Sea Otter is a long trek for most people, especially for those who have to drive down. Fortunately for us, we had a big black diesel van to travel in. It actually felt like a motorhome with the amount of space inside. With the pedal down and the GPS guiding us, we rolled into Monterey, home of the Sea Otter Classic, 18 hours after our departure from Vancouver.
With constant media flowing on the web during the event we decided that Sea Otter needed to be shown in a different light. It’s about the journey, the crowd, the mechanics, the athletes, the race results and the true feeling of the event.
The event itself is like a big social gathering with a bunch of racing squeezed in between. It is always exciting to see all of the new products, all of the people in the industry and everyone’s new sponsors. With racing of all disciplines going on in all directions, it was hard to cover every event, but we worked at capturing a good variety.
This year the weather was on our side, so we soaked up the rays and enjoyed the beautiful California hills before heading home to the coast of B.C.
A big thanks goes out to Terry Cox and crew of College Cyclery for hooking us up with a great place to set up camp
Thanks to the recent success of our webisodes we have made some serious upgrades. Recently we have picked up a RED one to really up our production quality. Since we now have a 3rd camera we have had to hire an extra man to keep things rolling. We are proud to announce the addition of Darcy Wittenburg to Coastal Crew Productions. We are all stoked to have you on the team Darcy!
While the world was worrying about the warm weather for the Olympics, we were reveling it. Mike Hopkins, of many fames, came down to Roberts Creek to hang out and ride with us for a couple of weeks.
Mike is a fantastic guy to spend any amount of time with, his relaxed and calm personality, and most of all, he is really damn good on a bike. While he was here we obviously wanted to shoot and showcase some of Mike's pre-season antics. Why he was here riding on the coast with us and not up to his armpits in snow being a pro skier.
Dylan worked his creative magic shooting video as Curtis, Kyle, Callum and Mike tore a strip out of a rad local trail called Viper. Thanks to a little mild drizzle the trail was in perfect shape and Dyl captured the essence of why we spend as much time as possible riding together on our home trails. There is nothing better than hot laps with your best friends. Period.
It came time to shoot Mike ripping solo. We picked a couple of trails that we thought would best show Mike's power as a rider. After Mike blasting some RC loam was captured, the crew moved on to the final trail we had picked for Mike. This trail showcased the blistering speed and fluidity with which Mike can rail his bike down a mountain. With both cameras rolling and Mike pinning it, the shoot was wrapped up with all the footage in the bag. It was a great couple of weeks with Mike. After we topped it off with a few beach fires, ocean golf and Caribrews.
Thanks to this rather lovely El Nino year, we have had one of the best winters any of us can remember. The days have been bright and mild. The rain has been falling in just the right amounts that the trails have stayed in near perfect condition.
Due to the fact that our local trails were in prime condition, we felt that it was the perfect time to showcase Curtis’ talent for smashing corners, romping at excessive speeds and making it all look way too easy. It’s hard not to love Curty’s style, it’s like a heat seeking missile, quietly stealthy on its path, picking the straightest line to its target and then boom! Goodbye berm/flat turn/loam rut etc.
After a day watching Curtis shred we decided we needed a change. An early morning ferry ride and a 5 hour drive landed us in another world. Our damp hero dirt was replaced with Mars-like space dust and our cedar forests with huge hoodoos. We brought everyone’s favorite ginger photographer Nicolas Tectonic Teichrob with us to capture the action in still form. Curtis took care of most of the filming. We found some really fun lines that day, some made even better by the fact that Dylan and Kyle could ride them side by side.
After lots of laughter and a load of great shots, we set up camp in the wilderness. The next morning we cruised back to our land of loam, shaking the dust out of our hair the whole way home.
A huge part of our lives as riders, builders and filmmakers is collaborating with other people who feel the same passion for this so called sport as we do. Nicolas Teichrob, aka Teky is an enthusiastic local photographer and a great friend of ours. He’s always down to shoot come rain, snow, shine, or in this case, arctic temperatures. His energy for shooting is portrayed in his shots and so we felt it was time to bring you into his world and show you what it takes to Get The Shot.
We are blessed on the coast with some unbelievable weather and scenery but often it’s the light that we wait for, not the weather. So on a sunny but freezing day in December 2009, we were hit with perfect conditions: high pressure, blue skies and an unreal sunset. Brandon Semenuk drove over to join us and the shoot was on. The setting: a clear cut looking over the ocean. The stunt: a step up to 12 ft drop. The goal: to capture Kyle Norbraten and Brandon Semenuk 3’ing the drop successively.
We knew that we had, at most, 1 hour to get the shot and shoot the webisode. On the drive up, Dylan and Cal were planning the shots, Teky was setting up both a time-lapse for the webisode and his shots, and Brandon and Kyle warmed up on their bikes. And by warmed up we mean defrosting their goggles and trying to keep their hands from freezing.
We reeled off shot after shot while Brandon and Kyle dropped perfect 3’s time and time again, golden light filled the sky and everything went mad as Dyl and Cal were bolting from shot to shot, Brandon and Kyle were running laps of the drop and Teky was running around getting every shot dialed. After those few frantic moments, the sun was gone, the shots captured and smiles had all around. Stay tuned to bike magazines near you for more of Teky's shots from this shoot.
We have a series of webisodes we would like to release over time and if you are a company interested in being the presenting sponsor in one, please contact us at dylandunkerton at hotmail.com
We are a group of mountain bikers living on the coast of BC. We strive to create lush captivating media. The crew consists of Dylan Dunkerton and Curtis Robinson
What We Are About
We want to bring you inside the life style that we live and show the passion we put into everything we produce. We want to portray how we feel when we are riding our bikes and share the life style we live. This is what people should see, it is what real Mountain Biking is about. We bring that to you in juicy nutrient filled filmic packages.
