In late February we went to Roldal in Norway to report on the Norwegian stage of the 2012 Swatch Freeride World Tour (FWT). The reason? British rider James Stentiford was there competing against some of the world's best freeriders. During a freeride event the competitors ride down a steep unpisted run, hitting drops, gullies and lips in a bid to put together a run that will score big with the judges.
The competition didn't go exactly to plan for the organisers or James, who had made the podium at previous FWT events. The challenging mountain face the competitors were meant to ride down proved to be too unstable so, to avoid a potentially fatal avalanche, the organisers had to move it to another part of the resort. Luckily the new face had some crazy jumps, drops and steep sections, so massive tricks and massive falls were still on the cards.
James's run was good but unfortunately he took the wrong route at the top of the face, which meant he wasn't able to put together the kind of show-stopping run he had been hoping to. He did come a more than respectable eighth, however, and to our eyes his run looked pretty epic. Check out the action-packed video above to get a feel for what it's like for a rider to compete at one of these events.
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