FMFT Friday Film Festival

The London bicycle film festival might not be until the 4th October but that doesn’t mean we can’t have our own here on FMFT this weekend.

The film festival is a little focussed on skinny wheels, and I can do that too with this film about cycling and a bike café in Cheshire. Quaint.



For something a bit different I really like this video visualisation of the first journeys on Boris Bikes in London that builds into a fluid pattern of the rhythm of trips and perhaps lets you see city cycling in a new way:

Riding on the roads never quite has the appeal to me of mountain biking and (in case you were wondering) I’m easing you into the film I really want to talk about. First up, and to get you closer, this event appeals to me more than any triathlon ever could when it comes to multi-discipline sports. How about some rowing, fell running, paragliding and mountain biking?

Right then, no video to embed for this one, but I hope you watched Where The Trail Ends on Red Bull yesterday.

It’s another example of just how good mountain bike films are getting, this time looking at big mountain riding across the world form Utah to China to the Andes through Colorado and Nepal. It follows the world’s best riders in the sort of places where the terrain is a massive challenge in itself let alone the riding, the jumps and the style. It’s stunningly shot and epic and pushes you right up with the riders’ ambition, fear, balls and the sort of lines that most of us only dream of being able to ride. It offers you truly dramatic trail riding, shattering crashes and jaw-dropping skill in an environment where you stand to lose a lot more than a bit of skin if it goes wrong.

It’s the tale of finding even Utah too small a challenge and too heavily ridden and looking for the next big thing and then taking it to the limit, with the best comparison being to those surfing films on the search of the biggest waves. Missed it? Rent it, or buy it and see just how far you can go on a bicycle. Here’s the trailer again:

What else? Oh yeah, the road World Champs. The road races happen tomorrow and we’ll see what the strong British team can do with the big names of the season in action. One blow may be that Olympic silver medallist Lizzie Armistead has had to pull out due to illness. More on this on Monday when I’ve managed to pick my jaw off the floor after Where the Trail Ends.

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