Every year, the marketing team here at SCOTT is tasked with shooting a small (read: large) selection of our new products for the following year. Usually, we call this the catalogue shoot, and we do one for Road and one for MTB. When you look at a print ad, what you don’t see is what goes into it. Sometimes, they’re one-shot bangers, but often, there is a fair bit of blood, sweat and tears (of joy) that go into getting into a magazine or on an ad, and we thought it would be great to get you a look into that process.

In this Episode of “Chasing Trail,” We head to the mountain wonderland of Verbier, Switzerland. In the past, “Chasing Trail” has taken us to far-flung dream locations around the world, yet with the Global Pandemic in 2020, we had to start looking around in our hood. When you live and work in a country like Switzerland, it is easy to forget that we are in one of those far-flung, dream locations. Sometimes, the best trails are just around the corner.

With this in mind, we headed 90 minutes down the road to the Val de Bagnes to ride and shoot everything that Verbier has to offer.

Verbier is located, about a 2-hour drive from Geneva, in the southwestern region of the country in Canton Valais. Easily accessible by car or train, the mountain town that is known worldwide for its terrain in both winter and summer is just a stone’s throw from any major city in Switzerland.

On the mountain you’ll find a bike park with trails for beginners to experts, alongside many Enduro trails, hiking trails etc. It is a great destination for families and outdoor sports enthusiasts of all levels. With the Verbier VIP pass, you can benefit from over 100 outdoor activities in the area!

For more information on everything you can do in the great outdoors in Verbier, hit the button below.

The plan was to shoot around 20 bikes over 7 days, covering all our MTB and E-MTB segments. This means splitting the days into two blocks, sunrise, and sunset. With each bike, it is important for us to swap kits as well to create as many assets as possible. We would learn that this was an ambitious goal! Most days start at 3 or 3:30 AM with breakfast, then a shuttle up the mountain to (hopefully) get to our spot of choice for when the light hits. Then you shoot all morning, with a break in the afternoon for lunch, naps, and more planning. Then part two usually started around 16:00, get back in the car, up the mountain for sunset, and stay out until the headlamps come on to get back down the hill. 

Fortunately, we had dinner waiting for us every evening at our chalet for our late-night feasts. Snoring at the dinner table?

Not possible…

• DAY 1: Trail Bikes – Genius, Spark 900 
• DAY 2: Enduro Bikes, with a Sunset Trail Bike Shoot (yes we needed more.)
• DAY 3: Race time, XC bikes : Spark RC, Scale RC, Scale
• Day 4: Our Sport Line – Aspect, plus a switchover to the E-bike Crew!
• Day 5: Trail E-Bikes – Strike eRIDE, Genius eRIDE
• Day 6: E-Sport – the end of the shoot.

Here is a quick guide to photoshoots of this nature:

1. Things always take more time than planned. The Golden rule.
2. Be nice to your photographers and filmers, what they’re doing is much harder than what you’re doing.
3. Be nice to your athletes – read above.
4. Pack enough food and water. No one wants to deal with hungry athletes and/or content creators.
5. Make sure athletes know where to stop after a shot. Nothing like pushing back up the hill more than you must!
6. Get a guide. Many thanks to Matt Spragg at Alpine Roots MTB for solving our logistical issues!
7. Pray to the weather gods.
8. You don’t need as much sleep as you think! Until you do.
9. Ask yourself if the drone REALLY needs to come out to play.
10. Be happy the drone DID come out to play.

Many thanks to:

• Verbier Tourism
• The Creative Guys: Gaudenz Danuser, Kifcat, Markus Greber, Gaetan Rey
• The Tour Guide: Matt Spragg – Alpine Roots MTB
• Athletes: Joel Ducrot, Rudy Biederman, Melanie Texier, Antoine Boulard, Michelle Davies, Florence Kjelberg

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