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Watch Brook Macdonald's Dream Track take downhill riding to the next level
When the mountain bike downhill athlete affectionately known as 'the Bulldog' closes his eyes, visions of fast and flowy downhill tracks fill his dreams.
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High on a mountain ridge in New Zealand, near the South Island city of Nelson, is downhill mountain biking legend Brook Macdonald's Dream Track – a course that's been on his mind for the past five years. The 30-year-old has wanted to ride something with high-speed technical features that not only showcased his fast and aggressive riding style, but also pushed his and downhill's boundaries.
Over the recent New Zealand summer, Macdonald saw his idea go from fantasy to rideable reality on a hill above a farm in Motueka. Renowned shredder and trail builder Remy Morton was the man Macdonald trusted to build him his dream track. Together they wanted to create a track unlike anything seen before in a downhill context.
Watch Macdonald ride his incredible Dream Track in the video above and find out more from Macdonald and Morton about the construction of this amazing trail below.
Macdonald and his Dream Track in the background
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
"My dream with this track was to showcase how gnarly this sport is, as well as the potential of downhill and what we can actually do on these bikes," explains Macdonald.
A massive crash at the UCI Downhill World Championships in 2019 saw Macdonald off his bike for nearly a year with a serious spinal injury. He had to learn to walk again first, never mind get back and ride his bike. His recovery and comeback has been remarkable, but there were still reservations in his mind about how he could cope with downhill racing and so he was determined to get rid of those thoughts with this Dream Track build.
"When I had my accident, I struggled to come to terms with knowing I might not actually be able to do this stuff again. I never doubted that I couldn't, but some confidence was lost," he said.
Macdonald got the green light to go ahead with the Dream Track build at the end of last year and scoped locations in New Zealand with Morton. The Australian started his company Flux Trail a year ago with the aim of raising the standards of mountain bike tracks.
With pencil drawings in hand and satellite images in mind, Macdonald and Morton recced a high ridgeline above a farm called Woodstock Farm in Motueka. The route and ideas for Dream Track were worked out in just a couple of hours while they were there.
"Remy was the first person that came to mind to build my dream track, being an athlete himself. He knows me, knows my style and his outlook on track building is pretty amazing," Macdonald said.
Course builder Remy Morton is partial to a bit of downhill racing himself
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
The raw canvas of the landscape had Morton's imagination reaching new levels and he assembled a crew of established Aussie and Kiwi mountain bikers – Jacob O’Donoghue-Price, David McMillan, Aston Oliver and Ben Oakeley – to help with the build and make the impossible a reality.
"The whole crew are super-talented riders who rode everything we built. That was key for this project, because when you’re building something at that scale, there's few people that know how to build it, let alone ride it," Morton said. "After visiting the top ridge, I just couldn't get this pile of rocks out of my head. I explained to Brook how we could do a start ramp off of it. Once we got the woodwork installed, I think it came to be one of the more iconic starts to a downhill track in the world."
Morton had a blank canvas of rolling green hills to design this course from
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
Macdonald agreed, saying the start ramp and the hailed 'Illuminati rock' were the two most impressive features on the track.
"There was a perfect rock that they turned into a Wild West looking start. And the 'illuminati rock' - they took a boulder field and made it into a masterpiece," Macdonald said.
Macdonald wasn't sure whether he would be able to do riding like this again
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
My dream with this track was to showcase how gnarly this sport is, as well as the potential of downhill and what we can actually do on these bikes
The 'illuminati rock' was by far the most challenging feature of the track to build - left until the final three days, where the full crew of builders poured every ounce of energy they had left into it.
"When I first spotted the weird triangle rock on our track walk, I said to Brook, 'I reckon we could jump and land on it'. I instantly regretted saying it, because I realised how big of a job it was going to be," said Morton. "There was so much rock to move that it had to be done right - first time. Once we finished, it looked like a piece of art. I think it'll be there forever. It was the most satisfied I've ever felt with something that I've built."
Morton gets to work in smoothing out a rock face
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
Construction progressing, but much work still to be done
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
After 25 days of building in the dry heat of a New Zealand summer, tools were thrown down and diggers switched off as Macdonald stood at the top of the ramp, ready to roll into his dream run. The question on Morton's lips: will the track make the Bulldog bark?
The answer? Heck yeah.
The iconic start ramp at the top of the track
© Graeme Murray
At 1.8km and with 440m of descending, Macdonald's Dream Track is one thrilling ride – a hardcore combination of high-speed, big jumps and technical sections that Macdonald ripped to pieces.
"What they did was absolutely mind blowing. The effort and time they put into making my Dream Track perfect is something that's pretty special to me," said Macdonald. "Building this track, for me, is the biggest achievement coming back from my accident. That's what I lacked confidence in - doing scary, decent-sized jumps."
This Dream Track certainly makes the bike work harder
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
Macdonald showing off his tech skills through these boulders
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
Making massive jumps has given Macdonald so much confidence
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
His dream to showcase what's possible on a downhill bike could only be achieved by pushing the limits of track building. It was built in a way that hasn't been showcased in downhill racing before, which Morton says is a huge step forward for the sport.
"A lot of people in downhill say the old-school tracks are best - when it's left raw and untouched. But sometimes the more you work the land, the cooler it gets. Having a digger go down the whole track in such a new-school fashion creates a whole new style of riding," he said. "Everyone is trying to make the bike faster on the track that already exists, instead of making the track harder for the bike. We're all riding these highly engineered, futuristic bikes on the same tracks we were in the early 2000s. That's what we tried to change here with Brook's dream track."
The Bulldog definitely made this Dream Track bark
© Graeme Murray/Red Bull Content Pool
Together they've created a masterpiece – at a standard unlike anything else seen in the southern hemisphere at least. Macdonald has big hopes for the track's future, too, with ideas of an invitation race in the pipeline.
"This track has definitely pushed my boundaries and I hope in the future we can push other people's boundaries on it, too," he said.
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