Cycling documentary: ‘SHEPHERD – A FURTHER TALE’

Dutch description below. For English and Dutch subtitles, go to ‘settings’ bottom right of the video.

SHEPHERD – A FURTHER TALE

“We have no memory of pain, do we. So you know that hurts, but you can’t actually remember what hurt is. So that’s how we can do it again.”
— Camille McMillan

A short movie dedicated to the adventure bike race, Further Scotland, and its creator Camille McMillan.

A Live Slow Ride Fast Media production in collaboration with SHIMANO.

Contact at stefan@liveslowridefast.com

WANT TO SUPPORT LIVE SLOW RIDE FAST AND JOIN THE COMMUNITY?
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SHEPHERD – A FURTHER TALE

“We have no memory of pain, do we. So you know that hurts, but you can’t actually remember what hurt is. So that’s how we can do it again.”
— Camille McMillan

SHEPHERD is een korte film gewijd aan de avontuurlijke fietswedstrijd Further Scotland en aan de organisator ervan, Camille McMillan.

Contact via stefan@liveslowridefast.com

Grote dank aan SHIMANO voor de samenwerking in dit project.

NEEM JE KLAK AF VOOR LIVE SLOW RIDE FAST & JOIN DE COMMUNITY
Check out www.klak.af/liveslowridefast

MEER LIVE SLOW RIDE FAST?
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IN DEZELFDE SWAG RIJDEN ALS LAU, STEFAN & THOMAS?
Surf naar www.lsrf.cc

-You know your body doesn’t feel. We have no memory of pain, do we? You know that hurts, but you can’t actually remember what hurt is, so that’s how we can do it again. -We’ve been told it’s like flooding on the roads on the last part of the course, so in 24 hours time,

It probably will be a bit more flooded. I’ve also thought about the shortcut and the river at the bottom. When you do the shortcut if you can’t cross the river, you don’t have to double all the way back. Just bog trot or get out of there.

I think that is the safest way to do that. Also, if you’re going to scratch, don’t scratch at night, do it in the morning. It’s always better, but let me know on WhatsApp because I can’t get a signal other than the Wi-Fi. Not that you’ll have signal anyway, but let me know.

Otherwise, everyone’s mama will be phoning me saying the dot’s gone over here and that sort of stuff. -All right? -All right. -Good luck. You’re gonna be good. -Fine art, I think, can be anything, whether that’s if you’re riding your bike, that’s your art. It doesn’t have to be just the painter.

Art is riding a bike or it can be a route or how you ride your bike or whatever it is. It’s almost… it fits your métier. Shocking. Fucking cold and windy. Oh my God, it’s going to be a tough day out there today. Basically, it came about

When a friend of mine died actually putting on events. It’s very inspiring, really what he’s doing, but then it was actually because of what happened to him, it made me think about how these events could work that are strangely, considering how it’s perceived, safer than what was going on.

He was hit by a car while taking part in an event in Australia. He put on an amazing event, The Transcontinental. It was very inspiring. For me, seeing what he was doing lit a spark in my head. For me, it was like seeing that and I was thinking, working with him

And putting on an event for me as a creative, it linked things, different parts of what I do. He was an inspiration to find a link between other bits of my life that it could become a complete thing. Won’t be needing these for the next 500 kilometers, I hope.

Bags will go on the bike. I have a new groupset. I have chosen a smaller gear. A mechanical group set. I saw riders having trouble with the batteries during Tour Divide. We will start at the most remote train station of the UK. Corrour. 500 kilometers of cycling in one stretch.

We will start at 10 a.m., which is pretty late. But I’m hoping, because I have planned not to sleep, because, well I haven’t slept well tonight in this barn, so imagine, what it will be like in a ditch. So I am planning to be back before breakfast tomorrow.

I’ve been told it’s like flooding on the roads on the last part of the course. In 24 hours time, it probably will be a bit more flooded. Don’t scratch at night, do it in the morning. It’s always better, but let me know on WhatsApp

Because I can’t get a signal other than the Wi-Fi. Not that you’ll have signal anyway. Good luck. You’ll be good. -Further is about me going out into the mountains or wherever I’m curious about and exploring and taking pictures and wanting to share that journey.

I want people to come away from an event and think, “Wow, I can do that on a bike.” The bicycle enables you to see things, go places further than you’d probably realize you can. It’s about pushing what you would ordinarily do. -I came across this writer, this woman who wrote in the 1940s.

