A Year In Review - British Downhill Series 2015

Dec 31, 2015 at 5:34
by Fraktiv  


BRITISH DOWNHILL SERIES

2015

A Year In Review



It’s an endless dance to move with the fashion in video production
but what must always remain true is story-telling.




When we were approached by Pinkbike and Si Paton at the end of 2014 to undertake another year of coverage of British Cycling’s British Downhill Series, we reflected. What made our coverage of the 2014 season tick, resulting in over 540,000 geebeebee media article reads and video views on Pinkbike alone (counting all BDS articles generated over 960,000 reads/views)? What could we have done better? And how could we do it better for 2015?

As it always does, fate played a hand in how we eventually went about telling the story of the 2015 season; our ambition was always about bringing the real stories from the race weekend to life - from the elites to the unsung heroes - and doing so in a way that was possible with just a two-man crew for most of the rounds.

Video production aside, our remit was also to include filing in-depth written reports from practice and race days, as well as posting the results and updates via Pinkbike’s social media channels...but more about how we delivered that later.

Moving from our ‘raw’ or ‘uncut’ style of production in 2014, for 2015 we expanded our coverage to include pre-race build up - including interviews with characters around the pits - as well as race day action. For coverage of the race runs, we didn’t want to focus just on the top three men and women in the elite categories, but also feature some of the less well-known riders in categories such as Junior Men, Senior Men, Junior Women and not forgetting the Legends at Antur Stiniog. For the most part, this is where the UK’s stars of the future will come from so it’s always good to watch the developing talent coming through.

British Downhill Series 2015 - Antur Stiniog



THE TEAM

It’s no easy feat being just a two-man team, shooting for two days solid as well as producing written results together with practice and race reports from each race weekend. Luckily for us, we had a few friends to help us along the way, namely Jono Drew from LKTV (for Ae Forest), Fleye and Salt Street Productions (for Fort William), and last but not least, Colin Lloyd and Geoff Mountfield from Sky Optics who provided us with amazing (and fully authorised) drone footage for the final weekend at Antur Stiniog.

Early on in the season, Grip Media provided photos directly to the British Downhill Series team, which we used for our official race reports. We supplemented these with our own photos as well as those from up-and-coming photographer Yasmeen Green, aka The Hills Are Alive. As the races went on, Yasmeen became our go-to photographer for our event coverage, and we’re really pleased to hear that Yasmeen will be the official photographer for the series in 2016.

A photo posted by JonoDrew (@jonodrewlktv) on

A photo posted by SkyOptics (@skyopticsltd) on




THE KIT

In 2014, our camera gear pretty much fitted into a single EVOC CP35 camera pack, but in 2015, our kit bag filled up significantly! Our Sony FS700 was supplemented by our Canon 7D which became a regular B-cam for us, with a dedicated Sony X1000V 4K Action Cam pulled in as our C-cam for interviews. Throw in a few more lenses and some significantly upgraded audio and video monitoring gear, and our original one camera setup had suddenly tripled!

This year we also brought in our DJI Ronin - as used in our other non-MTB production work - to add a super-smooth aspect to our production...so needless to say, our one bag on 2014 had suddenly become more like a car full!





OUR THANKS

We of course have to thank the race organisers, marshals and British Cycling commissionaires and wider team for their assistance in both making our lives easier to shoot on the hillside, as well as looking after our safety and wellbeing. Whether that’s directing us to safe zones to shoot, or supplying us with a nice cup of tea at the end of the day in quintessentially British lashing rain. Carrying over 15kg of kit each isn’t easy - unless you’re a soldier perhaps - so doing so on a slippery hillside is pretty tough in the freezing cold or pouring rain. Fort William was pretty much the hardest shoot of 2015 despite the upper part of the track having to close due to weather conditions, whilst Rhyd Y Felin was by far the funnest shoot, with great weather on practice day giving us plenty of chance to smash out roost shot after roost shot! Access to good filming spots beside the trails isn't always easy though, so working with the BDS crew and the marshals made life a little bit easier.

