VERO SANDLER - A Year at HOME! - LIVE TO RIDE S2E1 1

Live To Ride is back for it’s second season, after an action packed first series this new winter series is set to be a lot damper. Veronique Sandler is well known for getting sideways and throwing down in a lot of recent bike movies and we were stoked to venture across the border to Wales to meet her new riding pup Oski, ride her legendary Vision Line at Revolution Bike Park and see how lockdown gave her chance to re work some of her beloved sportswear garments.

Vero moved to the UK six years ago and turned mountain biking into her profession three years later. In that time she collaborated with Adidas and Revolution Bike park to create the infamous Vision Line. That’s where we started filming.

A lot of this year has been spent riding with her brother Leo Sandler. The pair have ridden together since childhood so it seemed logical that we would shoot with the two of them.

“Me and Leo have ridden together our wholes lives, even before we rode MTB really when we were super young and learning to ride with training wheels. It’s so cool having someone that inspires me so much that’s right there to ride with all the time.” - Veronique Sandler. 

Those eagle eyed among you will have noticed that isn’t just any Marin paint job, for the film Vero had her own custom painted frame.

“Whilst shooting Vision movie Marin surprised me with a custom paint job Mount Vision that was absolutely insane. I’ve never had a custom paint job before. It’s probably done the most laps of Vision Line of any bike out there..” - Veronique Sandler.

It’s clear that Revolution has helped Vero in recent years but her friendship with bike park owner James Foster has been a critical part of her creation of her new dirt jump spot. Renting some land from a local farmer and hiring James to operate a digger she got together with close friends this summer to create her own dirt jump spot. You can see why they call the spot “Lucky Dip”. 

“Because we couldn’t travel I decided to take it into my own hands and find something around my local spot, luckily we have the most amazing local farmers who are super supportive of mountain biking and they were up for renting me a small piece of land..” - Vero Sandler

“Because the bike park was shut James was looking for other work so it was the perfect chance to get him in here with his digger and his amazing skills. I was super lucky everything came together at the right time and now we’ve got an amazing spot to ride.” - Vero Sandler

Oski is a big part of Vero’s life at home, always hanging out and she was really keen to take him for a little session on the local hill. 

“We’ve got a new addition to the family, Oski, he’s a dog I adopted just over a year ago now.. a lot of the time we’re sessioning which is really good for him. We won’t go on massive enduro rides that tire him out, he just does a couple of laps and sessions with us..” - Veronique Sandler 

But this year wasn’t just about riding for Vero, she teamed up with good friend Tahnee Seagrave to open up their own online shop selling re worked sportswear garments. 

“This is like my newest hobby that I picked up during lockdown, I’ve always been massively obsessed with vintage sportswear and recycled clothing. I taught myself how to sew off YouTube and Tahnee did the same thing. Re worked garms is what we call them..” - Veronique Sandler

Thanks for watching our first episode of the winter series, in the coming days we have a video planned where we look over some of our top 10 moments during the filming so far. As always please subscribe for more and we will see you in the next episode!