She wrote about The Living Mountain, Nan Shepherd. And I was like… amazing. She lived and walked and her whole life was about the exploration of this area. I was blown away. Then coming here and looking at that area, I was like they’ve got the Cairngorms.

When I was here in July drinking with these guys outside a bothy one night. they’re like, “There’s more mountaineers that have climbed Everest and died in the Cairngorms, than died on Everest,” you know what I’m saying? -Strange, if you come up from the south, you’re coming in from real forest,

Huge trees, and arable landscape, but then suddenly, you go into these really rocky, barren valleys and.. quite large hills. They’re not as large as the Pyrenees or the Alps. It’s like being in the peaks of those places. It reminds me of the Pyrenees.

When you get real high in the Pyrenees and you are in amongst the peaks, it’s almost like that, even though you’re only really low, but it’s real. You are really aware of the weather because it really sucks in the cold and the wet and the light.

You can be like, “Oh, God, this is awful.” ”This is awful.” Then suddenly a big sunbeam would come down and you’re like, “Oh, man, that’s beautiful.” It’s this constantly changing landscape. It’s not a fixed thing. -Cold. Yes, down the previous town, I fueled a lot,

Put a lot of food, so I’m ready for more. A few more hours. I broke my tail thing so I had to stop a few times to sort it out, to fix it, but it seems that now it’s okay. Chasing Lau. Laurens and Dekker stopped in Tomintoul.

I don’t know if they’re gonna keep going tonight or not. I want to do it under 30 hours. We’re seven and a half hours in, so a long time to go. Muddy I went over the bar. It was great river crossing, a really big one. Lots of, how we call it? Bog.

It was awesome. This bit, last bit, the road one was beautiful. I’m hoping that I get some more energy when the night will come. We were going, all right? – Like, really going. We were a tandem. A real tandem. I thought, we will be back for lunch. -I thought so too.

And then we hit a more difficult part. More difficult? It was like fucking mountainbiking. This guy. This guy hits a puddle, and gets thrown over the handlebars. Next guy comes in, same thing happens. -See you guys later. -Cheers. We need to get going, stress. I secretly booked a hotel.

So I call the hotel and ask if they can put some sandwiches ready on the table. She says: ”You’re coming up here?” ”You’ve seen the weather? It’s fucking horrendous.” Okay. This dude over there said: ”You know the alarm number here is 121?” Okay, four more hours of pedalling to the hotel.

But Lau is in front, right? Yes, but I didn’t expect less. Back to start, otherwise. Why isn’t the light working? I did charge it. Now you’ll have to sit in my wheel. I did charge it.. Don’t think I didn’t.

– Damn it. We did 140 kilometers but it feels like we did the Tour of Flanders two times. Hey, look! – Great, dude. I did charge it, I made sure I checked. It’s not my style not to. You’re going to put that on your helmet, right? -Okay, go.

-Tomintoul is at a town furthest north and I went down there. I got beaten back and went to Tomintoul and stayed in the pub till they kicked me out, and then I sleeped on a rugby pitch or something in the village.

Then the next town is, whoa, a bad road, so I took the road down. I literally was pushing my bicycle down the mountain because the winds were so bad, and I was like, “This place is fucking wild.” I guess it’s a little bit about trust,

That people trust that, okay, I might do something that’s unexpected, but I’m also, going back to that, I’m actually trying to be safe. Sounds ironic considering you got these rivers you cross, but I’m actually trying to create an event that’s not just a crazy route for a crazy route’s sake.

Which often can happen. It does happen. I’m always trying to think how can I push people without killing them. -It’s night, dinner ready. A few more hours in the dark and bloody rain. It’s cold, but when it’s cold, the only way is just to ride. There’s nothing that I can do.

Argh, the thing is updated, I think. Now we have routes updates on the way. A bridge is broken, it doesn’t work. -There are new roads. -There’s a route update, it’s in the WhatsApp. -Really? -You see, he doesn’t know. 6 kilometers of hiking that takes an hour.

– Did you pass that point, already? -Yes. -Gosh.. This one under your rain jacket? -Hi, good evening. This is Stefan Bolt. -Hi, there. -Hi. I think– -We’re going to be a little later. -Yes, we’re going to be a little later. -Okay, come. It’s pretty nasty coming down this last path, coming down there.

