Enming Liu, VOA reporter, attacks
Slickrock with an anvil
(well, a bunch of camera gear) on his back. That's Derek in
the background. |
Bruce and Derek become...
Famous in China
Shooting for Voice of America's "Cultural Odyssey"
Program
by Bruce Argyle
I was contacted by Voice of America about being on-camera for a
Chinese-language report on mountain biking. It would be broadcast in northern
China and Taiwan. So I thought, Hey, that could be an interesting excuse to go
to Moab.
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Why me? Well, they selected me because I'm photogenic, an
awesome rider, fearless, and was willing
to spend three days biking in Moab at my own expense. And I have that
awesome-looking UMB race team jersey. |
Day 1: Monday October 6, 2008. Filming some stuff nobody cares about.
Enming Liu, a VOA reporter based in Washington DC, flew out to do the
filming. On Monday morning he took footage in Alta View Hospital's ER: Here's Dr A walking down the hall of the ER. Here's Dr A scowling at a
chart. Now he's scowling at some x-rays. Then we went to my house, where Jackie
demanded to have her 15 seconds of cute little hyperactive doggie fame. More
footage in my basement office showing how I put together trail maps,
photos and ride descriptions. And trail videos. |
| Monday evening I hooked up with fellow UMB racer Derek
Ransom and we drove to Moab -- two sleek Cannondale carbon Rush bikes on the hitch rack.
Team jerseys and shorts packed. Ready to look awesome; hoping I could ride
awesome. I had no doubts about Derek. But I worried he'd make ME look pathetic by
comparison.
Key to photos:
Blue helmet, slim and strong = Derek
Black helmet, haggard and slow = Bruce |
Enming sets the camera on the tripod to
catch Derek grunting
up "Cogs to Spare." We both made it, of course.
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| We hit the Greenwell, which it turns out is newly remodeled and
newly more expensive. No, VOA wasn't paying our bills. Well, except for the Burger
King sandwich Enming treated us to. We were starving and our wallets were in my car high
above Porcupine Rim. |
| A postcard version of the VOA story... |
Day 2: Tuesday October 7. The Slickrock Trail!
Tuesday morning at 9 am, we hit the Slickrock Trail. As he geared up, Derek
got a bit of camera face time telling what he liked about the Slickrock Trail.
Enming stuffed his big high-res camera, plus tripod, plus handlebar mount and a
smaller camera into a huge backpack. He turned out to be a pretty decent rider,
but he'd never done anything like Utah's slickrock playground before. And that pack
was a killer.
We filmed a few climbs and found a ledge to jump off. We got some cruising
footage and some views. We stopped so he could do an interview with me sitting
on the Navajo sandstone with the La Sals in the background. I said some very
impressive things, but you'll have to take my word on that unless you can
understand Mandarin Chinese. |
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And now we're
at the world
famous Slickrock Trail! |
Taking a look
around, we
find Bruce looking cool. |
Derek tells
why Slickrock
is world famous. |
We watch Bruce
and Derek
ride over the sandstone... |
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and they hit
the slope and
begin climbing... |
while the
camera zooms in to
find Derek outracing Bruce. |
Bruce blathers
on about the
Navajo sandstone. |
Who cares?
Back to riding
as Bruce takes the lead. |
| Enming interviewed several other riders on the trail. Not one person was from
Utah. Germany, yes. Wyoming, yes. Texas, yes. Cool stuff. Our reporter was
suffering serious leg-death by the time we got to the top of Cogs to Spare, so
he headed back while Derek and I completed the loop. We caught him about 1/2
mile from the divide and rode back together.
The filming took most of the day, since we were stopping to film every
quarter mile and doing many of the stunts and climbs three times so Enming
could get different angles. And sometimes we were just riding around in
circles, playing on the rock, waiting for our reporter to catch up. I had
16 miles on the odometer.
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Bruce gets
down the ledges
without broken bones. |
And Derek gets
some airtime
off a ledge. Awesome! |
We interview a
rider from
Germany... |
and his riding
partner. The
writing
says "Hot biker." |
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And it's back
to tackling the
mighty slopes of Slickrock. |
But let's talk
some more
about mountain biking... |
and grunt up some hills,
more
hills, and even more hills... |
then
look at the views only
Utah can offer. End part 1. |
Our reporter gets rid of the big backpack
and does the Rim
with a mini-cam. Pretty good riding for his first Utah trip! |
Day 3: Wednesday October 8, 2008. Porcupine!
On our second day of riding, we hit the Porcupine Singletrack and Porcupine Rim. We drove past
the LPS trailhead, going a bit further up Sand Flats Road so we could catch some
nice technical stuff. Wisely, this time Enming left the big gear behind and packed only
the mini-cam.
