Fest Series - ROYAL HILLS Highlights 2021 3

We organized a session in November 2020 on the Royalhills jumps. Sadly the line was too wet and we could only ride the line until the 3rd to last jump. Conditions were soft, we still had a blast riding but due to not being able to ride the full line during the 2020 session we decided to hold back on the footage and we returned to Royalhills this summer.

With the line being freshly rebuilt by Nico, Redbelge, and the help from C dog on the last jump in 2020 there wasn’t too much work to get the line running for the 2021 edition. Nico added a water line so watering the jumps got a lot easier and quicker. hHe also called in the help of Alois Adamo to resurface the line, after 5 days of excavation, some hand shaping by Remy, Red Belge, and Nico the line was ready to ride.

Unfortunately, Europe had a super wet summer and it rained for 4 days straight which resulted in us having to extend the session for a couple of days.

“The rain made me pretty nervous. Watching it rain for 4 days straight and not being able to ride after investing the money to reshape the line and inviting the riders and media crew is a nightmare. It happened two times before in RH and I wasn’t up for a third time. Setting up this session is costing more or less €15000 excluding the travel expenses of the riders.”-Nico Vink

This year we had mostly European riders due to travel restrictions but for example, Remy spent something like €15000 on his travel due to plane tickets and quarantine fees being extremely expensive coming from New Zealand. Not only did he spend tons of money but he also risked not being able to return home until October or December due to having no available quarantine slots in NZ anytime before. Remy is one of the most dedicated trail builders and riders we know and we would be gutted if he wouldn’t get to ride the jumps due to wet conditions.

Luckily the sun was shining on day 5 and the Royalhills dirt dries super quick. That evening we managed to ride in slightly wet conditions, Which had a positive side to it. In the mid woods, there are a couple of options on the line. You can choose from, the rollers or the gnarly On-Off feature. Due to the rain, the only dry feature in that section was the On-Off so all the riders ended up riding the gnarly feature from the first session. All the riders were stoked the line was running and we got a ton of laps in. We ended up extending the session for 3 days and got 5 amazing days of riding.

With the change of schedule, some riders didn’t get to ride all sessions due to other commitments but we made the most of it.

We would like to give a huge shoutout to everyone involved that made this week of riding possible,

Thanks to the riders , Andreu Lacondeguy, Lluis Lacondeguy, Remy Morton, Thomas Genon, Jeroen (Red Belge) Meersman, Marcin Rot, Nico Vink, Kristof Lenssens, Sergio Layos, Vinny T, Szymon Godziek, Adolf Silva and William Robert.

Thanks to Aloise Adamo for shuttling and all the hard work shaping.

Thanks to the media crew for covering all the sessions and being ready to shoot early mornings and late nights. Hector Cash, Raul Martinez Danot, Diego Manero, Hanna Retz and Fernando Marmolejo.

Thanks to Martin Vinje for taking care of the Fest Series Website, uploading the videos, and all other IT-related stuff.

Thanks to Royalhills for offering the property and letting us build the jumps.

Thanks to the brands supporting us and making this session possible. Monster Energy, Reverse Components, Transition bikes.

We hope you’ll enjoy the video.

Cheers

The Fest Series.