Video Part
Christian Rigal's High Vis
X Games is proud to present Christian Rigal's latest MTB project 'High Vis' supported by adidas Five Ten.
©Toby Cowley
About High Vis
“Keep up the great work” - Not quite the response we anticipated from the local law enforcement after temporarily re-arranging public property. Christian Rigal has spent a heavy part of his life riding and filming BMX in the streets of California, often being shut down by police or security. So when he set out to roadtrip from San Diego to San Francisco with a truckload of dirt and a wooden ramp to enhance a number of street spots, we were expecting to be met with some resistance.
Fortunately for us, this didn’t seem to be the case, whether it was the school principal or the police, each time we were able to explain what we were doing, finish the build and shoot it. Then we would load the ramp, dirt and sand bags back into the truck ready for the next spot, often leaving the zone in better shape than we found it.
Maybe it was showing up to each spot with a minimum of 3 vehicles, wearing high vis and running a few cameras created the illusion of a larger scale production that helped put people at ease about what we were up to. What we thought would actually work against us somehow seemed to play to our advantage.
Christian has a very perceptive eye for finding spots, and collaborating with the @ShireBuilt crew of Scotty and Spencer, plus the benefit of bringing in a ramp and dirt allowed him to approach each location in a unique way. Often making something that would otherwise be unrideable, ridable.
This didn’t necessarily mean things would be easy, a number of uphill run-ins had us utilizing Christians mini truck as a way for him to generate enough speed. Unloading and reloading a truckload of dirt also lead to long days and long nights, sometimes not wrapping up a shoot until past midnight. Only to wake up and repeat the process the following day.
Even though each spot required a different approach, as we progressed through the trip our process for setting up the ramp became more efficient, utilizing sandbags vs just shoveling dirt helped us to get in and out faster.
After 10 days we had traveled from San Diego to San Francisco and checked off a number of spots. A successful shoot in the bag, but I feel like the wheels were already turning on ideas for the next trip.
Christian Rigal's High Vis MTB Project
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Left: After a long day of building, shooting, and tearing down spots the crew takes a minute to soak up the views overlooking the Bay Area before calling it a night and doing it all over again.
Right: From day to night, we camped out at this spot for over 10 hours transforming a heavily hit snowboard spot into 2 different MTB dream setups!
Image ©Toby Cowley
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This San Diego curved wall ride was the spot we thought we'd have the least amount of time at.. To our surprise, the local police welcomed us with open arms and even came back a few times to check in and see how we were doing!
Image ©Toby Cowley
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Build, test, repeat.
Image ©Toby Cowley
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Essential to this project was a nimble Specialized Stumpy Evo and about 100 sandbags filled with dirt!
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Fall was in full effect out in Aptos Ca and this spot was asking for some kind of build. We didn't think our mobile lip was going to turn into a vert wall, but it worked out great after a few sketchy ejects!
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The UCSC campus had so many epic tree rides we had to shape up at least one of them for this project!
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An homage to the San Diego BMX legend Vic Murphy with a classic Tabletop at the same spot as his Ride Bmx cover, we just had to add some extra pop and a mini truck tow in haha.
Image ©Toby Cowley
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This gap to manual was completely blind and had a dangerous thread the needle run out, your classic "this photo or clip will never do it spot justice" kind of scenario.
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The Shire Built crew (Scotty Scamehorn and Spencer Baldwin) ride Bmx and MTB so there's no one else i'd feel more comfortable working with on these types of hybrid projects! The boys crushed it and the laughs were endless!
Image ©Toby Cowley
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Shapes! I'm always on the hunt for unique looking spots that are easy on the eyes and these two were too good to pass up! Shout out to the elementary school principal that was cool with us temporarily re arranging her planter box.. She was happy to come back to school the next day to find it in better shape then we found it!
Image ©Toby Cowley
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I've been sweating this spot since i saw it in an old S&M bmx video when i was a kid, and more recently when a moto guy ripped around it. I knew there was something else to be done there, so we gave it a bit of a transformation!
Image ©Toby Cowley
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The mini truck ended up being an essential tool to get gear and dirt into the spots, as well as a tow in vehicle to get this big ol bike up to speed for some of these features!
Image ©Toby Cowley