Riding The World’s Only Underground Black Trail Was TERRIFYING!

The Black Hole Trail is possibly the only black trail in the world that’s fully underground! Follow Rich Payne as he takes on this amazing epic privately guided trail in the Slovenian town of Mežica.

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🎵 Music – licensed by Epidemic Sound 🎵
White Light (Instrumental Version) – The Foundling
Two Moons – Christoffer Moe Ditlevsen
Unconscious Relation – This Other Space
The Great Journey – Dream Cave
The Plan – Wendy Marcini
Murmansk Underground – OTE
Limitless – LONELY.ROBOT
Machiavellian – Wendel Scherer
In the Tunnels – Ethan Sloan
Just A Little Spark (Instrumental Version) – Sven Karlsson
Headlights (Instrumental Version) – Sven Karlsson
Are You Ready – Philip Ayers
Distant Signals – Ethan Sloan

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Oh my god. Get on. [Music] That’s wild. [Music] Yeah. [Applause] Oh, yes. Today I’m 500 m underground riding in an abandoned mine system. Oh my god. [Music] Where is this almost unbelievable sounding trail? It’s here in northern Slovenia in the Koska region close to the border with Austria. Before [Music] we ventured into the mine, Anna, our guide, took us into the museum to explain what lied ahead of us. A short drive to the entrance to the mine, followed by a 2.5k pedal to the beginning of the black hole trail. We ventured down the trail for another 2 and 1/2k, followed by a 5 km pedal to get out. This scary looking black hole is the Majika mine entrance that we are going to be diving into untouched for sort of 25 years or so and not mine for even longer. So, thank you to Insta 360 today. I’ll be using their cameras to capture all the madness that’s going to be going on in there. [Music] Hey. Oh my god, that looks terrifying now. Tall people need not apply for this ride. What? Anna, our guide over Anna, how how tall is it in there? It’s sometimes 30 m, sometimes 1 and a half. Okay. I am above 1 and 1/2 m, so we’ll have to duck. Oh my god. All right. Well, let’s go. [Music] Oh my god. Here we go. It’s actually terrifying. Oh, look. It’s quite low. There’s loads of bugs. Oh my goodness me. This is insane. This is I’m not even at Wow. I may look like a haunted ghost right now, but this is I wish I everyone should come and check this out because this is I’m hardly into the mine at all. We’re not even at the actual black hole trail. If I turn the lights off, nothing. Split lane. Old mining equipment. And that’s where we’ve come from. Watch. Oh lord. So that’s it. We’re in now. Annie, we’re in. We’re locked in. That’s it. So only way is the way forward. Goodbye outside world. Absolute pitch black when the lights are off. Look. So how you doing boys? Good. Then welcome to the Alens Machita. And now I can easily say to our big adventure, the black hole trail. Today we start at level zero at 784 m of height. And we are going down to level uh six uh level four, sorry, which is at around 640 m of height, meaning we are doing 140 elevation. The lowest digging of the mine was at 267 meters of height. And the highest almost on top of Peter Mountain at 2,2 meters of height. But these higher up levels, they are not not counted as levels because they are not connected to the central area of the mine. Now imagine possible future. We go now and ride the black hole trail. We get to the bottom. We get to this elevator. We press a button. We put the bikes in. And we go one more run. We just need to find half a million worth in Western and then we build it. Okay, we can go back to the bikes. So boys, if we are ready, let’s hop on the bikes and start riding. Let’s go. [Music] Right, as I head on into the depths, today’s bike of choice is a trail bike. It’s my Canyon Spectral CFR. 29in wheels front and rear, 140 mil out back, 150 mil up front. Reynolds wheels front and rear on Victoria Mazes. I gone for the enduro casings cuz they’re nice soft compound as well to give me all the grip. Now, I thought a trail bike would be the one because I still got to ride 10K, but it’s kind of playful, lightweight. I can move maneuver it around nice and easy. So, should make life good. And lovely little bonus on this bike is well, it’s got that little storage compartment which I’ve jammed full of snacks and other bits and bobs I might need. But anyway, onwards and uh well downwards. [Music] Welcome to the black hole trail. So when we came in the first time, it was all like this like you can see here. So there was actually no trail, nothing was ridable. Okay. Oh wow. Then we spent 2 and 1/2 months Monday to Friday, 8 hours per day, 3 to five people to actually build the trail in. Okay. later on in the next uh 3 years we spend another month of work to actually concrete some sections like I can’t imagine building a trail on top of the earth is like a bit involved this was like for this section maybe two three days really for this part and the beginning was sand in here that’s insane yeah where do you get where does the cement mixer come in backpack unfortunately this is some work bud flipping heck Any questions? Can we shred? We can shred. We can shred. Ready? Let’s do it. Drop it in. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh, it’s quite slick. