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These are the best videos to get you ready for the UCI MTB World Cup season
Experience the Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup racing and the athletes who compete from a different angle with these shows, films, and videos.
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The 2024 Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup season is fast approaching, with the opening round happening in Mairiporã, Brazil, in April. To get you in the mood for the racing to come, we've brought together some of the best UCI-related shows, film and video content that we have on Red Bull TV and RedBull.com with some of the best athletes in both downhill and cross-country featured in the line-up below.
There's plenty to binge watch, so make sure you bookmark this page and return to watch as much as you want, whenever you want.
01
Race Tapes
28 min
Apex predators
In the downhill, Finn Iles struggles to beat his biggest competitor, team-mate Loïc Bruni.
The Race Tapes series is back for a second season of compelling storylines from some of the strongest personalities on the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup series circuit. Each of the six episodes highlights differing storylines that the World Cup circuit brings up and the athletes' journeys within them. The second series sees the return of some familiar names from the first series in Evie Richards, Nino Schurter, Jackson Goldstone, Jolanda Neff and Valentina Höll, while Finn Iles, Loïc Bruni, Puck Pieterse, Mathias Flückiger and Rachel Atherton make their first appearances in the series.
Check out the episode above, titled Apex predators, which looks at the shifting dynamics of downhill and cross-country World Cup racing as new challengers disrupt the status quo. This episode particularly charts how Iles has matured, the legacy of Bruni and Pieterse's rise on the World Cup circuit.
02
Fast Life
13 min
Underdogs and overdogs
MTB riders Kate Courtney and Loïc Bruni recall the highs and lows of their mountain biking careers.
The world of Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup racing was chronicled expertly in Fast Life, a Red Bull TV series that ran from five seasons from 2017 to 2021. It's followed Loïc Bruni since 2017, with Finn Iles and Kate Courtney joining as featured riders in 2018. The focus of Fast Life was primarily on these three athletes and how their UCI World Cup seasons unfold, but there were also plenty of other stories to be told about what goes on in and around the World Cup circuit.
There are plenty of episodes of must-see footage and entertainment to enjoy over the five seasons.
03
Rob Meets
21 min
Rob Meets Pauline Ferrand-Prévot
Rob Warner travels to the French Riviera to meet with cross-discipline champ Pauline Ferrand-Prévot.
Rob Warner, the host and lead commentator of Red Bull TV's Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup coverage, takes centre stage in Rob Meets. The series see Warner travel to the homes of elite mountain bikers involved in cross-country and downhill World Cup racing and interview them where they feel most relaxed for insights into their professional lives, daily activities and what it's like to race on the World Cup circuit. As well as talking to the athletes, Warner talks to their families and friends, who share the personal stories that shaped the lives of the athletes.
13 min
Rob Meets Kate Courtney
Rob Warner catches up with US cross-country phenom Kate Courtney to find out what makes her tick.
Athletes featured in the latest series include Pauline Ferrand-Prévot, Loïc Bruni and Tahnée Seagrave but previous seasons include Warner meeting Jolanda Neff, Brook Macdonald, Bernard Kerr, Finn Iles, Aaron Gwin, Greg Minnaar, Julien Absalon and Rachel Atherton. Rob Meets has also extended beyond bike racing, with episodes on athletes in motorsport, motorbiking and climbing.
04
Avancini Effect
16 min
Back home
After a complicated season, Henrique Avancini realises a dream: to compete in a World Cup stage in Brazil.
Henrique Avancini is the man who put Brazil on the mountain biking map, and in the Avancini Effect we see just how a big a personality the cross-country athlete is back in Brazil. Over five episodes, the series charts Avancini's return home to Brazil, prior to, during and after the first World Cup stop of the 2022 season in Petrópolis, his home circuit.
