At home on his local trails, YT Industries teamed up with Reverse Components for a spot of Rut Bashin’ with Josh Lowe.
Arguably one of the most dynamic, bullet-fast and steezy riders to recently emerge from the UK riding scene, YT MOB rider, Josh Lowe is no stranger to big hits, bigger sends, and getting rowdy on home turf. You’d never know this master of disguise lives a double life; corporate businessman by day, MTB renegade by night, weekends, and just about every other waking hour.
Earlier this year, Josh carved out some time for a day of Rut Bashin’ in the prime loam of his local trails. This collaborative video project showcases the very best, not entirely legal, trails and features that allow Josh hit full-send. Before we kick off with some behind-the-scenes gold, get a load of the full edit below.
Josh, such a sick edit! Can you talk us through the video project and how it came to be?
This project is a collaboration between my two biggest sponsors, YT Industries and Reverse Components. I’ve done video projects with them both separately but never together, so it was really cool to do this one. Both brands approached me and asked who I wanted to work with, and Tommy C is someone I’ve looked up to for a long time in terms of video content, leaning more towards the skate and snowboard type of production, which I really like. Rut Bashin’ demonstrates what riding is like at home and what I get up to at the weekend with my mates.
With so many sick features and sends in Rut Bashin’, do you have a particular favourite?
That hip! These are my local trails, so it’s a combination of tracks. I’ve ridden past this gully for years and years and always wanted to build a feature in there, almost like a half-pipe – and we finally got a chance to do this for the edit. We weren’t technically allowed to do this, so we dug it in the early morning, rode it and then knocked it down and covered it all up straight after.
What were the most challenging aspects of doing this video project?
The hardest bit was riding the last feature, rolling off that drop and down that chute. No one had done it before, and I didn’t know what it was like. When you drop in, it’s about a bike length before you go off the next drop. So I didn’t know if it was too hard or so soft that you’d actually tip over and go over the bars, which would have been catastrophic. So that was the gnarliest thing and pretty nerve-wracking.
As a seasoned invitee to the iconic Red Bull Hardline event, Josh Lowe’s preparation is underway for this year’s installment in July.
After suffering a shoulder injury during practice last year, how’s the physical preparation going, and what are you doing to get Hardline-ready?
Last year I had a silly crash where I just clipped a tree with my little finger, but it was enough to put me off-line, and I fell before going off a drop. I ended up tearing ligaments in my shoulder. It took quite a while to build my shoulder back up because ligaments don’t really grow back, so I have to build all the shoulder muscles around it. I spend a lot of time in the gym and working with Jonny from Fit 4 Racing to make sure that’s all strong, and it’s feeling really good now. I just need to get back between the tapes and get used to racing again and being in that environment.
Red Bull Hardline is so much fun, just riding with your mates and riding huge features where you have big sessions on the jumps. Then all of a sudden, it comes to Saturday and Sunday, and you have to be in full-on race mode, so it’s a weird week. Getting a few races under my belt will definitely help, and other than that, just making sure I’m riding some big features in the run-up to Hardline. Overall though, I’m feeling pretty good and, honestly, just really looking forward to riding that track again. It’s not often you get to ride 100ft jumps and big drops and hang around with some pretty cool people. It’s good that it’s earlier on in the year, too, so you don’t have to wait around until September.
Apart from Red Bull Hardline, what else do you have planned for 2023?
I work full-time in the city and ride for YT, so it’s always been a goal to manage both simultaneously and to a high level. In terms of biking, the front and centre is Red Bull Hardline; I’d like to be well up there, ideally in the top 10, and maybe push on further, but the key thing is to have fun and see what happens. Apart from that, I’d like to be out at Crankworx doing these new styles of races where it’s a combination of not just pure downhill but it’s downhill with fun jumps, whip-offs and that style of riding. Other than that, just do some cool projects with YT and Reverse, and push out some cool content.
