A Norco contest ... in Russia?

First ever North Shore-style freeriding contest in Russia

Words and Photos by Nata Romanova

We've definitely caught the "Shore virus" - North Shore-style freeriding now is one of the hottest topics in my home city of Moscow. We got the idea for this crazy and fun riding when the first videos from the Kranked series appeared in our popular bike shops several years ago. Soon after that, some North Shore stunts appeared in Moscow parks, and in other popular riding places like Bitza forest park located in the south of the city and Izmailovsky park in the east.

Building the first North Shore trail in Moscow - how it happened

The first-ever specially designed North Shore trail in Russia was built in Phily in the Biker Land MTB park. Located in the west of Moscow on the bank of the Moscow River, the area surrounding this park is definitely the place to live. It's a beautiful park with lots of green trees and huge volume of fresh air - things I extremely miss living in the centre of town.

The trail was built by Biker Land employees. The idea was to create the Shore style trail for advanced riders, which could accommodate local freeriding contests as well. For these purpose the trail builders got some Canadian 'guide rules' with general description of Shore stunts and then allowed their biker's fantasy to fly free. They aimed to build the trail perfectly adapted to natural relief of the terrain as well.

Following the best Shore trail building traditions, no living tree was sawed down or injured by nails. All the logs used for the trail


Dark and green and steep, just like the Shore
were found on the ground. [Unfortunately, that isn't always the case around here any longer. - Ed.]

Like the Shore, the trails in Biker Land are quite flowing and technical. The trail builders' key idea to create a trail with all the sections perfectly linked to each other (i.e. designed to allow continuous forward movement, so the
rider can experience the trail as a whole rather than as a set of individual stunts) seemed to be a success.


Off-camber ramps keep things interesting in Biker Land

The trail includes different stuff - ladder bridges from six to 10 feet high, ramps, teeter totter, skinnies, dirt jumps, drops, steeps, etc. From the entrance of it there's a ramp led to the bridge (six to seven feet high) ending with a six-and-a-half foot drop.

The trail was brightly decorated with some funny features (best North Shore traditions ruled again!) like a fire extinguisher over the first drop, the skeleton of an ancient sheep (found in the 15th century stratum during the trail building), and over a section called The Beacon there were WC pan seat [toilet seat - Ed.] and a roll of toilet paper attached (who knows for whom?).

Then after a dirt jump and a short run-down, the trail leads to the drops - there are three drops there (from five to 14 feet high).


After the drops there are some steep sections and then the trail leads to a six-foot-high ladder bridge suspended on steel ropes, then riders go down a ramp and come to the most technical section of the whole trail - an eight-inch-wide skinny going down and ending in the middle of a berm. After one more drop, the trail comes to the end.

Getting to the Norco Ride contest

Biker Land trail was tested for ridability during the Norco Ride contest that took place on May 17. The contest was sponsored by Trial-Sport, which recently started importing Norco bikes to Russia. This popular extreme-sports company provided cool draw prizes for winners - Norco VPS Shore, 4 Hun, Two 50 frames for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place finishers.

That Saturday (May 17) I started to Phily somewhere around 10 a.m. Most of the way we (my lovely Kona Stuff and me) went by trolleybus (lots of excuses, but I have no fun in riding alone busy streets in a exhaust clouds). The closer to Phily park I was, the more changes in weather occurred. By the time we left the trolleybus and started searching for the park and the trail, the shining sun was substituted by heavy rain. Riding my bike towards the park I met two lads on bikes with the same idea in mind - to see Norco Ride. Thanks to a Moscow city map, prior explanations given by my friends and assistance of people passing by, we found the trail successfully.
A really big teeter-totter, Russian style

Upon approaching the trail (it was still raining, but not so hard) I met the guys I usually rode with on weekends in Bitza park. Some of them were on bikes, some not - they came just to watch their friends riding and to take a couple of pictures (funny thing - I could hardly recognize some of them without helmets, pads and bikes). And, for sure, all the people coming were excited for the guys who were really going to ride this technical trail in such slippery conditions. Among these riders there were Denis Levochkin, Serg Mal'tzev and Denis Dronov - folks I was lucky to ride with on weekends - crazy freeriders and very technical ones!

And then the trail fully grabbed my attention. The North Shore scenes from Kranked seemed to come alive and it became totally clear for me that some rippin' thing was going to happen.


Flying the Norco colours - you'd never guess that this wasn't on the Shore. Photo Andrey Khor kov

Standing very close to the teeter-totter, I though my Kona and I were going to be driven away by the judges, so I tried to get some "official" permission from them to take some shots and, surprisingly, we got it! The fight between the rain and the sun continued and the rain seemed to win. At last, the rain became gentler and the organizers said the contest was going to start. It turned out that many riders refused to ride this slippery stuff. They called on the 1st - he refused, the 2nd refused, the 3rd ... What the hell? Are we really going to have freeride competitions today?


Airing it out in Mother Russia - Photo: Dima Mel'nikov

At last, a young lad on a Norco bike (one of the ones I rode to the park with) decided to ride the trail! It was perfectly clear that he was not skilled enough to ride the whole trail but the contest started. And then the guys coming next began rippin'! When the first rider successfully hit the first drop, rode down the teeter-totter and raced further down the trail I felt that the contest really began!

After taking some shots at the beginning of the trail I went down near the trail course and was deeply impressed with the Beacon stunt - very technical creature! Down, down and I reached the droppin' section. Most of people watching the competition were out there. I heard hot discussions concerning drops just made, techniques, bikes, suspensions and stayed there for some time watching the riders droppin'.

Unfortunately I did not go further down the trail that day and so did not see guys riding a skinny. I saw this stuff later on and the guys told me that this section was one of the most difficult and technical.

And while the second (and the last) run was over we all were awaiting for the results. The Biker Landers arranged some barbeque and other things of that kind, so we all could relax and eat and drink.

Finally we got results. The winners were:

1st - SergMal'tzev - from Moscow, Stark team rider, on a Stark full suspension bike. His favourite type of riding is freeride and he prefers it to any official competition.

2nd - Dima Gaidoukov - from Moscow, GT/Trial-Sport team rider, on a GT Ruckus hardtail. Dima is a trials rider of "Trial-Sport Show" trials crew, and he was one of the Biker Landers who constructed the trail.

3rd - Denis Levochkin - from Moscow, Norco/Trial-Sport team rider, on a Norco Team North Shore bike. Den is really out of boundaries freerider, crazy about North Shore riding, drops and big airs.

So the competition was over and soon after that the sun peeped out from behind the clouds and there was no more rain that day.

Many thanks to the guys from Biker Land bike park - Igor Gousikhin, Dima Gaidoukov, Dima Beliaev and Dima Mel'nikov for detailed information about the trail and the photos!

For more photos from the event, be sure to check out the Norco Russia site.

(:Nata:)