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Shot from Wednesday's session at DarkFEST 2019
NEWS

DarkFEST 2019 is a GO! Week 3 - First Laps

Feb 062019

Minds blown and jaws dropped as the first top to bottom runs went down on the new and improved DarkFEST course. The all-time freeride wrecking crew have safely arrived in South Africa and things are already getting heavy out there!
 
As you may have seen on social media, Sam Reynolds is unfortunately sidelined this year with a broken wrist, that's the harsh reality when building and testing jumps of this size. Sam however being the absolute legend he is, has been really positive about the set back and is still having a blast hosting the boys in South African paradise. - "I'm absolutely devastated to say that I won't be able to ride DarkFEST this year. Broke my wrist pretty bad and had a pretty complicated surgery which went really well. Can't wait to watch the boys send it from the sidelines though and I'm so motivated to get it back strong enough to ride this line again one day!" 
 
 

From testing the course to all the new athlete arrivals, check out the third and final weekly FEST Series video as our main source on the ground at DBNC News get the full scoop from the boys during the first course walks and "warm up" sessions on the mega step up!

Shortly after the wild session, we decided to get a few words from some of our notorious freeride chargers on their thoughts on the first few laps along with some banger snaps from the first few sessions on the greatest line of all time.

 

Scroll down for that...

Shots from Thursday session at DarkFEST 2019 in South Africa
PHOTO BY Syo van Vliet
No look backflip from one of the best to ever do it. Graham "Aggy" Agassiz is always a favorite in the DarkFEST posse and he's stoked to be out in South Africa once again to rip with the boys.

Graham "Aggy" Agassiz - "I'm finally back in SA, it's been a long minute. It's currently snowed under at home and for me it's the first I've been on the bike this year, so it's definitely quite a crazy one to jump right into. It's so good to be back though, I love it out here. The first day or so I was just battling a bit of jet lag but I'm feeling good now and just been ticking things off 1 by 1 on the course. Everyone's shredding hard and the course feels absolutely amazing. Plus everything looks even bigger in real life. It's unreal."

Shots from DarkFEST in Stellenbosch, South Africa
PHOTO BY Eric Palmer
Mr Ride Loco himself is looking forward to a full week of sending! Adolf Silva always delivers the bangers.

Adolf Silva: "The testing went really well, the speed is unreal though. So that takes a bit of getting used to, I don't know if I'll ever get used to it. I did my first top to bottom run today and I can't wait to do more! Haha, I had a really close call this morning were I was super close to Nicholi mid train on the last jump and ended up jumping the last jump as a hip, somehow it worked out!"

Shots from DarkFEST, South Africa.
PHOTO BY Grant Mclachlan
E-boy aka Ethan Nell floats one of his signature 3's on the mega step up. We could watch him do these all day!

Ethan Nell: "DarkFEST is my favorite event of the year, I'm so pumped to be back. Other than battling a bit of wind, we've had some real good sessions on the mega step up the first few days, I honestly didn't think it was possible for the c to ride any better than last year, but Sam, Clemens and Nico managed to one up themselves once again. Everything is just popping us way higher!"

Shots from DarkFEST in Stellenbosch, South Africa
Shots from DarkFEST in Stellenbosch, South Africa
Shots from Thursday session at DarkFEST 2019 in South Africa

Now that the line has been opened up for business, we can only expect things to heat up even more as the boys confidence grows while riding these sculpted giants.

 

Stay tuned on Monster Energy socials for exclusive banger riding clips and behind the scenes stories all week, live from the ground in South Africa.

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