Weirdly the words ‘dry’ (seeing as the vid is called ‘Time to Get Moist’) and ‘so far tongue in cheek that I’m not sure what I’m watching’ come to mind after viewing this! Ed Oxley (Great Rock) is world renowned (well in our world anyway) for producing some truly bizarre videos. Who can forget his ‘Vain Vagrant’ or 2013’s ‘The Chop’?! Confused? You should be.
It’s deadpan humour, with a couple of ‘weirdy beardies’ and a load of girl’s in a yurt in the Lake District. No severed heads this time. Here’s what Ed has to say about it… we’ll let him explain:
“Every year I present the Santa Cruz Bike Night at Kendal Mountain Festival in the English Lake District. There’s nothing else really like it. It’s a kind of live audience chat show with original big screen video content, craft ale, live music, interviews and a touch of anarchy that typifies our sport. This year was the best yet with 900 people in the audience. We had Greg Minaar, Martyn Ashton, Guy Martin and Josh Bryceland on the stage as well as a whole load of other guests. We also saw first screenings of edits that are now being released online in the days following the festival.
“We want to see more women in mountain biking” they said, so I thought I’d do my bit and team up with Whitenosugar Productions to make a film. It’s not hard to represent women positively in a mountain bike edit, you just have to show the girls doing what they do every week riding their bikes on proper trails. I didn’t want it to look like Soviet era propaganda and so I added a bit of Great Rock humour. Everyone has to be good at something and at least I’m good at being a dick and the women certainly come out on top.
The three women in the film are Aneela McKenna, Juliana Bicycles brand ambassador and partner in Scottish guiding company Go-Where. Sandra Scally is an ambassador for Hervelo women’s cycling club (although apparently there’s one male member, the cheeky monkey). Janey Kennedy is a professional mountain bike guide with Go-Where. The other bloke we just found outside the supermarket and we invited him along because we felt sorry for him.
The film was shot in a weekend in the Lake District and edited just in time for the festival. In true British style we had all the weather and enjoyed constant wind and rain from the tail end of some hurricane passing over the Atlantic. It’s what makes us great. It also kills cameras and freezes fingers but we’re not made of sugar and neither are we princesses.”
Photos: Jessie Leong Photography.