05
Way to the Top
Highs and lows are a normal part of bike racing. In Way to the Top this is seen on display, as Lars Forster's 2019 Mercedes-Benz UCI Cross-country Mountain Bike World Cup season is charted in a revealing documentary. Forster entered the 2019 World Cup season in the form of his life, with some impressive victories on the international circuit and a win at South Africa's Cape Epic alongside Nino Schurter, but a leg injury sustained at the first World Cup in Albstadt nearly derails his season. The documentary shows how Forster regroups from the physical and mental challenges of that injury to get back to the top of his sport.
06
Sound of Speed/MTB Raw
15 min
Laurie Greenland – Wales
Downhill rider Laurie Greenland designs, oversees the build, and rides his dream line at BikePark Wales.
The ground-breaking Sound of Speed series and its sister series MTB Raw are all about marrying incredible fast and furious riding with innovative filmmaking to give mountain bike fans the ultimate two-wheeled rush. A whole host of World Cup riders have been featured in the series, some twice! It's not only downhillers either, with cross-country rider Kate Courtney given the treatment. Look out for episodes from Kade Edwards, Eliot Jackson, Vali Höll, Remi Thirion, Aaron Gwin, Mark Wallace, Finn Iles, Luca Shaw and Laurie Greenland.
07
The Road Back: Brook Macdonald
23 min
The Road Back: Brook Macdonald
How mountain bike racer Brook Macdonald makes a miraculous recovery from a crash that almost left him paralysed.
Downhill racer Brook Macdonald has been competing on the Mercedes-Benz Mountain Bike World Cup for well over 10 years. Well-liked by his team-mates and competitors, there's little that wipes the smile off the New Zealander's face. In 2019, he suffered what could have been a career-ending crash at the Mountain Bike World Championships in Mont-Sainte-Anne, Canada .
Macdonald sustained serious fractures to his T12 and L1 vertebrae in his back. Coming back from such an injury to even walk again, never mind ride at the top level, would be a major challenge. The documentary The Road Back: Brook Macdonald charts the recovery from that accident to riding his bike again in an elite race at Crankworx Innsbruck in late 2020.
08
Gamble
46 min
Gamble
Raw speed, a heavy-hitting soundtrack and virgin locations – mountain bike riders show off their skills.
Some of the top dogs of Mercedes-Benz UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup racing take centre stage in the movie Gamble. This film sees the likes of Greg Minnaar, Loïc Bruni, Brook Macdonald, Mark Wallace, Sam Blenkinsop, Connor Fearon and Finn Iles let loose from the confines of the race tape to shred locations around the world, including Argentina, New Zealand, Canada and South Africa.
09
Born to Mountain Bike
12 min
Born to mountain bike – Tom Pidcock
Tom Pidcock has his sights on the UCI MTB Cross-Country World Cup. Join him on his journey in Albstadt.
Tom Pidcock delivered some amazing performances in his first season racing with the elite of cross-country mountain bike in 2021. The stand out was, of course, his win in Tokyo. The base and confidence for that win came from his participation in three Mercedes-Benz Mountain Bike World Cup races in Albstadt, Nové Město and Les Gets earlier in his 2021 season.
That race in Albstadt saw him start right at the back of the pack, but by the time he crossed the finishing line at the end of the race he had finished fifth. A week later in Nové Město, Pidcock would win. The background to those debut races and Pidcock's thoughts on them is retold in Born to Mountain Bike.
10
Going In
1 h 26 min
Going In
This is the story of what it takes to compete at the highest level of professional mountain bike racing.
Going In is a documentary by Trek Bikes that peeks into the lives of its Trek Factory Racing talent across their downhill and cross-country roster. Reece Wilson, Kade Edwards, Emily Batty, Jolanda Neff, Evie Richards and Pedro Burns are just some of the athletes featured. Experience the highs and lows of training and racing as these mountain bike athletes go through a season of competition.
11
A Mountain Biker's Hunt for Glory
26 min
Nino: the movie
Follow Nino Schurter's story from his childhood in a remote Swiss mountain village to Olympic victory.
