I went down to Dyfi Bike Park for a day of riding followed by a UK Premiere of ‘Anytime’, the latest film from Anthill and Red Bull, that celebrates freeride. As you’d expect, it’s a feast for the eyes, with stunning scenery and a load of locations you just wish you could get to, one day. Plus plenty of locations where you’d probably rather leave the bike behind and perhaps reach for the safety of a climbing harness. After the screening, I had a chat with one of the riders in the film – Kade Edwards.
We’ve just watched the Anytime premiere, and so could you first of all give us a bit of context, give us the timeline of filming for that, filming for Real MTB, and then also your injury and your surgery?
Oh God, that’s a lot, that’s a lot. Yeah, so we started filming the Anytime stuff, I think the first trip was January and then we went back in February. But I also filmed my X Games Real MTB part. I think I started that, oh… I started digging for that in November. I think I started in November and I didn’t finish until just before I went to Chile. Well, no, in between the two Chile trips.
I was still filming for that in February as well. I basically finished racing World Cups last year, and turned up the gears even more. My life got way busier, and it’s been pretty hectic.
Obviously I picked up this knee injury along the way, I didn’t even do it doing the Anytime film or the X Games, it was just practicing at home – it’s always how it happens. So something small and silly, which is upsetting, but at the same time I’m glad it’s not anything worse. It’s just a nice little reminder that we’re all human, you know. We all can break and we’re not invincible. So it’s a good little setback actually.
How long have you been off the bike for?
It’s about six months now. Well, maybe more actually, I think about six and a half, because I stopped after I got back from Chile. I was like, ‘I’m alive. I’ve survived one of the gnarliest times of my life. So I’m just going to not ride my bike until I have surgery’. So yeah, I just kind of stopped riding as soon as I got back from Chile. I’ve not really ridden since then.
I mean, I’ve ridden on my road bike and gentle trails, but nothing crazy yet. So this knee injury has taken a while, but I want to do it properly. I don’t want to half-arse it. I’m sick of not doing things properly, so you’ve just got to do it properly.
So have you taken up any hobbies to fill the time?
Fishing! Yeah, fishing.
Fly fishing or what?
No, more just bait fishing and spinning. The year before I got concussed and I had to take six months out, and I started fishing then. Basically it’s just what I do when I can’t go and do my hobby, you know. It’s doing something without doing anything.
Yeah, so I totally relate, I like fishing. Does your fishing result in catching?
Yeah, it does sometimes. I went through a dry patch when I first got injured, and then towards the end of my injury I cracked it. It’s a great feeling. It’s a good feeling. You’ve got to go with people who know what they’re doing [if you want to catch fish].
Okay, so back to bikes then. The Real MTB segment and the Anytime segment are very different sorts of riding, so do you just like both or do you have a preference?
No, I definitely don’t have a preference. Biking is biking to me. I don’t class myself as a mountain biker or a racer or whatever, I’m just a bike rider. Every type of bike ride to me is enjoyable and it’s what I live to do. I grew up riding BMX, I now ride mountain bikes for a living. I just try to keep the variety as open as possible, and that’s how you learn so much.
I go into so many different groups of people. I’ll go and hang out with the freeriders, I’ll go hang out with the racers, I’ll go hang out with the BMXers, I’ll go hang out with anyone, and you just learn something from everyone. So I think just being able to keep a wide variety is good.
So is there one style or another between ‘built jumps’ or the totally raw ‘I’m throwing myself down a mountain and nothing’s built in front of me’ that is more challenging for you?
I mean the throwing yourself down a mountain thing is pretty challenging because most of that stuff we were riding we’d not even put our feet on, you know. We’d just look from the helicopter window, we’d think, oh we can ride that, and you just start riding down it until you either make it down or crash. So yeah, it’s definitely a lot more challenging.
The jump stuff’s kind of a lot easier because you have a lot more calculation what’s going on. You’ve built the jump and you know how it should feel. It’s kind of a lot more time and planning gone into it, but the big mountains just kind of drop in and see how it goes. I mean there’s also a lot of planning as well, but it’s a lot more like ‘just go’ kind of thing.
Yeah, well it definitely looked like one take. There were no trails. It didn’t look like you’d been there before on the first shots.
Yeah, definitely. And money-wise, I definitely had that in the back of my mind. Like if you f**k the shot up, it’s going to cost you like two, three grand to get to the back of the top of the hill with a helicopter. So you kind of always had that in the back of your head as well. Like ‘better not mess this up because it’s going to cost a lot of money’, you know.
So did you only get the one run down?
On some of them, yeah. I think there was one line we might have ridden twice, but I’m pretty sure everything we just had one hit on, yeah.
No second runs for extra fun then?
