Behind the Scenes of Evgeny Kurnikov's Industrial Distortion Line - Video

Last year on December, 30, I presented my second project about mountainbiking in unusual places, it was called ‘Distortion Line Industrial’. My first project was mostly about city landscapes with their bridges, and parking areas and automobile facilities. This second project showcases the industrial area of a big mine where I managed to go and where my dream came true. This is a story about how we did it.


The Idea

For me it was the project for 2016. This idea came to my mind 2 years ago, right after I presented my first video called ‘Distortion Line’. Back then I was highly motivated to do something new and interesting. I started thinking about jumping over a giant ‘BelAZ’ truck. I couldn’t sleep at night because of this idea. I tried to remember all the mines in my area where we could find a truck like that, and I thought about Krasnokamensk. This town is 600 kilometers away from my hometown Chita, and it’s famous for one of the world’s biggest mines. Sulfur, coal, uranium – everything could be found there. But back then I couldn’t find any financial support for such a project, so I decided to postpone it until better times.


Those who supported me

In December, 2015 GT invited me to the US for their international gathering in California where everyone shared their plans for the upcoming season. I thought this was a good opportunity to tell them about my project and prepared everything I needed for the presentation. My English wasn’t too good, but I tried my best to describe what I wanted to do. And the outcome wasn’t bad at all. The guys from GT said they are ready to support me and to send me a new Distortion frame. This obviously was 50% of my success. ‘Trial-Sport’ company became another sponsor of my project providing me with spare parts and equipment.

In Summer, 2015, I met with Kostya Zhuchkov who was a founder of the ‘BullMovie’ filming company. I told him about the project, he liked the idea and agreed to help us with filming.


The bike

My frame had to fly over Pacific Ocean, Germany and Moscow, and I got it only in Summer. I was looking forward to getting used to my new bike, but the bike was ready only before we went to Krasnokamensk.

Having arrived at Krasnokamensk, I went directly to the mine office where I had to find their CEO and tell him about my project with the truck. I had to visit and call a lot of people, but finally, I managed to meet with Sergey Shurygin and show him my project called ‘Distortion Line Industrial’.

He agreed to help me with such an unusual request and told his people to show me some good place for filming and to provide us with everything we needed for building the jumps.

We had one month left, and I spent this time travelling from one city to another taking part in some contests and shows. My schedule was pretty tight, and I really couldn’t lose a minute!

In August I and my friend Stas went to Krasnokamensk to start building our features. We had to build three wooden ramps for the dirt jump line and a quarterpipe to set in the truck body. The quarterpipe should’ve been made with limited body space in mind.



Early in the morning we would go to the mine and spend the whole day working with saws and drills. At night the miners’ car would take us to the town that is 20 kilometers from the mine. Almost falling down from tiredness in the dormitory, we would cook our supper and fall asleep.


After all the wooden features were ready, we went to Chita on a night train. A few days later we took everything needed for the project and came back with a bigger team.



The road to Krasnokamensk took us about 6 hours. Late at night, we arrived at the same dormitory, and the filmers from ‘BullMovie’ were already sleeping behind the next door. They had come from Moscow a few days earlier.


Every day we woke up early in the morning and cooked some porridge. A good breakfast means a good and productive day!


We didn’t have much time left before filming.


Part 1. The quarterpipe in the truck

I can’t even imagine what the workers thought when we started building some weird features in their truck. Our team was good in solving problems, and I’d like to thank Kostya Zhuchkov for his amount of physical and mental help while working on this project.


Almost done!

The last features



I didn’t have time to ride my new bike, so I had to get used to it while filming.


I was surprised with its perfect geo, and I felt pretty comfy in this quarterpipe.


Backstage with Zhenya and Stas.



I had a few main tricks for the quarter, and this no hander is one of them.

Flare.

As you might’ve seen in the video, this trick didn’t come easy. It was pretty hard to take the right angle for spinning after landing in the truck, and that’s why I felt out of the body a few times.


Luckily I wasn’t injured and then I could stomp that park trick in the truck body.


Part 2: The burrow hill

The place I chose for building the dirt jump line was right under a big burrow hill, so I could get enough speed for the jumps.



The ground in the piles from the tractor was too soft for the landings, so we had to take some harder dirt from the big hill for another layer and then we puddled it using Valery’s car.





Setting the ramps.


Everything was ready and I could do some test jumps.



At first, the speed I got on the run in seemed weird, but I got used to it after three jumps. That first jump felt amazing, sometimes I thought the flight would last forever.




Seeking for some more lines.




The cars were very helpful for us, and we could do some dynamic filming using them. Zhenya Vlasov turned out to be a damn good driver.


Setting the truck.



Tuning the truck’s suspension with a simple screwdriver.


At first we had a 12-meter first jump. I thought it was enough to jump over this truck, but then we decided to make the gap a meter longer.



The wind started blowing early in the morning, and it didn’t stop until sunset. Sometimes we had to start filming at sunrise when it wasn’t that windy. We even had to sleep in the tent right in front of the truck to be ready for filming at 6 AM. Sometimes we had only 2 hours of filming in a day.


This DIY flag indicated the wind direction, and the second one was set in the truck body.


Slowly but surely the filming was going on.


I think this was the biggest backflip I’ve ever done, and it felt amazing!


Having filmed a good line of tricks, we were stoked with the results, and then I was going back to the inrun to do some more tricks before the wind started blowing again.



Filming from the truck body.


For me every project is like a birth of another life. You’re carrying the idea and can’t sleep at night because of it. You’re overcoming the obstacles on your way, and then you’re stoked with the results you get. And you understand what you’re living for in moments like that. All of this would never be possible without my team. I’m sure every one of us will remember those moments for a long time, because every time we’re giving away a part of ourselves for the idea.

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