Video | Riding a Drained lake in Britanny, France
Not all of us have seen something as momentous as the draining of 50 million m3 of water out of a lake in Brittany, France, but if you ever do, take the initiative to do something like this. It makes for the gnarliest, yet spookiest video ever. Here’s the report from NOZ Racing:
When we hard about the draining of the lake, we don’t think twice and asked our best friend; Google, to search some pictures of the previous draining in 1985. We quickly found what we were looking for and even though the photo’s weren’t in high quality, we detected that something good could be produced there with a lunar landscape, lock and houses absolutely destroyed from corrosion. It was decided from that moment forward that come spring time, we would shoot in the drained lake!
The event began in march, and the water level slowly started to depreciate. The heard was reported everywhere; in the local newspaper, local television and even on some national channels! 4 million tourists in 6 months were expected to discover this unusual landscape. This was the first of many big issues we’d counter… we didn’t know how to film a MTB video with so many people in the background. However, the brainwave came to us during a “mussel riding” event.
By the way, “mussel riding” is a traditional ride where a bunch of crazy riders starts from the Rvélo shop, a partner of our Team Endur’Breizh, to ride along the sea edge as quickly as possible in order to make a stop in a restaurant where we can drink some beers and enjoy local food like mussels!
After the belly-filling stop, the night falls and we jump back on the bikes, headlamps beaming down the road and we make our way back to the shop. As you can imagine, no-one enjoys cycling with a stomach full of mussels, so this part isn’t so much fun.
Monday 25th May: Location scouting took place to determine whether we could ride it.
When we saw the drained lake for the first time, it was very disconcerting. Unlike Britanny, everything was grey with dead trees and crackled ground.
The spot’s inspection went very well despite a huge number of tourists. We noticed some places where it could be interesting to shoot and other ones where we don’t have to ride because you could be easily wedge in the sludge. We left from Guerledan with a smile from ear to ear and scheduled the shooting for the next weekend.
Friday: D-Day.
It poured down all day, so it was safe to say the weather wasn’t what we hoped for. Strangely enough though, when we arrived at 21:00, the spot we decided to shoot at was bone dry, so we made a quick last inspection before nightfall and managed to organize everything for the shoot.
23:00: Gaël, our Patissier/photographer friend joins us. The deep night is here, we can start.
The downhill to the lake is pretty steep, and equally as frightening when equipped with just a headlamp used to go from tent to toilet when camping. Meanwhile, the riders, Estelle and Clement, ride their bikes, emitting daylight-like beams from their Hope lights.
It took us a matter of minutes to reach the first shooting spot, which annoyingly took a while due to the obvious lack of light. After a continuous battle with the eluding light on offer, we found the perfect set up which allowed us to shoot until 03:30, when we decided to take a nap.
At 05:15, the alarm clock rang and we were absolutely frozen. The temperature fell dramatically and we posed the question, “who knew it could be so bloody cold at the bottom of a lake?!” – Thick base layers quickly ensued. We ate some croissants and continued to shoot as we couldn’t afford to waste our time complaining as the sun was fast approaching. We were able to film until 08:30.
Luckily, we didn’t have any mechanical issues or injuries, so everything went just as smoothly as we set out for it to be.
For more info, visit their Facebook page: endurbreizhteam
Words & Photos: NOZ Riding
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