One last look! I'm standing on the Drop and look down. The landing is tiny, but it's huge. Four metres wide and 30 metres long, to be precise. If something goes wrong right now, I'll wake up in hospital. If I'm lucky. But nothing will go wrong! The facts: 12 metres down, 20 metres out. When? Now!
"I had no doubts!" - Dylan Sheffer
I'm not the kamikaze type. Do first, think later? Not for me! Such 'just do it' actions are extremely unhealthy and don't suit me. Now, in this moment, up here on the drop, I know that I've thought everything through. That's why I'm hardly excited. Nervous yes, but I have no doubts. That's the advantage of building your own drops like I do. I take my time and think everything through. Take the landing, for example. I put a lot of time into it. It's steep and 30 metres long. No obstacles. No tree trunk to skid against, no rock to crash into. I've done my homework!
I jumped drops of around six metres for quite a while until I was quite sure. It's not easy to find something bigger, so I built a higher one myself with my friends. It ended up being ten metres high. It's not far from here, a few minutes down the forest track. The ratio between height and width was crucial. It was: 15 out, 10 down, and it worked really well.
Biking is my hobby. A few years ago, I flirted with the idea of becoming a professional biker. But that never materialised. Now it's just a leisure activity, just fun; maybe that's a good thing. Nevertheless, I'm getting better and better.
I grew up with the New World Disorder films. I liked the freeride spirit from back then, but now it seems to be disappearing, if you ignore the Red Bull Rampage. And the crazy Norwegian: Brage Vestavik. The guy is impressive. I celebrated his drop at the last Rampage. I think he showed the other riders, because his drop was so much higher than everything else there, even if he fell on the landing.
Drops have always fascinated me. I like the whole process: you're out in the forest in the wind and rain. You look for the right place, dig, build and carpentry, and at some point the drop is in front of you. And finally you jump it. The satisfaction is fulfilling and addictive. It's the best feeling!
Now the moment of truth has arrived. I roll down the approach. It's steep. Test runs don't work here: too steep.
No room to brake. I roll and fly. I thought I knew what to expect and had imagined the feeling of a 10-metre drop, but it's different. Much faster. The extra metres speed everything up. Especially the landing. I fly a long way down, because speed is safety. You can't jump too short on this drop. I don't even want to imagine what would happen if a rear wheel touched the road, like Tom van Steenbergen did with his gap.
happened with his gap. In the end, he only broke his leg, but the way he catapulted over the handlebars gave me goose bumps.
Speed means safety. It's better to jump a little too far, but anything but too short!
Have you seen the clip? Go for it, I give a creepy guarantee! No, jumping too short is not an option here. I jump too far and barely manage to stop, I'm going so fast. Landed, done, drop mastered - my friends are cheering.
I started working on the 12-metre drop on my own, but it was so tedious that my friends helped out. Eight days of hard labour and then the drop was finished. Originally, my friends wanted to try it too, but after seeing my jump, they hesitated. I think it's the acceleration that's intimidating. I did it. A permanent grin for the rest of the day. But a question also popped into my head:
Do I dare to go any higher? Yes! Do I want to go higher? Not sure.
