You know exactly what kind of video this is going to be in the first few shots, when you realise how fast Eliot Jackson is receding from the camera… vertically. He’s full of joy, and expresses it mainly through his bike but sometimes audibly too. He seems like a man who knows exactly where the limit of his tyres is, and is comfortable going beyond it on sketchy lines. Here’s two minutes of off-camber, on the limit fun:
“The Sound of Speed series is all about enjoying the best of biking in its rawest form. From tyres kicking up the dirt, to the mechanical clatter of the chain it’s the rhythm of the music we ride to. American downhiller Eliot Jackson, hit up the famous Rotorua trails in New Zealand earlier this year. With his trademark steezy moves and audible joy, whoop along with Jackson as he takes on Skyline Bike Park and Whakarewarewa Forest.”
Clip-in, like most downhillers nowadays.This might look like an awkward position, but watch him in motion and you’ll see everything he does is setting up for the next thing.Audible whoops, but no “Whoops!”, even on the sketchiest lines.
David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly.
Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.
Love the sound of the bike taking a battering