PERSEVERANCE
All dreams have a beginning and Paul’s
ambitions to push BMX dirt to a whole
new level came while riding ‘the Patch’
dirt trails on the other side of the valley
from his record-setting set-up. At the
time he was jaded with the contest
scene and was eager to bring an
element of fun back into the game.
“I was keen to just send it like I used
to when I was younger when I’d just
take a spade into the hills and build a
jump,” Langers explains. “I looked over
from ‘the Patch’ one day and thought
the terrain on the sheep farm looked
pretty sweet. I hit up the farmer and he
was all good with it, so we scoped it
out, found the perfect spot and started
digging the next day.
“I didn’t go into this with the intention
of beating Dane (Searls) or Jed
(Mildon). Those boys are my good
mates, y’know? What Dane did with
the Giants of Dirt looked fun as,
and I wanted to see what that buzz
was about, but more than anything I
wanted to progress myself.”
shovel and continued rolling in the
run-up with a hand-made roller made
out of a street motorcycle tyre filled
with cement.
“I can’t even count how many times
I’ve dragged that thing back and
forward,” he laughs. “It even threw me
a couple times when it’d roll back on
me at speed. But that’s what’s made
this roll-in so good now; it’s perfectly
hard and fast now.”
Four weeks later, just after Christmas,
Langlands geared up and rolled in
again, but was completely in the dark
as to how the lip would throw him. The
first jump sent him nose high and he
crashed on landing, blowing his tyre
out with the impact.
But Langers had tunnel vision and he
quickly repaired the tube and returned
to the top of the roll-in.
“I didn’t have nowhere near enough
speed on that next jump,” Paul
recounts, shaking his head. “I knew
I was too slow but I tucked in and
Langlands turned the first piece of soil
in April 2014 and put in some big hours
on the initial jump before the overseas
contest season called. After competing
in both Europe and the US (including
Anthony Napolitan’s Dreamline
Invitational) for several months, he
got straight back into shaping his big
hit, spending eight hours a day on the
shovel and roller.
“There were days I’d go up there and
hit a wall and wonder what the hell I
was doing,” he admits. “It’s not like
there’s a manual on how to build jumps
like this, and sometimes you’d build for
six hours, then realise it was all wrong
and you’d have to tear it right back and
start again.
“My problem right from the start was
that I was impatient and tried to take
shortcuts. Some laziness crept in after
digging for so long and I’d think ‘yeah,
that’ll do’ when I should’ve kept going
to the point that it was perfect.”
Those shortcuts definitely caused
Langers some grief. In early December
the 26-year-old tried to test his jump
out, but cased the landing hard and
got sent through a pile of cow shit for
his troubles. With the jump obviously
not up to scratch, he got back on the
£ Langers gets to
work on some last
minute jump prep
just went for it. As soon as I left the
take-off I thought ‘shit I’m not going to
make it’. Instead of jumping off I chose
to go down with the ship and let the
bike take the impact. I blew the tyre
out again and bounced and cracked
my head real good, which freaked me
out. I’ve had a big head injury before
and after one it doesn’t take much of
a knock fo r it to happen again. I felt
dizzy, but I wasn’t injured and I was so
thankful. That was by far the biggest
hit I’ve ever taken and not being
injured from.”
While the hits would’ve caused most
people to get psyched out by the
jump, it only added fuel to Paul’s fire
and made him more keen than ever to
land and ride away.
“It pissed me off more than anything
and I needed to get it off my back. I’d
learnt from each jump what I’d done
wrong and if anything, crashing gave
me confidence because now I knew
what I needed to do to ride out.”