I’m Hâf Land, and I ride for Starling. I joined the family just over a year ago as a racer, and for 2025 I’m mixing this up a bit. Rather than competing, I’m going to focus on some adventures – big rides, fun stuff, making some content. I’m excited!
To get started, Fleur and I caught up for a local adventure in North Wales. She’s a fellow Starling rider and one you’ve probably seen her here in this video.
We met up with filmmaker Sam Dugon and also Sophie Skelton, who was capturing the day in pictures. The plan was to head out for the day and explore some of my local trails around Llanberis, in North Wales. I moved back here from Scotland a little while ago and have been really loving getting to know the place again, and wanted to show Fleur round.
It was the perfect opportunity to shoot a video.
We met bright and early (10am!) and everyone was just super friendly. We all just got on great from the word go, which was a great start.
We started off at a café to grab some coffee from a lovely yellow shop on the high street that matched Fleur’s bike! No coffee for me though – I’m Gen Z, so I don’t need it, according to Fleur, who is a Millennial and drinks a flat white.
We set off up the hill with big smiles on our faces and butterflies in my tummy because I didn’t want anything to go wrong!
We had an amazing time shooting this little project, and it was so great to have an all-female creative team—so much stoke!
Sam was incredible and so well-organised with her filming, making the day stress-free and fun for all of us. Sophie recently moved up to Mid Wales and came along to take photos as she is developing different skills and techniques to use in her photography. Seeing her and Sam bouncing ideas off one another was so cool. Fleur is always absolutely awesome and drove all the way from Scotland that same morning just to see me!
We filmed the day over four separate tracks and did a lot of pushing up through brash, which was less fun. But we ended up with some awesome footage and newfound inspiration for riding again.
2024 was a funny one for me, I started out racing really well, but had a bad-luck accident where I dropped a bike on my head and struggled with a concussion for months. I found it hard to be excited or inspired about riding for so long – but this adventure really brought back my love for riding.
I had the best day and felt so at ease in the company of these three amazing women.
As I’m sure we will see in the video, Fleur and I had a few tumbles! It was mostly on the same section of track, straight into the bushes! By some power of the universe, despite the high ratio of crashing to not crashing, Fleur, myself, and our bikes came out unscathed, bar a few scratches and a lot of laughter! No broken brake levers, PHEW!
The trails in the area, although not many in number, rate very highly in my books. With some amazing craftsmanship on display, it’s clear that a lot of time and effort has gone into these tracks, and we were so grateful to be given permission to film there. The scenery was incredible, and we got so incredibly lucky with the weather—it was dreamy!
After a long day of filming and dilly-dallying, we were so ready for another café break before calling it a day. We headed to an amazing local spot at the end of the lake, which I had been hyping up all day. We were all so ready for some nice hot food and drove there, only to find out it was closed… DEVASTATING.
By this point, we were hanging. We were out of snacks and just about keeping our eyes open. We called it quits and headed back to the café we had visited in the morning. We had something to drink and some cake (as all the hot food had sold out), then made our way back to the car park. After a long day of grafting, with three out of four of us having long drives back to various parts of the UK, we called it a day and headed home.
And what a day it was! I’m super grateful to have been given this opportunity. I hope you all enjoy watching it! Expect to see more of this soon!
CREDITS:
Haf rides a Starling Mega Twist. You can follow her on Insta here.
Fleur rides a Starling Swoop. She’s retired from social, but you can watch a video with her here.
Filmer Sam is on insta here, and Sophie is here.