No, no. And that was the thing: it was so tiring that you couldn’t do another run anyway. We were doing one or two runs a day. That was it. And I think one of the runs was like six and a half minutes long. We descended like 4,000 feet or maybe more in one hill. It was crazy. And it was straight and you could see the whole way to the bottom of it.
And are you dragging your brake the whole way or are you not touching it?
No, definitely dragging the brakes, when you start traversing and carving. You also drag your brakes at the start and then you start feeling that the terrain will change everywhere. It will go really hard and it will go super soft. So when it’s soft, you don’t have to use your brakes. It’s kind of like skiing. You’re just using your tyres as edges, kind of. And then as soon as it goes hard, you’re just skidding on hard packed kind of horribleness. You just don’t know what you’re going to get.
Does it feel like there’s much skill involved or is it more luck when it comes to that stuff?
No, there’s definitely skill involved. Like I’ve been riding bikes my whole life now. I’ve been riding bikes since I was two years old. It’s all I know how to do. And I think, yeah, there’s definitely a lot of skill. But there’s also a lot of like ‘you’ve just got to go’, you know. ‘I’m not going to get any better in the next 10 minutes’ – that’s what I always tell myself. Like progression comes from hard work and doing things over and over again. And I know I’ve done the preparation I need to do to be able to be here on top of this mountain. I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t ready for it, you know. So you’ve kind of got to think about that.
I guess like mortals among us will approach something and be like, ‘take your hand off the front brake. Do not touch the front brake while you roll down this scary thing’. Is there any of that kind of internal talk going on? Or is it all instinct because you’ve practiced so much that you just react?
It definitely comes from instinct. Like second nature now, I guess. I ride my bike at least every day. Well, I try to ride it every day when I’m fit and healthy. So I think it all comes from experience. And when I’m riding down those hills, I’m more like trying to take my mind off it. Like I’ll have my headphones in singing a song just like, ‘do-do-do’. Like I don’t really want to overthink this at all. Because when you start overthinking things, that’s when it goes wrong, for me personally.
I guess on the jump stuff, there’s more opportunity for overthinking things. Because you’re spending all that time thinking about building it. And then you’re building it. And then you’re looking at it. And you session it.
There’s a lot of doubt. A lot of doubt when you come to building stuff. That X Games project was a massive kick up the arse. It’s like, you’re doing it in the winter, things are just not working. You’ve spent two months off your bike building, you’ve not touched it. And then you just have to get on and perform at your best capacity. And it’s hard to go from that. And like you said, you’ve built the jumps, and you don’t know if it’s going to work. And you’re just constantly doubting yourself. But you also know that you’re good at what you do.
And that’s why you do it. So it probably should work. And if it doesn’t, there’s always a way to fix it, you know.
When you build a jump, are you building a jump to deliver a particular trick? Or are you building a jump to look a certain way? And then see what tricks you can do on it? What’s your strategy for building?
It changes every time. Some features are built for one specific trick. Some features I’ll build because I like the scenery or the look of it. Or it’ll go left because it has to do with the hill. It can change all the time. Sometimes you build a jump with one tricking idea in mind, and that’s it, that’s all you’ll do. And some stuff you’ll just kind of feel it out and it’ll come naturally, you know.
I don’t like to plan too much because then you get disappointed a lot, you know. Like I’ll have a couple big planned tricks and I need to get them done. But a lot of it’s like I need to ride it a few times and see how it actually rides, you know. Because it’s a brand new creation. You don’t know what your tyres are going to feel like when you go around it.
So was there anything on that particular X Games line that caught you out or surprised you?
That building things is really hard! Like I built it all, rode it and obviously things needed to change. And then you tell the filmers, oh yeah, we’ll be ready next week. And then they turn up and you’re still changing stuff. Yeah, it’s just there’s always something that’s not going to work. I’ve realised that now. And it’s just using your knowledge to hopefully not make that happen again.
And do you have much of a crew to help you with the dig?
Yeah, the crew is amazing. A lot of dedicated friends and James from Revolution, Danny as well, my friend. Yeah, every day we’re just on it. It’s amazing. You can’t do anything if you don’t have a crew. Yeah, you can’t do anything on your own.
And do you think it makes a difference having a crew that you work with all the time that knows your style? Or could you work with anyone?
No, you definitely need to have the right crew. I go off and do different shoots at different companies and stuff, and it’s always hard because you’re switching crews. If you’ve got your little tight-knit family at home, everyone just knows the crack. They just know what’s going on. They know how you’re going to react to certain situations. You’ve got to be comfortable around each other.
In that Anytime film, there was a segment about style and everyone having their own style. So what are you going for in style?
My own style, exactly that. I think everyone at the minute, me included, we look at everyone on Instagram so much that we always think, I want to be like this person, I want to be like that person. But I feel like I watch a lot of BMX from back in the day and everyone had their own style back in the day.