I reckon we’ll see them soon. -Mostly for me, that all the riders have come back and it’s been a good trip. I’ve got something from that more than just ticking off. I say if you’ve got something from it and you are like, yes, that was beautiful, then that’s a success.

There’s more people coming back saying, “Oh, shit.” Then they’ll be like, “It wasn’t a success.” -To be honest, it was probably about five to ten meters on that mountain. -He probably just popped out. Laurens is in front at the moment, but Neil’s on his wheel, so it’ll be a full on sprint finish.

-He is not going fast. -Did you mark out the finish line? I didn’t think I needed a finish line. I can’t believe having to do this. No. Bravo! Fucking hell. You knew about those things, huh? You bastard. I have so many stories, man. I have to write them down,

Because I can’t even — Do you know what I have been doing this morning? Around 7… 7.30 a.m. I had no phone and no Wahoo. Then I went into this old — Then I rang the bell of three houses.

But they weren’t really friendly. They told me to go to the post office. Then I waited in an old telephone booth for this guy to pass me so I could get the route again. So I spent like an hour and a half in a telephone booth.

Last night, I had lost my gloves. Look – Thank you, Helena. I was sitting in a pub last night at 11 with a bunch of really friendly Scottisch people. And I started to shiver. And she cut out her gloves for me and said:

”These are for you.” These got me through Further. But seriously, what an event. It’s so hard. Stevie and Thomas won’t be here before dark either, I think. In the end, you won’t be rolling into town like that. So it’s another… 68 kilometers. First a long climb.. on the road…

Yeah, and then the last 50.. -You roll in. -The last 50 has a tarmac part that connects one shitty segment to another. -Maybe get a hotel then? -What do you think? If we see a really nice hotel. Tomorrow we call Lau to ask if he has made arrangements at the hostel…

To see if it meets our standards. -Yes. Otherwise we book another hotel. We get a hotel at 5 kilometer before the finish line. – I really notice we are growing closer together. -It’s not like I earn a vast fortune from it.

It’s one of the things I do. I have the photography as well. That’s part of my– It’s taking up more time that I’m now up to three events. I”m like, oh, that’s a lot of time. Maybe I’ll get other people involved rather than just me. I do have some friends, obviously,

That give me support and the community gives me support, but this event is I’m watching dots and it is me that is, sort of, lay up all night. -This year in Scotland is great. We’ve got Laurens, and then we got local riders, complete spectrum of cycling community.

I like that. That’s good for various reasons. How do I keep that small raw real event? It’s difficult. If I grew it to like 300 people, then it becomes a different thing. ”I went to that gig in the early days.” ”No, like the band in the early days before they went commercial.”

How do you keep ‘the early days’ without, you know, being seen as selling out to the man? -We have no memory of pain, do we? You know that hurts, but you can’t actually remember what hurt is. -That’s how we can do it again.

-I feel like we both knew what Scotland could be like, the type of routes that were occurring, but just the relentless rain which is just so hard. It was fun and challenging. There were some bits that were really fun. Just smooth gravel paths, just zooming down,

And then just brutal, boggy paths as well. -It was rough and tough and hardcore. There was a lot of unexpected challenge for me. I have to admit I completely underestimated it. When it’s coming to the end, when things become actually the hardest of the event itself

And that’s the moment where you’re more tired and where you’re dreaming of an easy end and stuff. I would say hardcore, it was a proper hardcore event. You have to approach this with a different mindset, I think. -Holy shit. Yes. I think I took it a bit too fast in the beginning.

A rookie mistake, I know, then too many different things. I took a dump somewhere and didn’t wake up from that. I think an Epic would be great here too. – Yeah, we’d expected much more road here. Maybe the Roubaix, or the Aethos… you said a year ago. Aethos… -Yeah, the Roubaix..

I was really happy with my choice of a 51 rear. The parcours was, as usual, a lot harder than expected. Deeply underestimated. Camille had a few suprises hidden up his sleeve again. Steep climbs, more gravel than expected. A lot of rocks. I haven’t used my aero bars that much.

I expected Further to be… The website said it was going to be 600 kilometers road and 100 kilometers off-road. But I started to have a sinking feeling about that. So I went for something different. This spring, I told Thomas maybe it would work on the Roubaix or the Aethos.

Very happy that I decided for the STR with 12 speed, which allowed me to go up all the little steep climbs.