Of LA, Hollywood and Mountain Bikes

"Woman Behind Tree" is me. 

Driving on the 101 through downtown towards Hollywood for a commercial shoot was one of the more surreal experiences I've had since relocating to SoCal.

But there I was. 

French bicycle brand B'TWIN, a sub brand of Decathlon, had flown in stylists, agents and photographers to team up with LA producers, directors and all the other members of the small army it takes to orchestrate a commercial shoot. 

As an outsider to the production biz, it was striking to see just how much time/planning/organizing, how many people and the number of vehicles it takes to produce just 45 sec of footage. 

But the 45 sec planned were pretty great. I was very excited to be part of what I felt was some top-notch creative. In the spot, we'll follow our hero, Matthew (actually, we called him Max because we had two Matthews and it was just getting too confusing) as he counts down from 10 and the five other riders take off to play hide and seek. 

Each rider had a different, interesting place to hide and poor Max/Matthew had to do many hill repeats and intervals for the umpteen takes it took to not find any of us. My character was hiding behind a tree. Another was hanging under a pier. A third was under water, and so on. Final shot, we jump out from behind him, have a laugh and ride off into the sunset. 

We shot day one at Tejon Ranch northeast of LA (a HUGE expanse of open space covered in oaks, only open to filmers ... wow, so Hollywood!) and day two at Bonelli Park (a place I'll be revisiting very soon for US Cup #2). Day one was literally freezing and my wardrobe was literally booty shorts. That was a hard day to pretend to be an actress. Day two was thankfully much warmer and Bonelli (and Tejon) was beautiful so all in all, not bad work if you can get it. 

I can't wait to find see how it turned out! 

PS - my favourite part is that I got a reprieve from having to wear the booty shorts thanks to ... you'll never guess ... my tan lines! Thank you cycling, my old friend ... you've saved my ass more times than I can count.

On Location, Day 1 (34 degrees F)

On Location Day 2 - All quiet at Bonelli Park

Cast mates [the other] Matthew, Sean and I watch the grips figure out the "Woman Hiding Under Pier" shot

Taylor hiding like a champ while the production army watches