• ES2 Fully Loaded
• £19.99 (DVD)
• Chilli Video

We haven’t seen the first film from Marc Landry, but as the name suggests ES2 is his second. The cover blurb says that Fully Loaded “is dedicated to long summer weekends and epic road trips”, and most of the action is centred on Canada and the north-west US, with a few Euro segments thrown into the mix.

While the big-budget franchises like Kranked and NWD spend lots of time and money on out-of-the-way locations and helicopters, lower-key vids like ES2 tend to concentrate on events and more accessible venues. It never feels like the result of budgetary constraints, though, and there’s no shortage of innovation here.

The opening Ryan Leech street segment illustrates the point perfectly. He’s not riding anywhere spectacular (although Ottawa looks like a perfectly agreeable city) but there’s some lovely editing, tricksy camera effects and split-screen stuff that really make the most of the material. Plenty of effort has gone into actually editing the footage to the soundtrack (pleasantly varied, although “varied” in bike videos means hip-hop, metal and punk).

There’s some great DH race footage that manages to make the courses (Bromont, Mt Tremblant, Mt Ste Anne, Grouse Mountain) look as proper gnarly as they are. The Mt Ste Anne footage is from the 2003 World Cup round, as won by Steve Peat – Greg Minnaar talks you through the course.

Then you’ve got a load of street stuff, including some scary Annecy riding with French street loon Julien Neunier and a couple of comps – the Superfest Street Comp and the better-known Boston Bike Battle. The latter includes some very winceworthy stacks including one chap who executes a flawless chestplant to Tarmac from a not-inconsiderable height.

With 70 minutes of stuff, ES2 represents pretty good value – there’s not much filler here. It might not be in the premier league of MTB flicks, but it’s well put together, very watchable and doesn’t outstay its welcome.

Positives: Good mix of riding, from street to World Cup DH; good editing adds value.

Negatives: Doesn’t blow you away with incredible bigness.

Verdict: There’s plenty of great riding in ES2, and you get quite a lot for your money. And you do a get a bit of a roadtrip feel, mixing spectating at big events with bits of street, dirt and freeriding in between. We like.