BMX
Part skatepark, part hall of mirrors, Mirror Park created a unique riding opportunity that was too good to miss for Courage Adams and Paul Thölen.
Near Pamplona, Spain, there's a BMX park. There's nothing unusual about that. This is no ordinary riding venue, though. This BMX park is covered with mirrors – everywhere. The walls, ramps and all the obstacles have been covered with a special reflective material to give them the appearance of a hall of mirrors.
BMX pro and Courage Adams was involved in the design of this very special BMX park and accepted the challenge to ride it, inviting German freestyler Paul Thölen to join him on this ride of a lifetime.
Don't miss the video, directed by Alberto Blanco and produced by Malgenio Films and Lateral Thinking, in the player above.
Riding on a surface that reflects your image isn't as easy as you'd think. Everything appeared confusing to the riders. Stimuli and senses were multiplied by a thousand, and everything became imprecise and uncertain, as they entered this new reality. Added to that, there was a slippery surface underneath their wheels that needed getting used to.
Adams described Mirror Park set-up as being akin to a "spacecraft" when he saw it in its completed glory, while Thölen said that as soon as he saw Mirror Park, he thought that he "wouldn’t be able to perform a single trick."
I was amazed because the place had been completely transformed in comparison to what I was riding before the mirroring process
Caution soon gave way to familiarity, as both he and Thölen ramped up the complexity and technicality of their tricks.
"When they showed me the project, I thought it was crazy, because to ride on mirrors is not something you do every day. However my fears disappeared, and everything turned into energy and motivation," said Adams.
Commenting on his experience riding the mirrored ramps, Thölen said it was a "magical experience."
"It took me a while to get used to the mirrors and reflections. It was difficult to know where the ramps were, because everything seemed the same, but after a while I got the landings memorised inside my head and everything became much easier," he said.
Check back next week to see how the extraordinary Mirror Park project was put together and filmed.
