These days finding a fresh and captivating location to shoot a mountain bike edit requires the stars to align. Largely speaking, mountain bike content is likely looking a bit dull with the same tired locations and trending concepts constantly being recycled. To locate a place with a unique aesthetic is no easy task, and once on the ground there is a long list of prerequisites for making a solid video part. First and foremost, you need good dirt that can be shaped into desirable features. Access to water, the ability to navigate an excavator and the freedom to get creative with both the machine and terrain are critical as well.

At the end of 2022, an old friend of Brandon’s, Taylor Sage, offered his property as a potential shoot location. Situated between the Santa Ana and San Jacinto mountain ranges in Southern California, the property sits at around 3,000 ft. elevation in the foothills outside of Temecula. The local terrain was an otherworldly mix of desert brush and gigantic granite boulders scattered throughout.

Beneath a thin layer of mushier organic topsoil was highly sculpt-able dirt mainly comprised of decomposed granite which packs nicely into takeoffs and landings. The unique look, ideal dirt and large natural rock features made this location a 10/10. A nearby stream and limitless creative freedom were icing on the cake. Being in So-Cal it seemed like the perfect spot for a Winter project, so it was game on…

Geared up and ready to work, we arrived at the property in late February and to our surprise, we were greeted by a decent sized layer of snow on the ground. “Oh well, it must be a fluke,” we thought. After all, we were in sunny Southern California! Due to the slow melt and porous dirt, we managed to break new ground and shape features at a surprisingly good pace early on in the build process.

Oddly enough, the weather didn’t let up and we had days upon days of snow. By some stroke of bad luck the shoot lined up with the storm of a century. This meant that it was all hands on deck with building the features. Under standard procedures on most shoots, the build crew would get started and have a few features ready to film after a couple of days.Then Brandon, myself and the filmers would begin shooting, while still trying to help out when time provided, leapfrogging the builders throughout the project.

Over the ensuing days time seemed to just drag on and we all eventually felt like we were in the twilight zone. Due to the remote nature of the location, for lunch we all ate the same exact chicken pesto panini for 8 or 9 days straight and were all going a little bit crazy about 3/4ths of the way through the shoot. Fortunately, morale remained high as we were all able to laugh constantly about the utter ridiculousness of the situation. With a good mix of irony, a slew of inside jokes and self deprecating humor, we simply marched on. Then, at the tail end of the storm cycle we got another foot of snow overnight.

Although waiting for the snow to melt was a setback, it wasn’t nearly as devastating as what was to come. After waiting a few more days for the ground to dry, we thought we were ready to get the cameras out. That was until the skies opened up with heavy rain and hail that battered the polished features we had just finished building. It completely melted beautifully sculpted dirt off of the carefully chosen boulders.

Features we thought were less vulnerable took on enormous amounts of water and became too saturated to ride. There was nothing to do but call it a day while we waited for the water to settle. When we got home there was a sick irony in seeing our drying work boots covered in flecks of Fool’s Gold. Perhaps that was nature’s way of mocking us. In any case, what typically is the hardest part of naming a video project came naturally!

After a couple more days of going crazy rebuilding the dirt features and waiting for the ground to dry, we were finally ready to begin shooting. With a rally race approaching for Brandon and more weather on the horizon, we crawled out of our Airbnb and began the process of cramming what would have typically been 10 days of shooting into just 5.

During the following days, the crucial aspects of shooting went incredibly well. Each feature worked nearly flawlessly, the weather windows played out well, and for the most part everything was going in our favor for once. Per usual on big projects like this, things got a bit down to the wire.

With weather coming the next morning, Brandon greased the final trick with moments to spare before sundown - a half cab on a natural rock down pad built from the crown jewel on the property. It was easily the coolest feature of the entire project.

In the end we all walked away with a litany of insane stories, ridiculous jokes and one liners that none of us will forget - many of which the average sane human would never believe, but that’s okay. All told, having the right crew dedicated to making it happen no matter what Mother Nature threw at us was the most important part of the formula. We never got demoralized, we never stopped smiling and we’re all ready for the next one!