SANTA CRUZ NOMAD 2020
A new mountain bike film I created for Jason Dalling at Puddletown forest pre lockdown 3.
A few words from the rider Jason Dalling about why he wanted to create this film:
"It was a 35ft gap that I thought I could send in my first attempt. No speed testing in the run up. Just hitting it blind. I had had an amazing summer riding in Morzine the previous year and my confidence was at an all time high. There was a drop before the gap that I cased, as it turned out, I wasn't in the right gear at all. But I was on my way, almost too close to stop or do anything about it already. I thought, "Screw it! I'll just go for it" and as soon as I took off, I knew that it wasn't going to end all that well. My front wheel cased the landing, the suspension bottomed out and over the bars I went, whilst still clipped in. Amidst all that, the saddle came off and the exposed metal rails of the saddle caused some serious damage to my genitals and groin.
On arriving at A&E, I was sent inside to get it checked without any wait, obviously! What followed was an evening full of doctors and nurses checking out my injury, and then an operation. Everything happened so fast that evening, that I never really understood the enormity of what had gone wrong. The next morning, I found out that I had severed an artery down there (which explained all the blood) and that apparently, the operation lasted 3 hours! I had thought they were just knocking me out for 45 minutes to stitch everything back up and that would be it, so this was quite a surprise for me! Let's just say that when the doctor said there would be "some" swelling, he lied. It was like having a golf ball and an apple in between my legs. An experience that I wouldn't wish upon an enemy!
For the first couple of weeks after surgery, I could barely stand up without support. It was a rather painful experience. Eventually, I could hobble from one place to another with the stitches annoyingly pulling at the skin. 5 weeks later, I ran (what was probably the last big event with thousands of participants pre- pandemic) The London Half Marathon. My time was well off my personal best but it felt like I had pushed my body and mind harder this time, given that just a few weeks ago, I needed help with just about everything. A week or two after this, lockdown happened.
The first time I was able to ride properly, with no major physical discomfort from the injury, was in the last week of May. I was meant to be in North Devon for some work and I had taken my bike with me to ride my old local trails. I know Knowle Woods like the back of my hand, so I thought that'd be a good place to get back into it. One of the first trails that I came down was the one where I had hit my first ever road gap back in 2010 and deep inside me, I knew that my riding confidence might just come back if I hit it right which, thankfully, I did!
Over the summer, I was fortunate to be able to ride at several bike parks around the UK and towards the end of summer, I felt pretty much as confident with riding as I had been before the injury. However, I have learnt a lot from this experience, about myself and about my love for this sport. When the lockdown eased once again, in December, I contacted a friend that I grew up with, Will Evans, who runs a media company called White Edge Media to make an edit. Of course, there was no better location than Puddletown to film this! A year later from the accident, here's a video that sums up what mountain biking means to me."
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Jason's Instagram - / jasondalling
Jason's YouTube channel - / jasonjohn1994
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