There's one man who's dominated the world of cross-country mountain biking and cross-country World Cup racing over the past decade. That man is Nino Schurter. This film follows Schurter as the 2016 Summer Games approach and he focuses on attempting to win a gold medal. The film also portrays Schurter's life at home with his family, showing that despite being ambitious and driven, the thing that truly inspires him are those who he holds dearest.
12
Rob's Gondala Talk
8 min
Rob's gondola talk with Loïc Bruni
UCI commentator and mountain bike expert Rob Warner meets with Loïc Bruni on a gondola ride up the hill in the Pyrenean highlands.
Rob Warner never stops talking about mountain biking. We know that much from his World Cup hosting duties and from the Rob Meets series (see entry number 2 above). Warner even finds time in a busy World Cup racing weekend to sit down with some of the top downhill pros to chew the fat about what's going on in the World Cup and anything else that's a hot topic in Rob's Gondala Talk. Conversations go back from the 2017 World Cup season to 2019, and feature chats with Tracey Hannah, Greg Minnaar, Loïc Bruni, Rachel Atherton, Amaury Pierron, Tahnée Seagrave and Vali Höll among many others.
Related
13
Past–Present–Future
35 min
Past, Present, Future
Vali Höll steps up to elite level, after a dominant junior career. How will she fare against the world’s best?
Vali Höll was earmarked as a mountain biking downhill prodigy since she was in her early teens by those in the know. After absolutely dominating the junior Mercedes-Benz Mountain Bike World Cup category, Höll stepped up to racing elite in 2020, but sustained an injury at the World Championships in Austria, that meant she didn't race the World Cup that season.
In 2021, the Austrian would make that long awaited senior World Cup debut at Leogang. Past–Present–Future documents the career of this downhill riding phenom right up to that 2021 race in her native Austria.
14
Downtime
7 min
Tahnée Seagrave – Downtime
What do the world’s fastest downhill riders do in the off-season? How do they recover and how do they prepare mentally and physically for the season ahead? Join Tahnée Seagrave in the latest Downtime.
What happens during a pro mountain biker's off-season? The Downtime series sets out to discover how downhill racers from the Mercedes-Benz UCI Mountain Bike World Cup train, relax and spend time off the bike when not travelling around the world. The behind-the-scenes look is a snapshot of the earlier parts of the careers of riders such as Aaron Gwin, Brook Macdonald, Tahnée Seagrave and Loïc Bruni. Also featured are now-retired riders like Josh Bryceland, Cam Cole and Manon Carpenter.
15
Gwin Off-Season
6 min
Aaron Gwin: Off-season, Episode One
Aaron Gwin shows us around the trails and places that he calls home in episode one.
Back in 2017, Aaron Gwin began the World Cup season as the reigning UCI World Cup overall title winner. In a revealing look at Gwin's life on and off the bike, Off-Season followed Gwin over three episodes as he hangs in his native US state of California. We get to see what makes the big man tick.
16
The Atherton Project
12 min
Backyard build-up
Dan develops new tracks at his home in Wales. The trio end the season at the Red Bull Weekend Warriors event.
Another series worth watching for its historical value is The Atherton Project. Filmed around the time of their stay with Commencal Bikes to the end of 2011, follow Gee, Rachel and Dan Atherton at work as well as play as they compete around the globe on the World Cup circuit. If you want to see what's driven the three siblings to succeed in their careers to date look no further than this revealing insight into the first family of downhill.
17
Rider Projects
2 min
Finn Iles - Purest Line
Feel the focus of Finn Iles as he rides the streets of Quebec City in Purest Line.
Over the years we've been lucky to get some of the World Cup riders involved in a riding project independent of the Red Bull TV series we've featured above. So enjoy watching these riders shred – Loïc Bruni in Night Chase, Finn Iles in the Purest Line and Brook Macdonald in the Search for Scree.
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