Ride Bizarre Obstacles on Red Bull Fantasy Line
Contributors are not employed, compensated or governed by TD, opinions and statements are from the contributor directly
In Sparta, Wisconsin — the self-appointed bicycling capital of America — you will find a quirky attraction that has attracted some of the worlds best trails riders to town. Kenny Belaey and Tom Oehler wanted to come check out 600 fiberglass statues they see as a new playground. The features are one-of-a-kind, created by Sparta’s Fast Corp, manufacturer of a large majority of roadside attractions across America.
Ever wonder where the 30-foot-tall lumberjack statue you always see off the highway came from? Look close, you might see a statue from your hometown …
We caught up with Belaey and Oehler to get their take on the oddities in Sparta — keep reading to hear how they made Red Bull Fantasy Line possible.
Q: How did you hear about this project?
Belaey: We started talking about this almost a year ago after I got an email from Red Bull asking if I wanted to shoot a video with Thomas Oehler on some cool obstacles.
Oehler: After seeing some photos of all the statues, I Googled around a bit and I got even more interested in these becoming obstacles to ride.
Q: What were your initial concerns?
Oehler: Safety. We did not know how stable any of the structures would be when jumping on and off — would they tip over? We were also concenered with fiberglass’ condition — would it be too slippery or soft in spots?
Belaey: Not being able to fix the obstacles and make them rideable because [of the] fiberglass. In the end, we had guys onsite to fix them and create lines.
Q: What was the most difficult aspect of riding on fiberglass structures?
Oehler: The flanges that bolt each statue’s mold together — they stick out and were often in awkward spots. Those were super annoying to ride on. That’s where we had to do some woodwork for reinforcement to make some surfaces rideable.
Belaey: The fact they move a bit, even after preparing them — so we couldn’t just ride anywhere we wanted. And some of them were huge! We didn’t want to use too many to keep it clean and uncluttered, so we pushed ourselves quite hard and needed to give it our all to get on top of every one of them.
Q: How did you envision your line and which order to place the structures?
Oehler: Arranging the large statues took about a day and a half. It was overwhelming to see so many structures. We started choosing statues and really didn’t know how they’d all link together. We used a forklift to place them all in a field and then began to form the line.
Belaey: It was all kind of improvised really, we just worked with what we had. After the build, we agreed that Tom would ride the faster and smoother lines while I was going to ride the more trials competition-style lines to include two different bikes in the shoot.
Q: The most difficult feature to ride?
Belaey: I think that was jumping from the small horse to the big horse, there was no room for error because it was so high up and I only had a piece of wood the width of my tire to take off from once I was on the back wheel.
Oehler: The big line on the fish — where Kenny does the 270 drop and I’m coming back up. The fish was wobbly, especially the mouth — it moved! The first couple tries were pretty sketchy … We were happy after we rode the line and nothing was broke — on the giant fish or one of us.
Q: What’s the weirdest structure you’ve ridden before this project?
Oehler: When I was in the Austrian military for eight months, which is required for everyone here, and I took a chance and rode on a tank. I’ve also ridden on smaller boats — difficult because it moved in all directions the whole time. And ice blocks, those were weird to ride on with metal spikes in my tires.
Belaey: Definitely the slackline “Balance” project. It was not only super sketchy, with the height and all that, it also was very hard and tricky to ride on a slackline.
Q: What’s next, any other oddities you want to ride?
Belaey: There is another project coming up in 2017, but I’ll keep that private for now … Usually, I just go with the flow and if I see anything in a magazine, on TV or the internet that inspires or fascinates me, then I go for it and start planning.
Oehler: Whenever I’m sitting on a plane on the jetway, I always look out the window at all the cool machines outside the terminal — the luggage conveyor belt, etc. If I could ever get past all the security … And I have some abandoned places I’d like to explore.