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| Derek and I both did a few ledge drops. The biggest looks to be 4 vertical
feet to where the front wheel touched down. The run-in was actually a little
uphill, so I didn't have much speed to clear the lip safely. But I nailed that
sucker by leading off with my ample nose then throwing the bike forward. I got in a nice wheelie drop,
too. Not big vertical, but it felt good. It goes by way too fast on the video.
Especially the YouTube version. That's why the Krank videos use slow-mo. |
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Our host says
Bruce and
Derek
are cute. Or something. |
The second
segment starts
with a close-up of Derek's leg. |
Bruce is
boring even in
Chinese. Get to the riding! |
And we're off!
Love that
Porcupine Singletrack! |
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Bruce finds a
drop that looks
a lot bigger from the top. |
We look at the
vistas of
Castle Valley... |
and flirt with
the cliff edges
as we enjoy the October air. |
Derek does the
drop and
makes
it look slick. |
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We ran into a group from Calgary Canada just before the big plunge on LPS. They
had the body armor and crash helmets and the big-hit DH bikes. But they weren't
ready to drop that one. Too bad. It would have been some fun video. Of course, there was no way an old brittle
untalented wannabe like me was going to try it, camera or no camera. So, there's
some nice footage of us slinking down the cliff with our bikes on our shoulders.
Better a live chicken than a dead duck.
Derek broke his eggbeater pedal early in the ride, so he was basically
balancing his shoe on a slippery bolt. But he still hit the rocks like a madman.
I was impressed. He took a little skin off his leg, just to get more camera time I
suspect.
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Bruce launches
a little ledge
and 30 feet later... |
makes this
cute little uphill
drop off a sandstone lip. |
Meanwhile,
Derek has busted
his eggbeater. No clicking in! |
Ledges ledges
ledges.
This trail is awesome! |
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We show what
we're made of
(brains) by not riding this. |
Finally on the
official Rim.
More air opportunities! |
Flying rock =
bent
derailleur,
bent spokes. Ride on. |
Cactus below
the kneecap.
Each
spot has 10 needles. |
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On one of those long straight stretches of Porcupine, a four-inch rock
bounced up from the front tire, hit my foot and bounced inward landing on the
chain. Then it caught between the blade spokes of my pricey Mavic SLR, made 1/2
rotation and slammed into the derailleur (carbon SRAM X-0, in case you're adding
pennies here). Bent derailleur, bent hanger, bent spokes. Spent a few minutes
manhandling pieces until the bike worked again. Not great shifting, but we're
going downhill, aren't we?
Now I noticed my knee was full of cactus needles. You know, those itty bitty
ones that come in a cluster and look like a shaving brush? No idea how they got
there. Just adds to the adventure.
On the way down, we met a guy who was hiking his bike out after breaking his
collarbone. He'd stuffed his arm into the straps of his Camelbak to make a
sling. He gave a great, pale-lipped interview for the camera. Mountain bikers
are tough.
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Bruce hikes
the wheel up
onto a ledge. |
We meet a guy
with a broken
collarbone. Long walk. |
Derek rears up
like a stallion
as he comes over the lip... |
while Bruce
just throws the
bike down the mountain. |
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Cheesy Music.
Chinese Writing.
Fade out... |
And our video
warriors head
down to the Colorado. |
Bruce talks
about how
very awesome we both are. |
And Derek
agrees.
We rock. |
The end. |
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Our reporter had lots of good footage, so he changed his plan. Instead of
just one segment, he'd split the story in two.
Part one aired December 5, two months after our Moab adventure, featuring the
introduction stuff and Slickrock Trail footage. Part two was broadcast on December 12. It used the footage
of Porcupine to show another side of mountain biking. While I don't understand
Chinese, there's definitely a sense that the second episode is more about the
danger and difficulty.
The second show wraps up with me and Derek talking about what a great time we had:
busted up our expensive bikes, drew a bit of blood and embedded some cactus,
wore out our muscles, but we came off the mountain with pedals turning. And
that's a great trip.
Some day Lance
Armstrong will go to China. And they'll gather around and say, "You're from
America? Oh, do you know Bruce and Derek?"
Watch the show?
YouTube:
Episode
One (skip over the first minute...) story = 8 minutes
YouTube:
Episode
Two (skip forward two minutes...) story = 6 minutes
YouTube:
Short
English-language story (3 minutes)
based on episode one
Downloads of the pre-broadcast stories:
Part
1 - Intro plus Slickrock 160x120 (31 MB) - Pt
1 in 320x240 (88 MB)
Part 2 -
Porcupine Rim 160x120 (26 MB) - Pt
2 in 320x240 (80 MB)
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