Grand Opening Film | Middleton Bike Park

Here's the thing about a pump track. It's a sculpted dirt loop where riders hold speed by pumping the terrain instead of pedaling, and if you've never ridden one, a photo of it looks like a pile of dirt. The whole appeal is shape and flow, and neither of those survives in a still image. So drone did the explaining. Following a rider through one lap from above shows you the geometry and why it works in about four seconds, with nobody having to describe anything. The rest was the crowd. Middleton's biking community turned out hard for this and the energy was as much the story as the track. We wrote, directed, shot, and cut the whole thing, and the hardest part was staying out of the way of kids on bikes.

Middleton is a city just west of Madison, Wisconsin, with a well-used parks system and a real outdoor streak. The Middleton Bike Park is a city facility, and the pump track is its newest addition.