Mountain bike royalty Alex Ranking is in studio!
On this episode of The Ride Companion Olly and Davi take a deep dive into Alex’s film making career. During the episode Alex opens up about his early skateboarding and BMX inspirations, how and why he first picked up a camera, learning to edit on tape, investing in the first 1000 Sprung videos and why Sprung really finished, meeting Steve Peat and Rob Warner, acquiring music for free and some of the projects Alex is working on for the future…
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Time stamps
00:00:00 Intro
00:04:30 Alex Rankin’s early inspirations
00:14:04 First picking up a camera
00:27:50 The idea for Sprung
00:37:00 FiveTen GTX first ride
00:38:33 How Alex knew what to film
00:44:45 Buying 1000 Sprung videos!
00:50:00 First filming Steve Peat and local pro riders
00:59:00 Music and Travelling stories
01:09:00 Influencers and determining what was cool
01:15:30 AG1
01:19:15 Sprung 3 to 5 growth and distribution
01:24:00 Why did Sprung finish?
01:38:20 Why Earthed started
01:47:43 Rankin vs Hollywood
01:53:44 Has mountain biking becoming unrelatable?
02:00:00 Freecaster days and Red Bull media house
02:12:28 News vs old filming styles
02:17:33 YouTube generation thoughts
02:22:20 What’s next for Alex Rankin?
02:30:00 LIKE & SUBSCRIBE
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Edited By: Doug Tucker, TRC Media House
#TheRideCompanion #mountainbiking #mtb
28 Comments
Still the best bike films ever made.
Mbuk is the blue peter of mtb.its fucking awesome until your 13 😂
What a guest. Thanks to Alex, his manager and his mascot for coming on the podcast!!
Alex such a good dude
I got my first proper MTB (Marin Quake 5) from leisure lakes in 2000 and bought a copy of sprung 3 at the same time. I'd watch it religiously. I got into every aspect of cycling thanks to sprung. BMX, trials, DH, trails. Thanks Alex!
F'ing LEGEND!!!!
Best episode yet, Alex is a fucking legend..best mtb videos ever with the best music selection as well.
Brilliant. Always interesting to hear someone who helped create a scenes thoughts
loved this one guys, was it just me or was the sound a bit muffled
That was fascinating, I've still got my Sprung 3 and 4 and all the Earthed dvds. Just made you want to ride…
YouTube link for Alex' account doesn't work. This is the one – https://www.youtube.com/@alexrankin
Earthed 4 is one of my all time favourite mtb films!
thanks for the experience, didn't feel like a long chat at all, just a good chat.
I ❤️ Sprung
the world was a sadder place without the creativity of sprung, no internet, mtb being fun and juvenile and not too serious and being full of rich guys on crazy bikes…..now i am sounding like an old man! on a sidenote does olly look a little like butthead here lol
Awesome stuff! So cool to see Alex on here! Definitely get him in again – so much more to dig into…
I was trying to think about how you could still get YouTube royalties for Sprung/Earthed while still keeping the music… Imagine if you uploaded two videos, the first one being the video with no audio, and the second one being the audio with no video. People could watch the first video (which you'd get paid for) whilst also playing the second video in another browser tab (which you wouldn't get paid for). It would work, but probably a bit hard to explain how to watch for most viewers… lol. Maybe there's another way though of separating the audio and video like this to get around rights issues.
What a bloody lovely way to spend two and a half hours, I enjoyed that so much. So nice to hear Alex Rankin talking about his life & career, and how the films got made. Please do an Earthed sequel episode (…but maybe not the AI one though, that'll just make me grouchy).
Fantastic company for a long wet drive. Took me right back and learned a lot in the process. Top choice of guest lads
Hell yeah, good interview
Great episode, Alex is a true legend of MTB, thanks for the vids and Raleigh Magnum memory, my first MTB also 😄
I don’t think Ollie was born when the Sprung movies were being filmed 😁 got em all. The music too was always 🔥
How do we upload pictures of our steeds? I have wanted to but haven't figured out where and how to do it.
Easily the best guest you’ve had. Alex was absolutely pivotal to the sport. Can you imagine if Redbull allowed Alex to control all the MTB media output in Earthed style. It would have massively raised the profile of the brand.
When a podcast is this good, who cares how long it is! BRILLIANT episode with THE OG influencer! Cannot wait for part 2! 🤘❤️🌈🕊️🌎
Millan was in cyc vibes dropping off some sprung vids on a day I was dropping off a load of vandal fenders, we did a swap. 2 vids for 2 fenders 😂. Good times, cyc vibes was the most hard-core bike shop in the South west by a mile.
Superb episode. Such a legend of all or journeys 🤙🏻
You need to do another one! Would love to hear some more in depth stories about the roadtrips!