• Earthed
• £16.99 (DVD); £12.99 (VHS)
• 4130

Earthed is the “first Dirt Magazine video” and is the work of Sprung’s Alex Rankin. We’re not sure what’s happening with Sprung these days, but if you’re imagining what a Dirt video made by Sprung would be like you’re probably not far off the mark.

The action is hung around the 2003 World Cup season, with other segments being slotted in between. The race theme continues through the non-race bits, though, as the riders featured are all racers rather than the freeriders who populate most videos. So you get Dan and Gee Atherton on their backyard training course and in Whistler, the Iron Horse team practising in Bromont and so on. It’s quite a welcome change and there’s a lot more actual riding in contact with the ground going on, which actually serves to make the aerial action that bit more impressive. Not that wheels-on-the-ground isn’t impressive – there’s plenty of gobsmackingly good stuff in here. Hucks are all well and good, but we never stop being amazed by 40mph feet-up two wheel drifts on loose corners and manuals down half of a World Cup 4X course…

Raceheads will love the race footage, giving you the opportunity to see a bunch of different riders on the same bits of course and opening up all sorts of freeze-frame analysis possibilities if you’re that way inclined. There’s a neat recurrent touch of running footage of the lower reaches of the field to demonstrate how tough the course is before cutting to the top guys making it look easy. Although in the case of Kaprun, no-one makes it look easy.

This being a Dirt product, there is of course a dash of BMX action chucked into the mix. We don’t have a problem with that and if you do, well, the track skip button’s always there. The soundtrack is an inspired mixture of obscure hip-hop and classic rock, with only the barest minimum of skatethrashpunkmetal (do we sound old yet?)

Running time is an hour, with 30 minutes of other assorted stuff on the DVD edition. It’s pretty long as MTB vids go, although there’s not as much flab as some shorter ones. Go figure…

Positives: Makes you want to ride, Keeps It Real™

Negatives: Possibly doesn’t need to be quite as long

Verdict: If you’re at all interested in downhill racing, you should have this vid. And if you’re looking for a bit of light relief from endless cliff-hucking footage then it’s well worth a look too…