Best MTN bike video of 2025? You choose!
🔥 For people who’d rather be outside! 🌲
This is your weekly dose of stoke — a fresh curation of big sends, gnarly lines, and the stories we’re reading to fuel our nature-adventure-outdoor fix.
Still wrapping our heads around the fact that Alex Honnold got paid half a million dollars to free-solo a skyscraper.
In this week’s edition: Pinkbike’s top mountain bike videos of 2025 (what a year), a long-forgotten line getting absolutely slayed on the Freeride World Tour, and — yes — that Cerro Chaltén BASE jump footage we teased last week is finally here.
But first, a word from Nico, checking in from winter climbing season in the Creek.
🚵 2025 Pinkbike video of the year nominees
Another year, another impossible shortlist. Pinkbike rounds up the most mind-bending, creative, and straight-up inspiring MTB films of 2025 — a reminder that riding culture is as much about storytelling as it is about big lines!
Huge respect to the filmmakers and athletes pushing the medium forward, frame by frame.
🔗 Dive in to the list that includes Brage Vestavik’s Trolldom and Tomami’s Nishikubo among the entries
🎿 Reviving a frightening line!
📍 Baqueira Beret, Spain
Aymar Navarro opened the door in 2023 — and only one rider has walked through it since. That rider is Toby Rafford who sent a massive triple cliff at the 2026 Freewide World Tour in Baqueira (Spain), navigating a forced direction change mid-line with a surprise ending to lock in second place and get Navarro’s praise!
Precision and confidence when consequences are stacked!
🏄 Deadmans — No tricks, just power
📍 Sydney, Australia
Deadmans isn’t about perfection. It’s a shallow reef, heavy water, and undeniable commitment. Among the chaos, there’s something pure about sliding down a face driven by raw ocean energy — just you, the drop, and the moment. No insane airs or fancy tricks, this cut is 4 minutes of turns and the power of the wave.
🎥 Witness the power here.
🪂 Cerro Chaltén — First flight
📍 Patagonia, Argentina
The wait is over! The first-ever BASE jump off Cerro Chaltén is finally here. Russian jumper Konstantin Jäämurd puts words to what draws people into these places: “Mountains unite humans and preserve love and beauty. That’s why we fly here.”
Unintended consequences follow — including unrecoverable gear — but history was made.
📸 Watch:
🧗 The Great Arch — lines that outlive us
📍 Orkney Islands, Scotland
Rising straight from the Atlantic, The Great Arch is one of the UK’s most iconic and elusive climbs. First attempted in the ’90s by Dave “Cubby” Cuthbertson and Lynn Hill, the line has haunted generations of Britain’s best.
This film follows Robbie Phillips as he attempts the second free ascent, weaving archival footage with modern effort — a meditation on history, legacy, and why certain lines never let go.
🎥 Watch:
⚡ Bonus News
🚲 Riding to remember. Bikepackers across the U.S. are organizing memorial rides to honor Alex Pretti, celebrating community, reflection, and the quiet power of moving together on bikes.
🎿 Epic Pass holders catch a break as Vail Resorts issues pro-rated refunds following the extended Stevens Pass closure. A rare customer win after weeks of frustration in the PNW.
🐆 Reality check in the wild. A skier in China’s Xinjiang region was injured in a rare snow leopard attack — a sobering reminder that true wilderness still plays by its own rules.
🪁 Forty kilometers from the finish. An Antarctic kite-skier broke her ribs and pelvis just shy of completing the South Pole expedition. Survival, stubbornness, and the brutal honesty of polar travel. ✍️ Check out their Expedition blog while you’re at it!
🏠 The highest point in Benin was once 658m Mont Sokbaro, but surveyors went and checked. Turns out, Kotopounga sits at 669m. Read how they figured it out.
🚑 Colorado’s backcountry got rowdy fast as freezing temps triggered multiple rescues, a reminder that winter margins are thin even for experienced parties. Cold snaps don’t care how dialed you feel.
📚 Long Reads
🌊 Explaining Surfing to Non-Surfers
What actually pulls people into cold dawn patrols, bad forecasts, and a lifetime of waiting? This piece translates surfing’s strange gravity for outsiders — not through technique, but through obsession, ritual, and the quiet emotional logic that keeps surfers paddling back out.❄️ A Finnish Ironwoman’s Guide to Icy Plunges
In Finland, cold-water immersion isn’t a trend — it’s culture. Guided by an endurance athlete who lives it year-round, this story explores icy swims as ritual, resilience, and a very Nordic relationship with discomfort.✍️ Rise of the Literary Outdoorswoman
Outdoor writing is changing — slower, sharper, more personal. This essay tracks the growing wave of women reshaping adventure storytelling, blending landscape, identity, and inner life in ways that feel less performative and more true.🏔️ Disaster at 18,200 Feet
A haunting reconstruction of a high-altitude tragedy where decisions stack up, weather closes in, and the mountain stops negotiating. This is less about heroics and more about how fast things unravel above the margin.🧗 Summit Day — Everest, Seen End to End
GoPro strips Everest of myth and compresses it into steady steps, sharp exposure, and long waits in the queue. Following an oxygen-supported climber on a successful summit day, the video captures patience, precision.
📚 Be part of it:
🌍 Suffering the FOMO?
(Pssst, this is where you should be right now! It’s Africa!)
🧗 Kenya Rock Trip — Dry Season is Prime
Kenya’s best outdoor climbing aligns with the dry months — roughly January through March and June through October — when rain is minimal and rock holds dry quickly. That makes now (late January) a great time to chase granite lines outside Nairobi and beyond.
📍 Lukenya Ridge (near Nairobi) — Kenya’s most popular crag, just ~45 min from the city. Gneiss walls offer slabs, vertical faces, and a mix of trad, sport, and boulder lines. Classic sectors like Baboon Cliff and Nemesis deliver everything from mellow 5a–5b to more challenging testpieces.
📍 Hell’s Gate National Park (Naivasha) — Roughly 1.5 hr from Nairobi, this Rift Valley playground blends climbing with safari vibes. Expect steep trad and multi-pitch routes on basalt columns and towers — a wild-day-out combo.
📍 Kaloleni — Hidden gems requiring a bit more hike and local beta. These multi-pitch trad crags offer solitude and classic routes if you’re ready to wander off the beaten path.
🥾 Trekking in the Mountains of the Moon
📍 Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda
A five-day hut trek in the Rwenzoris is less about covering distance and more about sinking into the landscape. The route threads upward from dense rainforest into bamboo corridors, then opens into high moorland where giant lobelias and groundsels tower over ankle-deep bogs. Boardwalks float across saturated valleys, mist rolls in without warning, and glaciers glint above the clouds — all while the equator runs quietly beneath your feet.
Each night is spent in simple mountain huts, drying socks, swapping stories, and listening to rain drum on tin roofs. Days are slow and immersive, shaped by mud, altitude, and the constant feeling that you’re moving through several worlds at once. There’s no rush to tag summits here — the reward is the accumulation of atmosphere, the rhythm of walking, and the sense of disappearing into one of Africa’s most surreal and underrated ranges.
Check it out!
💥 Stay Stoked. Stay Wild. See you on the next line.
❤️🔥 Your StokedAF fam 🤘