Red Bulletin UK 5/21

“I
was 13 the first time
I did a wall ride,” says
Kriss Kyle. “I was
scared – you’re going
so fast you hope your tyres grip,
or it’ll hurt. But it gripped,
whipped me round and spat me
out. I’m still chasing that feeling.”
The trick has become one of his
signature moves, as seen in the
film Kriss Kyle’s Kaleidoscope
(2015). In his new movie, Out of
Season, the 29-year-old BMX
ace enters the Welsh woodlands
to perform the manoeuvre on a
far heavier vehicle – a mountain
bike. “This has been four years
in the making,” he says. “I’ve
always wanted to build a curved
wall ride in the woods.” Here’s
how Kyle, ramp builder George
Eccleston and the film’s director
Matty Lambert achieved this…
The vision
“I’m always thinking, ‘What’s
next?’” says Kyle. “I thought
I’d like to do a 270° [wall ride],
where I’m going into the wall
then sweeping under it on the
way out without hitting my
head. As long as I can picture it
in my head, I know I can do it.”
The plan
“Kriss often just has a rough
idea in his head and we try to
find a spot that works,” says
Eccleston. “We picked a point
amid these three trees to get
the lateral side-to-side stiffness.
We needed trees on a slope that
allowed [the wall] to be 1.5m
off the ground at the entry
point, but 2m on the other side
so he could exit beneath it.”
The build
“The shape was pre-cut in the
workshop, then assembled on
site in two days,” says Eccleston.
“We used plywood rings made
from birch – it’s flexible yet
durable, so we use it on indoor
skate builds – and larch slats
to provide strength and grip.”
The test
“I was nervous as I wouldn’t get
to go on it before it was built,”
says Kyle, “so it was a case of
stepping into the unknown.”
Eccleston says they were
VENTURE
How to...
CREATE
Land a wall ride
Bike supremo Kriss Kyle reveals the art of creating this incredible move
270°
Degrees of perfection
“The upper circle is 4.2m in diameter, but the lower
circle is only 4m as it has a backward lean of 5°,”
says Eccleston. “That means if it’s wet on the shoot
Kriss can hit the wall slower with more control and grip.
If it was vertical, he’d slide straight down it.”
Gripping stuff: BMX
ace Kriss Kyle does
the rounds on his wall
in the Welsh woods
prepared to make alterations
on set: “On the first few goes,
we had to watch for wobbles
when Kriss hit it at a certain
point. Where that happened,
we added extra timber braces.”
The moment
“We had two angles to film: one
from behind, showing Kriss
going into the wall ride, then
a drone moving down from the
tree canopy,” says Lambert.
“You want to see him from
a riding perspective – to see
how hard it is – but it should
also look beautiful. It’s quite
awkward entering the curved
wall, and the viewer can see
how thin the gap is. As he hits
the wall, he kind of disappears.”
Watch Out of Season from
April 15 at redbull.com
EISA BAKOS HOWARD CALVERT CHRISTINA LOCK
78 THE RED BULLETIN