The classic 2004 mountain bike film The Collective has landed on YouTube in its entirety. Reminisce if you were there first time around. Look and learn if you weren’t.

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It’s easy to smirk and deride aspects of this video. Namely the baggy ‘fashion’, the quaint 4:3 aspect ratio, the now-crazy-looking dink burly bikes with smaller wheels and skinny-looking tyres and the rather po-faced tone of the flick… but The Collective still stands as a great bit of filmmaking from people who took pride in their work.

A 42 minute slow-paced, almost meandering video wouldn’t see the light of day in this current age of social edits and smash-and-grab bangerz.

If you want another taste of the early noughties then pop over to The Collective’s webpage that doesn’t appear to have changed in more than a decade. Check out the perma-rotation background muzak and Flash that you can’t turn off(!)

Video description

EchoBoom Sports by The Orchard: “The Collective is a film that portrays freeride progression while exploring the thoughts and personalities of the riders leading that progression. A collective approach to producing the film has created something that fully reflects the depth of the sport and those who are pushing its boundaries.”