The Red Bulletin December 2020 (UK)

SCOTLAND, UK
Rider: Chris Akrigg (GBR)
Discipline: MTB trials
Tillmann: Chris is known for
his humour and a crazy-yetdedicated
riding style. It’s
difficult to scout spots for him
– he rides the stuff nobody
else wants to, and still makes it
flow. We scouted the Highlands
and the islands, but it was all
for nothing: as we flew in, bad
weather meant that we couldn’t
shoot at any of them. So we
had to work on the fly instead,
finding locations and shooting
on the spot.
Akrigg: The Scottish landscape
is so vast, but I don’t need
huge slopes, I dial it down
into bits. When I reach a
location, my mind starts racing.
Sometimes I just need five
minutes to think about how it
could work. It can be hard to
convey the technicality of the
more intricate stuff on video.
Halfway into the shoot,
I jammed a radio antenna into
my ribs, clipped a pedal and
went head over heels. When I
landed, I folded myself in half. I
had a radio, and it sounds funny
but it was down my pants and
got stuck between my thigh and
ribcage. I don’t know what it
did in there, but it wasn’t good.
I managed two or three more
days of riding, but it got to the
point where it was distracting
me so much that I just couldn’t
ride. I ended up taking copious
amounts of painkillers.
“When filming
something like
this, you want
to be on top of
your game”
WALES, UK
Rider: Rachel Atherton (GBR)
Discipline: Downhill MTB
Tillmann: The theme of this
segment was ‘dedication’,
but that took on a whole new
meaning. Our original idea was
to film only with drones, but at
our first session on Cadair Idris
[mountain in Snowdonia] the
wind and rain made that less
than ideal. Then the drone
crashed at the first shot, so I
ran down the whole mountain
to get the spare, only to find it
had a software problem. Then,
before our next filming session,
Rachel tore her Achilles…
Atherton: I can remember it
like it was yesterday [the injury
occurred in July 2019]. It’s a
process you go through, almost
like grief. You feel angry and
upset, then just devastated.
Getting injured mid-season [in
the UCI Downhill MTB World
Cup], you go from winning
races to almost nothing. It
takes a lot to change your
mindset and focus on the long
road ahead. It was nine months
before I even picked up a bike
Downhill MTB pro
Rachel Atherton
films around
Cadair Idris, Wales
again. When filming something
like this, you want to be on top
of your game. I was nervous,
because I didn’t know if I was
going to be fast or look good,
so I put it off to the last minute.
But I think it was the right
choice, because I did feel I was
riding well when it came to
filming again. The first half was
all mountain stuff – outback
riding and big mountains, all
about freedom. The second
half was on tracks near my
home in Wales. Having a big
injury halfway through filming
changed the plan a bit, but
hopefully the hard work and
the dedication to return comes
across. To be back up to speed
and feeling like a racer again –
that’s what I’m looking forward
to the most. When you don’t
race for so long, it takes away
who you are. [Racing] is in
my blood. Being back on the
track makes you feel like
everything makes sense again.
[Just weeks after this interview,
Atherton announced that
regrettably, as a result of her
ongoing rehab, she wouldn’t
be racing again this year.]
THE RED BULLETIN 69