• New World Disorder IV: Ride the Lightning
• £20
• Kona

Another year, another video – Ride the Lightning is the latest in the New World Disorder series, one of the best-known freeride vid series. Needless to say, everything in it is just a bit bigger than the last video you saw, but we were pleased to see quite a bit of variety in there.

There’s obviously no shortage of big cliff hucks (including a mighty 360 huck by Darren Berrecloth) but you’ve also got dirt jumping, street, trials, DH racing, North Shore and various other bits and bobs. It doesn’t feel too heavily biased towards any one thing, and we were quite pleased not to see any gimmicky Shore constructions – no hamster wheels or loop-the-loops, just ladder drops and skinnies. All the big names are there – Robbie Bourdon, Joe Schwartz, Timo Pritzel, John Cowan, Jeff Lenosky, Aaron Chase, Wade Simmons, Richie Schley and plenty more.

A couple of segments stick out as being something a bit special. There’s a load of footage of Cedric Gracia racing, freeriding and just larking about and it’s all spectacular. Timo Pritzel goes for a double backflip and of course there’s Dave Watson’s Tour de France peloton jump (complete with “behind the scenes” section on the DVD).

The camera work is uniformly excellent and the editing is tight – there’s a particularly tidy bit where a wire camera catches up to Richie Schley riding at Whistler Bike Park and seamlessly edits into helmet cam footage as if you’ve landed on his head. A couple of sections start to overstay their welcome – the massive Helltrack doubles are undeniably impressive but no matter how many angles we look at them from they’re still just the same two jumps – but overall there’s very little flab here. The soundtrack is the usual melange of rock and hip-hop – not necessarily to everyone’s taste but it fits the action.

The DVD has a bunch of extra features tucked away, featuring Brian Lopes, Kyle Ritchie, Gareth Dyer, Blaise Beckfjord and Race Face Ultimate Freeride Competition Winner Matt Hunter. You can get it at any Kona dealer…

Positives: Everything gets cranked up another notch, excellent camera work.

Negatives: Kind of the same stuff only more so

Verdict: It’s easy to get burned out on freeride vids, but stick this on on a manky, grey, wet day and you’ll feel your enthusiasm begin to build. Which can’t be bad.