Esperanto World Premiere is June 16th - find stops and show tickets at tour.tetongravity.com.
On TGR film shoots, the biggest variable is the weather. What’s happening in the atmosphere can make or break a day of filming, so even the best laid plans need some wiggle room to account for when mother nature simply won’t cooperate. Our films aren’t shot in controlled studio environments, so we’re forced to take what we get – and sometimes it works out perfectly, like in the case of creating the official Esperanto film poster. Esperanto premieres on June 16th in Salt Lake City, with a worldwide tour following. Find a tour stop and buy tickets here.
This past December, we joined Carson Storch, Johny Salido and Nico Vink on a trip to Ecuador to link up and ride with local ripper and mountain bike guide Rene Arevalo Coloma. For a week, Rene showed us around some local hand-built enduro trails in Ecuador’s Changuil region, where he operates a mountain bike guiding business El Divino MTB, sharing his stoke for adventure and bikes with the world. Changuil is one of the most dramatic landscapes I’ve ever seen, with truly unfathomable amounts of vertical relief. About a two-hour drive northeast of Guayaquil in the rural state of Bolivar, the lush green mountains rise out of Ecuador’s flat coastal plain, dotted with small villages and sharp peaks covered in dense jungle.
Atop these peaks, with these lush mountains and the coastal plain as the backdrop, Rene and a team of stoked locals had spent a few weeks with Nico constructing a custom-built jump line for Esperanto. Nico is a master trail builder, with an uncanny ability for eyeing a hillside, finding an excavator, and shaping perfect freeride lines. In this case, the jump line was a beautifully manicured series of step downs, berms, rollers and enormous gap jumps. Its reddish-brown dirt stood out in stark contrast to the verdant green foliage covering everything in sight.
Rene Arevalo Coloma leads Nico Vink, Carson Storch and Johny Salido down yet another massive descent through the Ecuadorian clouds. | Max Ritter photo.
After a three-day trip across the Ecuadorian Andes from Quito, stopping along the way to ride on the 20,549-foot Chimborazo volcano, we arrived in Changuil to dense fog. Nico’s jump line was nearly done, but the landscape beyond it was hidden from sight. Our only clue to what was encased in the clouds was from a single sunset photo Nico had taken on his phone when he arrived a few weeks before. It depicted an orange sky silhouetting a giant peak, with low clouds shrouding the valley. Taking what we had, the crew took advantage of the fog and moody skies, stacking shots of Carson, Johny, and Nico that had an otherworldly feel, throwing big tricks while floating through the mist – but what we really wanted was to recreate the mood in Nico’s phone shot.
Nico Vink making shapes for the camera. | Max Ritter photo.
Finally, after three days of waiting, we could sense a palpable excitement among the locals who gathered every day to watch the pros ride and help us carry gear while filming. For the first time in nearly a week, the sun threatened to poke through the clouds for more than few seconds. The steady wind that had been blowing all day seemed to have started moving the clouds elsewhere, so it was time to fire up the drone and stage our cameras out of sight to get the shots we had been waiting for. It being Ecuador, sunset happens predictably right around 6pm every day of the year, and at about 5:30pm, the clouds began to part. For nearly an hour, the riders lapped the jump line, hiking back up after every lap to drop in yet again, combining different tricks and upping the amplitude and style with each run. From a production standpoint, it was a dream come true – perfect golden hour light, warmed up and highly stoked athletes, and the most stunning backdrop we had seen all trip.
After nearly an hour straight of sessioning the line, Nico and Johny called it a night. It was nearly dark now, our drone batteries were empty, and everyone was hungry, tired, and satisfied with an epic day. However, Carson felt he had one more run in him, and he hiked back up to the top. I had already put away my photo pack at that point and was helping our drone pilot gather his gear in a spot that just so happened to frame the biggest jump on the line perfectly with the sunset and the peak of Cerro Changuil in the back. I hastily grabbed my camera, adjusted the settings and called on the radio for Carson to drop in, not really knowing what his trajectory was going to look like from where I stood. He launched off the lip, spreading his arms with his trademark style on an enormous tuck-no-hander. It’s a moment I’ll remember for a long time.
When Carson says he wants one more - don't put the cameras away. | Max Ritter photo.
Carson Storch will be joining the TGR crew at both the World Premiere in Salt Lake City on June 16th and the Bentonville stop. Find more information on the Esperanto tour and buy tickets now at tour.tetongravity.com.
About The Author
stash member Max Ritter
I manage digital content here at TGR, run our gear testing program, and am stoked to be living the dream in the Tetons.