I had an unusual phone call on Thursday asking if I’d help film a crazy young man who wanted to cycle off the end of Bangor Pier!

I decided that anyone who would consider doing that in February in Wales, with snow on the mountains behind him should be supported!

Plus it gave me the chance to work with local climbing film makers, Bamboo Chicken. Dave & Lynwen Brown recently made a DVD called ‘Welsh Connections’ and Dave formerly made films for ‘Hot Aches’. Matt Barlow is a professional mountainbike trials stunt and display rider, coach and guide. All of us live within about 10 miles of each other in the Welsh hills, although I’d never met Matt before, or worked with Lynwen and Dave.

So on Friday morning, we met for breakfast and headed to the pier. I was in my kayak on the sea to film ‘the money shot’ of Matt plumetting about 10 metres into the void on his bike! While I sat in my Kokatat drysuit and 2 layers of thermals, rubbing my hands in the chilly February air, Matt was performing stunts on his bike sporting jeans and  a green t-shirt advertising one of his sponsors, Tarty Bikes. I hope they gave him lots of t-shirts for this! I’ll even give them a link in the hope that they can stretch to a fleece next time!

It was fun to help out. Even though I only had to get one shot, it was a bit of a struggle to be in the right position at the right time as the tide and wind were pushing me away from the pier at about 2 knots and there were just enough salty corrosive waves to splash an expensive camera if I paddled back into position a bit too eagerly. Once Matt was in the water, I helped get him back to the steps at the end of the pier so he could get out and get that green t-shirt and jeans off.

The film will be shown at Llanff – my local film festival – in March. I hope some of my films will also be showing but I haven’t heard yet.

Thanks to Matt for the photos.

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