The riding in Gee Atherton’s Windfell video is predictably wild. Narrow woodwork, blind landings, exposed gaps and zero room for mistakes, all set deep in the Dyfi forest. But the original edit revealed none of the much physical labour required to build the trail.
It’s no secret that Gee Atheron is a beast of a human. But the new behind-the-scenes video reveals the work before the riding. And it tells a different story. Less about speed and spectacle, more about chainsaws, winches, broken plans and weeks of slow progress.
Built from strom wreckage
Windfell was became possible after Storm Darragh tore through Dyfi Bike Park in late 2024. It flattened large sections of forest leaving behind a tangled mess of snapped trees, pinned branches and unstable ground. AKA trail building material.
The video shows repeated trips hauling huge beams up steep ground, lashed to an overworked quad. Progress is slow and exhausting. Every usable piece of wood comes at a cost.
Chainsaws, winches and learning on the fly
There is a moment in the edit where someone asks Gee how his “transition into carpentry” is going. His answer says a lot.
“I’m not even sure what you call it. Carpentry. Arborist. Swinging around in trees with a chainsaw. Tarzan probably,” he says.
That line sums up much of the build. The crew is clearly skilleds. Active design.
“We’ve basically just got ourselves into a situation where we’re not really sure what we’re doing. But we know what we want to try and achieve,” Gee says. “So we’re just chipping away at it.”
That approach becomes especially clear when the team tries to move one enormous fallen tree more than two kilometres to form the start ramp. The log is so heavy that even two machines struggle to move it.
Slow progress, then sudden leaps forward
One of the more relatable parts of the edit is how uneven progress feels. Weeks go by with little visible change. Then, suddenly, everything clicks.
“I think these last couple of weeks is probably the biggest jump in progress we’ve had in ages,” Gee says. “For a long time, it felt like we were just chipping away at tiny bits of it.”
What was once storm wreckage is now a rideable section, almost ready to test.
Riding is still the “easy” part
The irony running through the video is that once the trail is finished, the riding almost feels secondary. The work has already taken its toll.
By the time Gee drops in, there is laughter, disbelief and a sense of…
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