with only 120mm of rear travel. I thought I would set mine up to be able to handle some bigger hits. I put a 130mm SR Suntour Auron fork up front and set the suspension up a little stiffer than you would for regular trail riding.
The bike was a blast out there!
The locations we shot are also very special to me. We started off in Sooke up on Mount Quimper. From the fire lookout we dropped into some local favourites, like Airflow and K2. The fast, technical, rocky lines weaving in and out of arbutus forest is what I love about riding on southern Vancouver Island. I immediately feel at home in this sort of terrain because I grew up learning to ride in these places.
Next up it was time to check out a small forest I have spent countless hours building in. Back in 2012 I shot a film here called Sweat Equity with Aaron Larocoque to showcase all the lines I had been quietly working away on for almost 2 years. 7 years later, the zone is still full of my original dirt jumps, step downs, berms, and other freeride hits.
Earlier this year, Jordie Lunn took over the spot to freshen up the lines and add some of his own unique features to the zone. Jordie was one of my best friends and I was so stoked to see him bring this place back to life! Some of the old dirt take-offs were replaced with big/steep wooden ramps in ROUGH AF fashion, and a couple new hits were added in.
Although Jord and I only got a few sessions in together here, I will cherish every second of those rides. He made this already meaningful spot even more special to me. We filmed this video one week before his passing. #LiveLikeJordie
Author Info:
Must Read This Week
How to Watch the 2024 Mountain Bike World Cup [Update: Staylive Offering Access in New Zealand, South Africa & More]
59022 views
59022 views
Sign Up for the Pinkbike Newsletter - All the Biggest, Most Interesting Stories in your Inbox
PB Newsletter Signup
Then I was like 'hmmm, maybe a little rowdier- let's call it good with 140mm or so?'
Finally I was just like 'nope, not even on a DH bike.'
That was fantastic. Definitely some Jordie spirit in there.
Gets me stoked to ride more than anything - was bummed not to see it on the best 50 list.
To the rest of you...I never said anything about the jumps being small, they are massive. It is my OPINION that a bike with 120 mm and 27.5" is by no means a SMALL bike. And people ride massive jumps on hardtails with 80 mm of travel all the time. So go ahead and neg prop me, you butthurt trail riders. I'll go back to the dirt jump community where I belong now.
Sooke is gnarly, these videos don't do it justice. Riding that sort of terrain with massive booters thrown in on a 120mm bike is amazing. Mark Matthews is a legend, and is more than capable of hitting big jumps on slopestyle courses on dirt jump bikes. Good luck riding this stuff on one of those. See yah.