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Oh my god. Get on. Yeah. Never have I been more excited to just ride and clean 30 m of trail. Right. That is so it’s it’s unlike anything, isn’t it? And especially hitting it for the first time. Yeah, that’s the the most adrenaline part. Yeah. Like just hitting new trail for the first time is cool. But you do that like all the time in the woods and you can see for miles here. Here you just you could you see for me step by step. Yeah. Oh. [Music] [Music] Filming obviously in locations like this in very dark or at night is obviously a nightmare generally most of the time. So, we’re using Insta 360’s new Ace Pro 2 action camera which has got a whole host of features to luckily help us in these kind of low light conditions. It’s got an upgraded sensor, a Leica lens to it, and what Insta 360 call a dual AI chip. But what is that? It’s got a pro imaging chip and a AI chip dedicated to processing. That’s what gives the clarity and stabilization to the Insta 360 footage. It also gives the camera better AI noise reduction. Something which is really useful for low-level light conditions like this. You can go one step further even and use their pure video setting which does even more enhancement and noise reduction in low light. Meaning that you can see better in conditions like this better than I can. Oh lord. So boys, if you listen to this carefully now just Okay. Oh sh Why there are holes like this in every chamber like this? What? Because miners were smart so that they didn’t need to bring all the ore up on the surface and with the trucks around the surface to the separation factory. They put it all the ore down to level seven. And level seven was the main transporting level directly to the separation factory we saw. Okay. So that’s like ground level outside. Yes. Yeah. We we because we’ve climbed up. Yes. And now all of these holes don’t go closer. They never go directly down. Yeah. But they go tic tac tic tac tic tac. You know why this is? So it’s just breaks the fall. No. Why? That it breaks the rocks. So miners were smart here when they used explosives. Big chunks of rocks fell down. Then they pushed it with machines in and they were hitting the walls and by hitting the walls they splintered and at the bottom they were smaller rocks so it was easier smart miners to put in the wagon. Not smart riders to drop Ollie wanted a challenge and I gave it to him. So when they first did kind of the opening video of the black hole trail, there’s this big crazy feature. It’s not in the trail. It’s like a one-off that Anna and a few others built. And it’s this insane drop here. and we come across the top and round and stuff like that. But like basically it’s once you’re in, you’re committed because there’s this really steep run in. The drop itself isn’t massive, but the run out is quite short and then it goes into the abyss. You obviously don’t go down the abyss. Hopefully you stop before then, but [Music] [Applause] This is not fun. It’s so low. So low there. That is that the lowest part of the trail? Yes, it is. Oh, thank goodness. There’s a Yeah. Wow. Let’s drop. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Nice. Yeah. Now, like every time you ride it, still just smiling. Still smiling. Find a lot of adrenaline and a bit of pace. You can get a bit of pace going. Yeah. A bit more speed escaping from the from the people. Yeah. Right. It’s wild. Like that was a cool straight line through there. So that was segment two. Yes. So now we go now we have a long flat some huge chambers. So also enjoy those chambers. And then we have the segment three following. All right. Let’s go to Z segment segment three. Oh wow. Oh bloody. So here is one of the bigger chambers in our area. Oh my god. And here the question arises how did they do it? In the beginning in 1665 they were using only a chisel and a hammer. At that time they were digging 120 cm high and 80 cm wide tunnels. Yeah. So their working shift at that time was 14 hours per day. Do you know how much did they dig in this 14 hours? A lot of that. 20 to 30 cm. Okay. Later on they started using black powder. With black powder they came to a meter or two per day. And later on they started using dynamite and only when they started using dynamite chambers like this emerged. Flip. Now an interesting thing here as well. The big rock that I threw in the hole. Yeah. It fell here down and it continued further down. So it popped out over there. So that rock he threw down popped out somewhere over here and is now just into the middle of the earth. Wallowed all the way down probably. Gandalf fighting a demon. And another interesting thing, boys, we are actually standing in the air. This chamber is going towards our bikes there. And also the whole tunnel is in the air. That I would rather have not known. Yeah, that’s why. Let’s go to the bikes. Yeah, let’s go to the bikes pretty quick. I’m out face. Leo, if you step here, but don’t go closer. I’ll I’ll grab you or give me the hand. Now you can lean in and you see that’s so far down. Anna’s actually won’t even let me like kind of lean over which I’m glad. Yeah, that’s a long way down. I don’t I don’t like that very much. So this is the second hardest segment of the trail you’re saying? Yep. And what’s it called? Does it got a name? Uh this one at the moment. Steep shoot of doom. Steep shoot of doom. Steep shoot of doom. All right, let’s do it. Boom. Let’s have it, man. [Music] [Music] That was ran. That’s a buzz coming down that one. That’s like the longest, straightest, fast bit at the end of there. That’s wild. That’s some pace, isn’t it? I mean, look back up where we just came down. That would be a scary shoot just in the woods for a lot of people. And we’ve just done it underground. Boys, imagine this. When we came in the first time, the wall was this high. Really? Yeah. There was nothing. That tunnel was flat to that tunnel. So, actually, it was straight