Fresh Cuts Finale - End of Programme Exhibition

First up was Aimi Kenyon, who introduced her film Urban Delights. A fun campaign to bring attention to the number and quality of urban trails and pump tracks across Scotland. In Scotland we have over 50, the second highest number of pump tracks of any country in Europe, and when combined with urban trails we have fantastic range of facilities to get people riding close to home.

She delivered a delivered a beautiful film, full of heart warming moments and awesome riding that really showcased that pump tracks can be for anyone, anytime and for any bike!

Part of her film focussed on the Cathkin Braes pump track and the work of the Castlemilk Youth Complex and we were delighted to be joined on the night by many of the young people who starred in the film. It was heart warming to see the joy and pride in their faces as they saw themselves riding and speaking on the big screen.

Next up was Ross La Trobe who was tasked with creating a film to spotlight the unique work packages and broad ranging work that DMBinS does in the Scottish Borders to improve the MTB Ecosystem: covering the key elements of Trails, Events, Business-Community-Education.

Named 'The Local Loop', Ross's skills, creativity and clear flair for comedy ensured that what potentially could have been a dry watch was full of incredible effects, awesome riding, great people and businesses and really showcased the good work that our Marc and Ed are doing in the Borders, highlighting just what it takes to create a world class mountain biking eco system.

We were delighted to be joined by a lot of Ross's friends who starred in the film, and it was clear that they all loved seeing the end product and how Ross crafted over 19 hours of content into 8:20 minutes of good times.

Sean's film was created to support some of the learnings from the UK Trail Project initial report. Where following consultation with mountain bikers and land managers across the UK, the UK Trail Project found many places where mountain biking exists in harmony with nature and other users of the shared land.

To help trail access and development, we wanted to spread the learning points from these sites to other riders across the riding community with good messages around 'doing the right thing'.

'Do Yer Bit' is a short film highlighting good practices to riders, with great riding, an appreciation of nature and a key performance by members of Tayside Trail Association!

Murdo was up next to introduce his film 'One Year to Go!' which will be released to coincide with a year to go until the 2026 Commonwealth Games. Murdo is already a talented photographer and his skills in producing this short documentary, looking back to the 2014 Games and looking forward to the incoming 2026 Games were on display as the film took us for a nostalgic look back by some of Scotland's best track athletes.

We were delighted to be joined on the night by Olympic medalist, Katie Archibald who appears in this celebratory film.

Aberdeenshire is Calling- A film by Calum McBain, was up next with Calum introducing us to his work in typical Aberdonian fashion, with humour, sarcasm and the McBainer wit.

This exciting film shot in POV, showcased some of the many adventures and experiences to be found across Aberdeenshire taking in a selection of the unique and diverse landscapes, riding opportunities and communities that make it Scotland’s MTB Destination of the Year.

We know that this is going to be a huge hit and meet the brief by encouraging many more trips and vacations to be booked to the Shire.

Ben Davies next introduced his film 'Changing Gears' a film about Mountain Bike Leadership. He was tasked to come up with an aspirational, inspirational and inclusive campaign to encourage more people into mountain bike leadership.

He certainly did that! Ben delivered a delightful 13 minute film with a calming pace that wound its way through the glorious Cairngorms, with insights and thoughts from the main character Lizzie. Featuring stunning landscapes, demons and a horse, alongside words of wisdom from mountain bike legends and guides such as Aneela McKenna (Mor Diversity), Emma Holgate (Glenmore Lodge) and Neil Russell (Adaptive Riders Collective), this film was an amazingly clever and insightful way to encourage folks to think about choosing an MTB leadership pathway.

Innes Graham is already well known for his exceptional photography, but his was something different for him. We asked him to deliver a film that would be the anchor of a campaign to encourage experienced mountain bikers to travel to Scotland during the winter to enjoy the challenges and adventure of riding during the winter months.

He delivered a film which not only showcased the beauty of riding in Scotland in the winter, but cleverly included the narrative of our inner thoughts of the journey from 'this is SO not worth it' to the post ride 'that was SO worth it' when you embrace winter riding for whatever your reasons. His was the pure joy of photographing and filming the outdoors.

We cant wait to be able to share this film to encourage and inspire folks to embrace the sense of wildness and the challenges that riding bikes in Scotland in winter brings.

It's no coincidence that we advocate for and strive to get programmes like these off the ground. Yes, the benefits to the paid trainees involved are clear to see and (we hope) have the potential to be life changing, but on a strategic level, programmes like Fresh Cuts can have a greater impact.

We are responsible for overseeing the Scottish Mountain Bike Strategy 2023-2025 ( MTB Strategy) and delivering many of the actions within it.

This programme is just one of the many areas of our work that helps Scotland achieve its strategic aim for Scotland to be recognised as the ‘European Leader in Mountain Biking’, as detailed in the MTB strategy. The growth of Scottish MTB media companies and the increased level of promotion emanating from Scotland will help reach the aim that Scotland’s MTB economy will be worth £258m GVA per annum by 2025.

From a tourism and screen tourism perspective, the MTB strategy recognises that after the success of the 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships, global eyes will remain on Scotland. It is important that we continue to inspire and work to promote Scotland as the best place in the world to visit and ride.

This programme will support this aim by developing the skills required to produce compelling, authentic and creative content that we will use to showcase the amazing and accessible mountain biking infrastructure that Scottish people and visitors to Scotland can access.