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SHAFF Highlights – Operation Moffatt
I read Gwen Moffat’s Space Below My Feet early in my climbing career when women were still strange and exotic creatures in climbing circles and those that ventured out were treated to a quick top rope on a fiendish 5c by a surly boyfriend before being asked to return to tea-making. Which goes some way to […]
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SHAFF Highlights – Mountain Bikes and Bothy Nights
Alastair Humphreys has produced a charming short film that is essentially a paean to the delights of Scottish mountain bothies. Armed only with an Orange mountain bike and minimal bike-packing kit, he regularly takes the night train from London in order to recharge his batteries and enjoy the solitude of the glens. Simple and unselfconsciously poetic, […]
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A Line Across The Sky – Two Go Mad in Patagonia….
Let’s examine the standard mountaineering film template. Craggy heavily bearded types take months planning an assault on Parba Nangbat, drone on endlessly about the challenge and gather a mountain of gear that is finally, after a tedious build-up, carried to the foot of the mountain by some nice cheap native bearers. The next hour is the cinematic […]
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SHAFF2015 Shorts Round-up
The Wedge A wedge is wave that forms in the angle of a cliff or as the result of a man made structure like a jetty. They’re generally the ugly face of surfing, mutant waves that don’t conform to the usual rules. They tend to take no prisoners. The Wedge is an eye-popping four minute […]
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SHAFF2015 – Project Mina
Project Mina is a thought provoking film. Essentially the story of Mina Leslie Wujatsyk trying to make her mark in the world of competition bouldering, it ends up being an honest appraisal of the pressures that elite climbers have to tussle with. Wujastyk is a phenomenal climber, as those who have seen the short film […]
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SHAFF2015 – Redemption – The James Pearson Story
Way back in 2008, rock climbing underwent one of its periodic naval gazing episodes. James Pearson, having shaken up Peak District climbing by cruising a number of existing hard routes and nabbing a couple of last great problems, climbed The Walk of Life on Dyer’s Lookout, grading it E12. I’m sure I wasn’t the only […]
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SHAFF2015 – Santa Cruz 5010 in Terrific Torridon
Santa Cruz 5010 may be a film promoting a product but it’s Steve Peat riding in beautiful Torridon, so it’s easy to forgive the product placement. It’s a little gem featuring a bona fide sporting hero, the production values are top notch, the riding is exceptional and the scenery is jaw dropping. This film made it a certainty […]
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SHAFF2015 – Valley Uprising
Valley Uprising is to Yosemite climbing what Stacey Peralta’s Riding Giants was to big wave surfing. Using a similar mix of first person testimony, original footage, photos and reconstructions, it weaves a picaresque tale of the dirtbags, heroes, villains, dope fiends and climbing superstars who contributed to the development of the big walls of Yosemite […]
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Great Britain Mountain Biking – Tom Fenton & Andy McCandlish – Vertebrate Publishing
Over the years, Vertebrate Publishing have produced a series of area guides to Britains diverse mountain biking landscape. Detailed and authoritative, they’re arguably the best mountain bike guidebooks in the country. This mighty tome however is an attempt to encapsulate all that the UK has to offer, the best of the epics, quick blasts and […]
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Won’t Back Down – The Steve Peat Story – Clay Porter and John Lawlor
I love a bit of mountain biking porn as much as the next man, but there comes a time when endless footage of riders pulling whips is no longer enough – what I need is a story, some larger-than-life characters, raw emotion and triumph over adversity. Clay Porter’s Won’t Back Down is feast after famine, […]
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Best of Shaff 2013
Shaff 2013 served up its usual eclectic mix of adventure films and here’s your chance to catch those you missed first time round. Included are a couple of fine mountain bike films. Strength in Numbers by Anthill Films includes the usual mountain bike porn, unfeasibly brilliant riding at warp speed, but finds room for a […]
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Lake District Mountain Bike Routes – Tom Hutton
Lake District Mountain Bike Routes Tom Hutton Out There Guides – £13.95 Tom Hutton, route aficionado for Mountain Bike Rider magazine for 13 years, has now turned his hand to publishing guides to Britain’s best trails. First up is his take on the best the Lake District has to offer and if anyone should know, […]
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Yorkshire Gritstone Volume One – Almscliff to Slipstones.
Remember what climbing guides once looked like, utilitarian little pocket books that did the bare minimum? They’d get you to a crag, (approximately, knowledge of grid references being a distinct advantage), get you to your climb of choice, (providing you were tuned into the nuances of the author’s directions) and, well, that was pretty much […]
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Pivot Mach 5.7 – a quick spin….
I’ve been very aware of the hype surrounding the Mach 5.7 so when The Bike Tree let me know they’d got one I could test, I took off my pinny, switched off the hoover, put Jeremy Kyle on record and headed out sharpish. All the talk in the biking media was of incredibly well sorted suspension, superb build quality, of a […]