There were so many funky shapes going on because they didn’t watch people and they didn’t think, ‘Oh, I want to ride like Neil Johansson, I want to ride like this guy’. I want to ride what feels good to me. Because the way someone does a certain trick and I do a certain trick, it’s completely different.
It’s the same trick. But we’ll do it, and it’ll look completely. It’s just one of those things where your style is what you make it and how it feels to you. Because the way I ride feels really good, but someone else might feel terrible. I think it’s all just preference.
But if you’re like, ‘OK, that was a successful day, I nailed it’. Is it extension, body shape, what? Is there something there that you’re like, ‘yeah, that was the shot for me’?
For sure, you have to be picky and think about your extensions and tricks and make sure everything’s right about the products you’re giving. But for me, the best days riding and productive days are just when you come out of it, you’re fit, healthy, you’ve got a couple of good shots and you’re like… I don’t know, the days where you get a lot of good stuff are normally really stressful because you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself. The best days are when you kind of cruise and it’s all flowing. But, I mean, every day is different. When do you ever wake up and feel the same? It’s like you don’t know what you’re going to get.
You have really navigated the broad waters of bicycling and options and styles and disciplines. So where do you see yourself taking it next? Do you have particular goals or just going to see where it goes?
Yeah, 100%. I’ve always got goals. I’ve obviously stopped racing downhill now but I still want to race a few a year, go and show my face. I feel like I can still maybe qualify. I hope the speed’s not gone. I’ll definitely start doing a lot more of the kind of freeride stuff, I guess. I don’t really like to call it freeride, but it’s different, isn’t it? It’s just biking.
It’s like I’m just biking. I want to make some cool videos. I think I’m still going to race speed and style at Crankworx. I’ve got unfinished business with that. It could be a sport I could do well at. And yeah, Rampage, I guess. I really want to get to Rampage. Yeah, just kind of like get out there to the bigger stuff. I think it’s time.
I’ve shown myself in the race, and yeah, it’s time to get out there.
Anytime was harking back to some of the original freeride stuff, which was done in the pre-internet age when everything was on video. It feels to me a little bit like freeride kind of faded a bit, and the race stuff was what we were watching, but now freeride is coming back. What do you think is feeding that?
I think the racing was so big for such a long time. I don’t know, it almost became more accessible. Now everyone seems to be wanting to explore more.
It’s like when we watched Anytime or filming Gee’s Ridgeline, it was all about the exploring and going to different places and putting tyres on things people have not even walked on, let alone ridden on. So I think people want to be a bit more creative and more exploratory.
I think also the street styles come into it a lot more, clothing-wise. People go and ride now, freeride stuff, and they wear jeans and T-shirts. It’s kind of changing, more skateboard, more open for everyone. You don’t have to be a fast bike rider to go and enjoy it anymore. You can go and jump off f**king drops or do whatever, you know what I mean? Basically, freeriders can do what we want. It’s free, isn’t it?
And have fun!
Exactly, yeah. As long as you’re having fun, that’s the main thing. Obviously for us, sometimes, I’m not going to lie, it being a job, sometimes it’s not fun… well… sometimes it becomes stressful. So I wouldn’t say not fun, because you’re trying to produce a product that people are going to like. That’s stressful, but it’s always fun at the end of the day, riding a bike. I will admit that sometimes the pressure does get pretty heavy.
I’ve heard some YouTubers, people that are creating content, say, ‘I’ve got the edit, that’s enough riding for the day’, because it’s a job, and any extra riding that they do is just extra risk. Do you feel like that, or are you all in it for the play still?
I’m all in it for the play. I’ll ride my bike until the sun goes down, if I can. I’ve not put anything on Instagram for ages, because at the minute I’m just trying to enjoy myself. I’m not doing it for anyone else. I’m doing it for myself, just me. It’s only me, and that’s all I want to do throughout this injury to get back to enjoying bikes properly.
You have to do it for yourself. You can’t be doing it for someone else, because then it just turns into a boring shit job. You have to do it for yourself.
If you’re riding bikes and it’s a boring shit job, you’re doing it wrong!
Exactly, yeah. I know people that get like that, and I don’t want to do that.
You said in that film that you love being able to go to other places and see amazing places. Is there anywhere that’s really on your bucket list? You said Rampage, so we can put Utah in the box, but anywhere else?
Oh, I want to explore everywhere, man. I really want to go back to Chile. Flying around in the helicopter, the amount of stuff we saw, and we didn’t even get a chance to go look at, there’s endless opportunity.
I think the next place I want to go is Patagonia maybe, or Alaska, or China maybe.
So big, raw mountains then?
I feel like all the jump stuff I can do at home. You can build jumps at home, but we don’t have mountains here.
Well, I hope you heal up soon and you get to all those mountains.
Thank you. I hope I do as well.
You can now watch the film for yourself on Red Bull TV.
