For Mountain Bikers, Crashing Has Its Own Allure

[film reeling]

[serene music]

[Andreane Lanthier Nadeau] Control and letting go,

that's a funny two words.

[serene music]

[leaves crunching]

It's a super fine line to be on [chuckles].

[serene music]

Sometimes, I try and just take my fingers

off the brakes completely,

and just like kinda death grip through things.

[serene music]

You know, like, you're not just a super human,

you are uncomfortable, but you do want to take the risk of,

you know, maybe braking a couple seconds later.

[serene music]

And it's almost like a heightened sense of control.

Going slightly out of control, you know?

If that makes any sense.

[serene music]

I love that feeling of weightlessness

and just like being, like high above things, I guess.

I'd say the best part is that time where you're like,

you're just about to go down.

You reach that peak height,

and then you're falling.

[serene music]

It's like um one of the best feelings in the world.

[serene music]

[chains rattling]

[gravel crunching]

[whistle blows]

[gravel crunching]

What makes a fall a fall?

Ah, um, it's a hard question, falling asleep.

[women talking, overlapping] falling asleep, falling asleep,

definitely one of like, my favorite times of day.

Falling asleep, some people say it's my super power.

My eyes are half open, and like,

my mouth is just like completely unclicked, like my jaw,

and I'm just like, look like I'm dead.

Falling into rhythm, falling into rhythym, gym, ride, sleep.

Falling into place, free-falling, skydiving, falling apart.

[brushing wheel]

Falling behind, I'm just instantly think of

where you feel like you're making mistakes,

and so then you try and push harder

but then you just make more mistakes.

Then you just keep falling more and more behind

when you're trying harder, harder, harder.

[feet stomping]

[Woman] Whew.

[heavy breathing]

[whistle blows]

[thud]

[painful gasp]

[Woman] Ah.

[Man] Are you okay?

[heavy breathing]

[Woman] Fuck.

I think I think a lot and [laughs] sometimes

I think about my mind and I think about how strong it is

and how strong it can be at helping me

but also how strong it can be at hindering me.

And sometimes it's hard,

I find it hard to have the awareness

that I'm like in this zone where my mind is really not

helping me.

But it's like strongly will that doing that right now

and like finding strategies to bring it back

onto the good side.

What's tomorrow?

Bike ride day.

West lake?

Yeah.

If you look at a video after your,

you won't see anything on the video.

It'll be like you're up on your bike and then you're down.

[sound of crashing to ground]

But it feels like things are happening in slow motion.

[indistinct talk]

Some people say it slows down

or they can see it all coming or whatever.

But for me its just like you feel absolutely nothing

and then you fell everything like sort of all at once.

[sounds of jumping]

You have to be calculated to try and find the limit

of that control.

[ball moving on ground]

I just love kinda being nervous about trying new things

and like a bit unsure.

[crashing sounds]

[Men] Oh!

[indistinct talk]

[cheering]

I think it's just like, it's a really cool display

of athleticism as funny as that sounds.

Being like athletically crashing.

Once you commit to like you know you're gonna be probably

sliding around quite a bit.

Yeah, just embrace it, have fun with it.

[pumping tire]

[water and bird sounds]

[Man] You know what they say,

a fish is a fish is a fish.

[birds singing]

When I was eight years old, I lost my dad,

and my mom decided to put me into sports.

[phone ringing]

[speaking in foreign language]

I think it really really helped me get through

ah losing my dad and has really rooted that connection

with me like super deep.

It's kinda how I got into it

and how I will never get out of it also [laughs].

[speaking foreign language]

Bye Mum [foreign language].

[dramatic music]

I think we live in a bit of a bubble of sort of

extreme athletes.

You know, you'll see like a five year old kid running around

with his arm in like a cast and a brace and no one seems

too fazed by it.

[traffic noise]

Ah, all the body parts that I've injured;

my tibia plateau in my right leg, the head of the tib fib

at the ankle joint.

I had to have surgery on that cause it slid into my ankle.

My left radius, left collar bone, my ribs, left ulna,

and I actually rode too soon on that one and it pulled

the plate off the bone.

I shattered my right radius and ulna, my scaphoid

and another small useless wrist bone.

I got kidney failure from like dehydration

and muscle exhaustion and...

I've been knocked out a couple of times.

The worst fall that I've had was probably when I broke

both my arms.

You've got to like get your sister, like shave your armpits.

Like your mom's brushing your teeth.

That's easy [chuckles].

And this is my most recent crash.

My front wheel just pushed and so that it shot me kinda

the wrong way, like into that tree.

And I'm super k-oed for a few seconds.

[sound of wind rushing past bike]

[crashing]

[Man] Rider down, rider down.

I thought my go pro broke cause of like, that noise.

[whirring]

[moaning]

[Woman] Try to breathe, try to breathe, take your time.

[people talking]

I have maybe experienced more like physical trauma

than some riders.

But I don't like when it becomes like defining.

Because I am more than that, yeah.

[bird song]

[sound of bike through woods]

That's the video I did with my friend Antoine.

And I was just like there is no way I can hit that jump.

And he was like, we're not even gonna film here

if you don't hit the big jump.

I was so upset, I was like oh he thinks I can do it.

Like am I thinking I'm less of a like less of what

I'm capable of?

Maybe I can and I don't know it just like created

this perfect atmosphere where I was like feeling

like I could push myself.

Your perception and your self doubt in life is just like

kinda this weird funny thing and is kinda this super quiet

and this, this wave of belief came in and I just did it.

[fast electronic music]

Oh my god is that Kelsey's Sara?

How did we find you here?

[chatter]

Where did you crash?

Like right at the top.

Yeah.

[Man] [indistinct] ... miss the corner.

Oh I crashed there too.

Yeah.

It is what it is.

Okay I'm coming.

[laughs]

Yeah girls. [laughs]

That was so funny.

[ drum music]

Skid, [laughs], he went a little low too.

[ drum music]

You can think about when things fall into place,

it's also sometimes maybe a bit unexpected,

like you can't really pinpoint like exactly

the conditions or what's happening.

[women's voices overlapping] Falling into balance,

falling into balance...

When you have everything dialed and you just floss every

morning and everything evening.

_[ women's voices overlapping] Falling in love..

Falling in love...slowly.

He went through a phase where he had two diamond earrings

and stuff and I was like, hmm this guy huh?

I don't know if he's just like the one person

that I do really wanna share everything with.

One of my friend and I we always joke round that

we fall in love with a loaf of bread at the grocery store,

because we fall in love too easy, [laughs], yeah.

[ suspenseful music]

Like literally all I wanna do is like ride my bike.

And so the reward just outweighs that risk so much.

I could, I could not fall ever again.

But I might not go fast ever again you know, like.

It's like my mum always like kinda gives me a hard time

for being super slow.

I kinda talk slow, I kinda like move slow.

I'm really slow at walking.

Maybe it's just like, balance me out, [laughs].

Don't want to do everything too slowly.

[electronic music]

[bottle drops]

[egg drops]

[glass breaks]

[ice cream drops]