down, drop 4 m high. Yeah. There was only one rail there and we had to climb down it. And then people didn’t believe that we can make this section ridable at all. Do you want to see how we did it? Yeah. I’ll show show you a short clip. Oh, he’s the X minor that we just met in front of the Yeah. So without them, we would never be able to do something like this. We had to do things. Oh, look at that big rock. Yeah. just around 12 and we use some dynamite. So, who can say he built a trail with a dynamite? I can. I want to build trails with dynamite. We have arrived at the infamous crack section. Now, Anna is just taking the cameraman’s bike down. Hey. And once you’re in, look, you’re in. And is that the bottom just there? No, no, no. Calm down. Calm down. Oh my god. Far from it. Far from it. Here is a small drop. Then you have a left corner here. Look at that. Here is a super low ceiling. Oh, look how low that is. Low ceiling. Yeah. No run out here down again. Okay. Seeing Anna push the bike down kind of gives you a an idea of what it is, should we say. And that’s the bottom. Yeah. Come and check it out. All right. Here we go. I mean, there’s ropes to walk up and down. Look, it’s pretty gnarly. Are you okay? Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the that’s where you stop. Yeah. The right right turn. Yeah. And then there you finish where the bike is. Oh, no. That’s pretty That’s a gnarly section, right? Yeah. This is a bit scary, this one, but I think it’d be okay. It’s just this is very low. If you were to see a gradient like that on the trail, you’d be like, “Oh, that’s no problem.” And then you see a rock at head height, but we’ll be all right. But it’s a commitment one. When you’re in, you’re in. Oh, okay. Let’s do it. The cracking in. You got it. [Music] [Music] Yo. Yes. Oh my god. That’s wild, man. Actually buzzing for that. That’s insane. Cuz when you’re in, you’re in. Like you can’t you can make stuff in between if you Yeah. Yeah. But otherwise No way. Oh yes. Yes. Stoked to have made it through that. That’s where we just go. It’s insane. I don’t think I’ve ever been more hyped to ride a trail. Like to clean through a section. Hardest bit done. So now it’s all fun stuff. Right. Now it’s the fun stuff. There is one section of the trail. Then actually we thought it was not ridable. Yeah. But then four boys rode it. First was Elliot Hip. Second was Killian Brun. Third was Ollie Wilkins and Jonah Jones. So it’s just gnarly riders. Have you done it? N. Okay. It’s at the bottom. The ceiling is too low for my opinion and they went like millimeters from the ceiling. So we we are trying to fix that one up. Okay. Well, I don’t mind skipping that one. Right. Onwards. Wow. So here we go. So, we’re lowering the bikes down this segment. Yeah. Same temple. Can we go a little bit faster? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Just continue. [Music] So, we’re getting towards the end, is it? Yeah. So, we got one more sort of section to go. Yeah. Wow. It’s been quite an adventure. Very good, eh? Yeah. base. The flying thing. Yeah, that’s some base down there, isn’t it? Hey, a water stop as well that you like you really got like I was like, “Oh my god, he’s gone.” So, this is it then. This is the end. We’ve just done the last kind of piece of the black hole trail itself, right? Exactly. So, we did the trail itself. Now, we still have 5 km to get out of the mine, but we are joining now on the normal underground biking tour where also it’s for families and others. And I think I did that back in 2018 for for an EWS leazison. Exactly. Wow. All right. Let’s get out of the the pitch black. But I mean, that has been incredible ride. Let’s get out of this mine and and see some natural. I hope you enjoyed this. Yeah, dude. It’s been it’s been well good. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve been I’m buzzing for it. All right. Yeah. Anyway, let’s get out of the mine. Let’s go. Then [Music] we are 140 m lower than what we were at the very beginning. And there’s that scary looking elevator shaft a few hours ago. Then 140 m above. [Music] And it is light at the end of the tunnel. Yes. Thank goodness. Oh, that’s a good sight. No, I lost the whatever. Freedom. Here we are. Oh my god, the heat. The heat hits you. Good job, boys. Yeah, lad. That’s sick. Thank you, mate. Welcome, Anna. Thank you, mate. Very welcome. Oh my god, that was an unforgettable experience. And we were just actually chatting about a trail like that. Now, if it was out in the open, it’d be like a red, maybe a black red to black, I would say. But you really do need to be like a a pretty good rider to hit that, right? So, it’s a serious black to double black when it’s inside due to the walls, due to the filling, due to the low ceiling sometimes. Yes. And sections, right? like the the risk factor in that is it’s pretty high. But dude, thank you. So it’s for experienced riders only. Yeah, there are sections you can walk as well, but you need to be really good. And that now you know why we demand minimum obligatory equipment as well. Yes, that’s it. Actually, I didn’t say that, but yeah, we I have I rarely wear knee pads, a back protector, and yes, you saw me wearing gloves, which doesn’t often happen, but hey, dude, thank you again for showing us through the mine. Hope you enjoyed it. Black hole trail completed it here in Slovenia. If you liked this, let me know in the comments down below. Do you reckon you’d ride it? I reckon you would. Thank you very much for watching everyone. Until next time from myself and Anna, we’ll see you later. See you.