MTB
The British downhill star guides us through his “savage” Vanta line that he helped to design at BikePark Wales, as seen in his epic MTB Raw edit.
At the risk of nominative determinism, Laurie Greenland is probably one of the finest mountain bike minds you could ever wish to see burrowing into the great outdoors.
For starters, he’s one of the world’s best downhill mountain bike athletes and knows how to make the most of every slope. Secondly, as part of the Mercedes-Benz UCI Downhill Mountain Bike World Cup series, he rides the world’s most challenging courses on a regular basis.
Greenland has already been featured once in Red Bull's popular MTB Raw video series [when he took on a trail at Skyline Bike Park in Queenstown, New Zealand in 2019]. When the opportunity to do another edit came up again in 2021, this time closer to home in Great Britain, and more specifically at BikePark Wales, he couldn't turn it down.
Greenland helped trail builders at BikePark Wales design one of its most ambitious downhill lines to date, which features in this new MTB Raw edit.
The track is, in Laurie's own words, "savage". "I think a lot of people looking at the track straight away will be like 'no, not doing that'," he says.
Laurie's trail is named 'Vanta' and is open to ride at Bikepark Wales. The trail is graded 'pro line' and includes mandatory features and large gap jumps, suitable for highly skilled and experienced riders only.
For those thinking of travelling to Wales to brave it and believe they have the skills to take on such a trail, Greenland explains his influences for the build and, more importantly, provides some tips on how to ride it.
When nature calls
"If you were there on the build, you would have just heard me saying 'flow' over and over again. Every time we thought of a feature, the first thing that came into my mind was whether it was possible with the natural flow of the hill. The trail reflects quite a lot in my riding style – on a downhill track, I'm always looking for those patches of smoother ground and those undulating downsides that I can catch, and being a lighter rider, I seem to hop and skip backside to backside, and turn to turn."
This jump trail is no joke – there’s so much to catch you out. We wanted to keep it as gnarly but as natural as possible
Mind the gaps
"BikePark Wales really wanted it to be the most demanding track they've got, so they came up with the name Vanta. Vanta is the blackest of black colours, so this is the blackest of black trails.
"We wanted the line to look quite intimidating from the off. It only gets worse after the first few features, so we made the first couple of jumps look as exposed as possible as if to say, 'If you can't get through the first two, then you know you shouldn't go onto the rest'.
"The whole line flows quite well from the top. You've got a qualifier jump at the start. If you get that one right, then your speed is pretty bang on for the first half of the track."
"After these, you'll arrive at a cool feature that you don't see too much of at other bike park trails: a double jump with a big rock stack in the middle of it, with a big dinner plate-like rock on top of that, which you can come and nose bonk on the way through. The way I did it at first was to 'gaps' the whole thing, so I didn't actually touch wheels down until I was on the top of the table, and once I got the flow for the trail, and the bearings for the speed, then I started dropping the nose. So, my advice: just gaps this whole thing."
Out of the forest and into the fire
“Once you’ve tackled those features, you’re out into the open, where it starts to get really serious. There’s a big hip jump over a tree, where I found it best to aim for the tree. It sounds a bit silly, but if you go off the lip aiming towards the top of the tree and cut the inside of the jump off, it works perfectly. Give it a few pedals on the way in – you need a fair bit of speed – tuck inside it a little bit and aim for the tree. If that tree hasn’t grown since my last visit, you’ll be sweet!
"I really respect the level of commitment BikePark Wales has put in because this jump trail is no joke. There's so much to catch you out. We wanted to keep it as gnarly but as natural as possible."
Find your flow
“Next up are a couple of bits of flow to get it going, including what I call a ‘jump to manual jump’ because you’ve got a roller with a tabletop after it that goes into a secondary roller. I liked riding that as it brought some of my BMX background into the course.
"You can get super creative on it – you can do a whole range of stuff. You can jump the whole thing. You can jump onto the top of it and jump off, which is definitely the most simple way of doing it.
"You've then got a hip jump that brings you back into a pretty intimidating whoop section – big, steep whoops which you should hit flat out. The best way I found to hit them was to come in no brakes and just go for it, fully committing throughout the whoops, which is a pretty wild feeling. I definitely didn't do it the first time, but once you've got the flow, come in brakeless, and you just glide.
"You want to lean off the back of the bike a little bit. Just keep the front end fairly light, so it doesn't dive into any of the holes and, through my experience, the faster you hit them, the better they are – but that's super scary."
Feel the rhythm
“There are a few bits of rhythm section here that are inspired by BMX racetrack, including a hip jump over the tree into a corner that I had the vision of feeling a lot like a trail spot I’ve ridden on my BMX before.
My riding is inspired by BMX, so I tried to incorporate that whole mindset
"My riding is pretty inspired by BMX trails kind of racetrack background. I tried to incorporate that whole mindset and the way I enjoy riding, as well as the love I've got for downhill racing and downhill roughness, so it's a little bit of all my favourite things mixed into one paired up with the natural flow of the land."
Jumping the shark
“Next on the agenda: a little setup jump into a shark’s fin that flows beautifully – you really don’t need to do anything off that shark’s fin, just flow off the lip, land, and you’ve got a nice rowdy corner after it.
"Once you land, it's time to start thinking about getting your speed right, getting your check-up points, as you've got a big double coming up that's closer than you'd expect. It's actually quite deceiving because you've got to have a fair bit of speed going in. My train of thought would be this: 'come around that first turn, then the second one, flow, little pump, sometimes a bit of a pedal too, and then flow off it nicely'."
To the letter
“Approaching the final sector, there’s another big double that I really like tackling sideways on, followed by a super flowy road gap double, and then a jump through a gap in the trees.
"For that one, I'd recommend turning your bars a little bit as you fit through – you've really got to post the letter through the letterbox, clean, get it perfect – I actually caught my handlebar on the tree once, and it almost tomahawked me over the bar."
Bone of contention
“This section is probably the hardest bit of track to ride because, as well as that intimidating jump through the trees, the hill flattens off, and you’ve got to really work on your flow, making sure you catch all the backsides into what we call the boner quad – it’s like a boner log jump, but actually a quad with a trailer on the back pitched upwards with dirt stacked on top.
"I’ve never seen anything like that at a bike park. It's quite scary because it's fully blind and looks a bit intimidating with a quad there. You want a fair bit of speed going into it, and you want to pull up a little bit as well and do a nice little pop off the end. The landing is super predictable and long, so you don't need to worry too much about going long."
Choose your (next) adventure
“To finish, there’s a left and a right hip jump, which is sick because sometimes you want to go left and sometimes your mate wants to go right. For this, you want to just pull up, go nice and lofty off it. It looks rad when you go off it and dip left, then someone behind you dips right. But yeah, I want to see someone jump the whole thing straight. I’ll join you for a session doing that.”
It may get slightly less savage, but not by much
“There are a couple of key features that BikePark Wales might have to make a little less perilous – the gap through the trees might be too dangerous for the public, and they may want to shave a bit off the roller or make a few landings a little less critical. But from what I know, the guys at Bike Park Wales don’t want this trail to be similar to any trail in any bike park, so I think they’re going to leave it pretty savage.
"When I rode it for the video, everything was quite new and soft, and the hill goes so flat that it's hard. It's now had some time to pat down, and as people ride it, it's going to be spot on. A bit more sun, and I think it's going to look sick."
