Growing up, I never wanted to be a movie star. I aspired to be the first woman on Mars, or a doctor of some sort. Movie stardom just did not appeal to the young Leigh. Low and behold, I got to experience a taste of the big screen last weekend when I was selected by Spintertainment to be featured in one of their mountain bike spin videos.
I was forewarned that it would be tedious, exhausting days of riding the same section of trail over and over again to get the shots. I needed to mentally prepare myself to be physically punished. Therefore, I was not expecting to have so much fun.
The trail we settled on, Lenawee, is an utterly perfect trail (in my mind). We start with a sufferfest of a climb up A Basin ski area (to keep out the riff raff). And then we drop into one of the most sweeping, wide open, grin-inducing, and techy descents in Colorado.
Day 1 of 3 started out basically just as Eric Landis had predicted it would. An early morning start. Very cold temperatures. Riding the same section of trail over and over again. Before too long, Eric and Quinn showed me some of their favorite clips. My mind was blown. Even in the raw, on the tiny screens, the images were super crisp, artsy, and motivating. It made me want to ride harder. Eric and Quinn seemed to be tireless as they chased me up A-Basin all day long.
Towards the end of the afternoon, we were getting close to our goal of finishing the climb. Eric was inspired to get a new angle on the summit. So, despite Quinn's very vocal reservations, despite the strong gusts of wind, Eric launched the tiny helicopter and I took off towards the singletrack descent. Thus began our evening of scouring the upper slopes of the A-basin sidecountry looking for a lost, little, helicopter drone. Miraculously, Quinn found the high-tech piece of machinery, safely perched in a pine tree, about 300 feet below the summit.
I was forewarned that it would be tedious, exhausting days of riding the same section of trail over and over again to get the shots. I needed to mentally prepare myself to be physically punished. Therefore, I was not expecting to have so much fun.
The trail we settled on, Lenawee, is an utterly perfect trail (in my mind). We start with a sufferfest of a climb up A Basin ski area (to keep out the riff raff). And then we drop into one of the most sweeping, wide open, grin-inducing, and techy descents in Colorado.
Day 1 of 3 started out basically just as Eric Landis had predicted it would. An early morning start. Very cold temperatures. Riding the same section of trail over and over again. Before too long, Eric and Quinn showed me some of their favorite clips. My mind was blown. Even in the raw, on the tiny screens, the images were super crisp, artsy, and motivating. It made me want to ride harder. Eric and Quinn seemed to be tireless as they chased me up A-Basin all day long.
Towards the end of the afternoon, we were getting close to our goal of finishing the climb. Eric was inspired to get a new angle on the summit. So, despite Quinn's very vocal reservations, despite the strong gusts of wind, Eric launched the tiny helicopter and I took off towards the singletrack descent. Thus began our evening of scouring the upper slopes of the A-basin sidecountry looking for a lost, little, helicopter drone. Miraculously, Quinn found the high-tech piece of machinery, safely perched in a pine tree, about 300 feet below the summit.
Helicopter found!
Day 2 was physically much tougher for me. In addition to pedaling up A-Basin (again), I was rewarded with very short bits of descent, all of which required pushing my bike back up to ride down again. Eventually though, we got into the techy bits. And suddenly filming turned into a delightful session fest for me. Find the fun lines, became my mantra. By this point, I was starting to figure out how far to push my bike back up after each cut. And I was really having a delightful time.
Eric sending it at the bike park Day 3 was much mellower. We were close to the bottom of the trail the previous evening. We wanted to wait until afternoon light turned golden before starting to film again. So we had time to devour a very large breakfast of pancakes and eggs and pork green chile. And time to go play at the Frisco Bike Park (where Eric gave me some welcome pointers on cornering and climbing). When we finally got back to finishing filming, it was all business. We finished under perfect conditions. Golden, sideways light flickered through bright yellow aspen leaves for the final scenes. I was completely tired, sore, and ready to get back to my day job where I could rest.
I feel like a movie star. I think the child version of myself may have been wrong. Being a star for 3 days was super fun, and I would like to think I was good at it. I'm looking forward to the off season so I can watch Spintertainment Lenawee on my trainer. I'm also looking forward to training to the other Spintertainment videos coming out sometime in the next couple months.
