Working with cycling media and events enterprise to film a cycling documentary during one of the world's most challenging gravel races.

The Client

Our Colombia production company’s client for this project was 'Live Slow, Ride Fast (LSRF),' a lifestyle cycling brand from Holland founded by Laurens ten Dam and Stefan Bolt. LSRF started as an experiment when Stefan interviewed Laurens live at a business event. It's since grown into a collaborative project encompassing podcasts, merchandise, documentaries, gravel cycling events, and even specialty coffee projects. 

The Project and Deliverables

LSRF traveled to Colombia to produce the 37-minute documentary film "UNA CHIMBA. Our deliverables for this project were 20 hours of RAW footage filmed by our two videographers throughout an eight-day bikepacking race in the Colombian Andes. 

The Setting

The setting for this documentary was the gravel roads crisscrossing the Colombian Andes during the epic Transcordilleras bikepacking race in February 2022. Transcordilleras translates as "across the mountain chains," and that's exactly what the race entails: 1,100 km in eight days, crossing all three ranges of the Colombian Andes. The total climbing across the eight stages adds up to 25,000 m. 

The race celebrated its first edition in February 2021. This third edition began in the city of Yopal, where the vast grassland plains of Orinoquia start to rise into the foothills of the Eastern Colombian Andes. It ended in the colonial town of Santa Fe de Antioquia in the Western Andes. It's a beautiful, brutal, and perhaps one of earth's hardest gravel bikepacking races.

The Protagonists

The protagonists for this documentary were Laurens ten Dam and Peter Stetina. Laurens is one of the founders of LSRF. He's a former professional road racing cyclist and current gravel racer. He's had some notable results throughout his career, including a Top 10 finish in the 2014 Tour de France. 

Peter Stetina is an American cyclist who competes in gravel and endurance mountain bike races. Laurens and Peter describe themselves as 'frenemies' who enjoy an excellent personal and professional relationship but are highly competitive with one another in the saddle. One of the critical elements of this documentary is their rivalry on the mountainous roads of Colombia. 

The Shoot

We sent two videographers into the field with Laurens and Peter for the shoot: our Head of Video, Julian Manrique, and Videographer, Santiago Ospina. Julian competes in ultra-cycling bikepacking events and has years of experience filming cycling events worldwide. Santiago is also an avid cyclist and veteran of many extreme shoots for WhereNext, as far away as Antarctica.

Learn more about our Colombia-based Creative Studio + Film Production Company HERE.

The logistics of filming a multi-stage cycling event along some of Colombia's most challenging roads were complex. Both videographers followed the two riders on the back of motorbikes, working with trusted drivers with whom we have filmed many different cycling events. 

Their biggest challenge was to stay with the riders along many impassable roads. Since this was a competitive race, we couldn't repeat scenes and moments; there were no second takes, and Julian and Santiago had to capture every moment as it happened.

The Results

The LSRF team edited our footage in Holland to produce the 37-minute documentary film "UNA CHIMBA - a Colombian gravel documentary," which garnered over 130,000 views on YouTube in its first month. You can watch the documentary in its entirety at the top of this post.