Video: Road Bike Party 3 – and things start getting dirty!

We’ve been looking forward to this since we heard about it on Friday, and we know a lot of you have too – Road Bike Party 3, filmed by Martyn Ashton and featuring dirt jump star Sam Pilgrim, winner of the 2013 Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour.

After the film, we’ll look at the background in more detail, and head over here for how the Ridley Noah used in the was put together, including a video. You can also read about the bike… but first, we’re sure you’ll be eager to see the much anticipated Road Bike Party 3 itself, so here it is.

It’s the third film in the series, the first coming in 2012. Ashton was halfway through making the sequel, Road Bike Party 2, when an accident at a trials display at Silverstone in summer 2013 saw him sustain spinal injuries and lose the use of his legs.

His friends Chris Akrigg and Danny MacAskill helped complete that film, which used a Colnago C59 Disc, whereas in the original, Ashton was on a Pinarello Dogma 2. Both of those videos have been viewed more than 10 million times on YouTube, and we fully expect the latest instalment to follow suit.

Here, Pilgrim is on a Ridley Noah – as used by André Greipel and his Lotto-Belisol team mates at the Tour de France. It is also the first video in the series in which the action moves away from the UK, being mainly filmed in the area around San Diego, California – although the opening and closing sequences were shot at the RampWorld BMX park in Cardiff.

The film is made by GCN, which Ashton has worked for since that accident that left him paralysed from the waist down.

Pilgrim’s participation is said to bring a different style of riding to the video, with Ashton saying: “Dirt jumping is more extreme. We wanted to see just how much punishment the Ridley Noah could take… turns out it was a lot!”

Shot over 10 days, the bike handled everything in its stride – despite a backflip which reached 15 feet in the air and a drop onto concrete from 7 feet, the only components that needed replacing afterwards were … two inner tubes.

It was Pilgrim’s first ever time on a road bike. He said: “There’s a scene where I ride across a tree. I’m not a trials rider and the second attempt saw me face-plant [it]. I almost lost another tooth.”

Aged 24, Pilgrim has been winning competitions since he was aged just 17 and has been in the top five of the Freeride Mountain Bike World Tour Championship for the past five years. He’s worked with Ashton, who has mentored him as part of the Animal Tour, since 2007.