Here’s the rough process that goes into making our downhill World Cup and Championships yearbook, Hurly Burly, based on our 2019 experience:
- May: Production team gets together, looks back at last year’s DH book and decides what’s going to change for the new book, amidst a constant flow of cake
- July: Chris, Ben, James and Morgane head to Les Gets DH World Cup, meet up with photographers Sven, Boris and Seb (find them in various bushes, waiting to take the best shots of the race) and some of the book’s contributors. Ben and Chris succumb to Les Gets party fever
- August: James, Ben and Victor meet up at Misspent Summers HQ in the Alps for initial photos selections, production planning, tea-drinking, badminton, cake eating, trials bike riding
- September: Victor, James and Ben head to Eurobike to show off the 2018 book to the industry while camping in a damp car park that some drunk guys let them in by wrenching the barrier open
- September, part 2: James and Ben meet in Finale Ligure, eat lots of pesto and pasta, follow the Trophy of Nations enduro race and spend many days going through the season’s photos (which Ben and Victor have already selected down from an initial 15,000+), arranging them into order per round and sending PDFs to Chris to start rough designing
- October: James, Ben, Victor, John Parkin, Andy Lloyd head to Chris and Harriet’s office in Monmouth, Wales, for a week of final photo placing, design, image captioning, pubs, cafés, cake, visits from Mike Rose and more cake
- October, part 2: Team works remotely on the downhill book, going through race rounds, features, results etc. from the World Cups and Champs and making sure there aren’t too many errors (there will still be plenty, that’s the beauty of print, innit?). Various snacks consumed
- October, part 3: Enormous amount of money paid to the printer in West Wales, the book goes to print, Hurly Burly is on-sale for pre-order by our newsletter subscribers
- November: Hurly Burly downhill book 2019 goes on-sale and starts shipping! Celebratory cakes are eaten