A video posted by geebeebee media (@geebeebee) on




ROUND 1 - AE FOREST

Views: 35,071    Faves: 105    Comments: 11

Practice Report
Course Preview
Race Report
Race Results



ROUND 2 - FORT WILLIAM

Views: 35,940    Faves: 90    Comments: 4

Practice Report & Course Preview
Race Report
Race Results



ROUND 3 - LLANGOLLEN

Views: 18,228    Faves: 82    Comments: 2

Practice Report
Course Preview
Race Report
Race Results



ROUND 4 - RHYD Y FELIN

Views: 22,060    Faves: 61    Comments: 3

Practice Report & Course Preview
Race Report
Race Results



ROUND 5 - MOELFRE

https www.facebook.com TheHillAreAlive

Practice Report
Race Report
Race Results



ROUND 6 - ANTUR STINIOG

Views: 14,376    Faves: 45    Comments: 2

Retrospective: British Downhill Legends
An Ode To Legends Video
Course Preview
Race Report
Race Results



LAST BUT NOT LEAST - A WORD FROM SI PATON

bigquotesAs a whole, the 2015 series has been successful in a number of ways but even so, we constantly review how things go at the end of the series as well as after each round so that we an continuously improve the series year on year. For example, every Sunday evening after the race, the BDS team meets to go through what worked well and what didn't. It's an essential exercise to ensure we stay on top of providing one of the best downhill mountain bike race series in the world.

This year we wanted to encourage greater female participation in downhill racing. We approached this via various means, from using female athletes on all our promotional material, committing to equal prize money for male and female riders, to facilitating Rachel Atherton's sponsorship of the newly formed Junior Women's category.

We've also done our foremost to stay ahead with making sure people who aren't able to attend the races are still able to engage with and keep up to date with the latest goings-on from the pits or track. Our social media coverage has increased several fold and we're now using new channels like Periscope more and more. Once again, it's been a pleasure to work with geebeebee media who have delivered superb coverage of the series on behalf of Pinkbike.

Elite rider participation increased in 2015, for example, we had 95 Elite riders booked on for Fort William, Scotland. We've always worked hard to deliver challenging and safe tracks for all riders, and working together with them we delivered just that, especially at Rhyd-Y-Felin and Moelfre where we worked closely with Gareth Brewin.

Going forward to 2016, we know there are some areas of improvement and that's why for next season we'll be implementing a number of changes, for example, working with Action Sports Timing to deliver a new timing system. We'll also be putting in free wifi hotspots in the finish area for everyone to use. We're also looking at ways to improve the uplift at Ae Forest which was the weakest uplift of the 2015 season for us. There are several other improvements to be made, so watch this space.

Finally, I would like to thank all the riders, marshals, media, sponsors, race fans and last but not least, the BDS team for a successful 2015 race season and I look forward to welcoming everyone back in 2016. - Si Paton, British Downhill Series

Photo by Clint Trahan Crankworx
  Thanks to all our friends and supporters. We don't often have photos taken of us but thankfully on this occassion, Crankworx photographer Clint Trahan took a rare snap of us whilst we were out shooting Red Bull Slopestyle at L2A. If you ever see us out on the hillside, come and say hello!


MENTIONS @BritishDownhillseries / @geebeebee / @RoseBikesUK / @schwalbe / @spank-bikes / @hopetech / @foxheadeurope / @dmrbikes / @HookitProducts / @Dainese / @ns-bikes / @shimano / @si-paton / @TheHillsAreAlive / @LKTV / @TheGripMedia / @SALT-STREETproductions / @wideopenmag / @evocsports



Author Info:
fraktiv avatar

Member since May 14, 2008
227 articles

6 Comments
  • 10 0
 That downhill "celeb" race at Antur is basically all the riders I remember when I first got into the sport. I remember watching them on MTB Britain, a crappy TV program, but the only real thing to show UK downhill back in the day.

There was some amazing riders, some of which probably wouldn't be known by our foreign friends. I am glad I kind of got into the sport at the time it was just getting started and from a nostalgia point of view, it was the best. Steve Peat, Rob Warner, Nigel Page, they were the riders that inspired me and still keep me riding today in my 40's.
  • 5 1
 Thank you to @geebeebee for providing fantastic coverage throughout the season!

Also a big thanks to @sipaton for keeping the BDS, an integral part of what is the best national DH program, running at such a high caliber.
  • 4 0
 wow , rhyd y felin looks like the best track I have seen in the UK, need to get my ass up there
  • 2 0
 It's funny, as a marshal I've seen these two out filming on track and I've only just found out who they are!
  • 2 0
 Farha and Olly = class act, fact
  • 2 0
 Bravo cheers Oi Oi







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