Carson Storch calls his latest film project “an extension of my childhood.”

“Electric Beaver,” available to view on YouTube, features the professional mountain biker from Bend bombing down a “dream line” of jumps and berms on private timberland on the northern Oregon Coast.

“The reason I started riding bikes in the first place was the enjoyment of moving dirt and how gratifying it is creating something, and then being able to ride your bike on it and film it with your friends,” Storch said. “It’s simple. It’s just getting back to the basics.”

Storch, 29, has appeared in several major mountain biking film projects and is a regular on magazine covers and a staple in the sport’s biggest annual event, the Red Bull Rampage in Utah each October. The Red Bull-sponsored rider helped bring the world’s best freeride mountain bikers to Prineville last September for the Proving Grounds contest.

While traveling the world for competitions and films the last few years, Storch’s side project has been building jumps and trails on forest land near Pacific City. The trails featured in the 3-minute-long “Electric Beaver” are on strictly private land, but Storch said it showcases the potential for a public mountain bike trail system in the area. The “shred edit” film can be viewed at youtube.com/watch?v=vhUSzbYtX-c.

“The overall goal is to try to get some public trails going,” Storch said. “It’s just the tip of the iceberg right now with the potential. It’s destined to be some of the best riding in the U.S. It’s pretty ridiculous, the potential. Every single project we do out there like this is leading toward more proof of concept of what can be had there.”

Tillamook Off Road Trail Alliance (TORTA) is the nonprofit spearheading the effort to bring public freeride trails to the northern Oregon Coast. Storch said there is grant funding ready to be used, but completing the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) remains a hurdle to public trail building.

“That’s been the hindering factor the last five years,” Storch said. “It’s always close. Once it starts it’s gonna pop off, with a true team of trail builders. It’s just a waiting game right now.”

Storch built the jump line in “Electric Beaver” — named as a nod to the Oregon state animal — with the help of friend and fellow mountain biker Josh Venti, who lives on the Oregon Coast. Christian Rigal, another pro mountain biker, handled the filming.

“The film project is a shred edit on a big line that I personally built, so it’s pretty gratifying to move that much dirt, film a video, and maybe one day do more with it,” Storch said.

Storch and crew started building the line in May 2021, but the project was put on hold after Storch broke his collarbone attempting a “caveman” trick, in which he tried to jump out of a helicopter with his bike onto the trail. The failed trick is featured in the film.

“You hold your seat and one bar, and then jump out and get the bike back underneath you,” Storch explained. “I had an idea to do a caveman out of a helicopter for a long time, but never found a pilot who was willing to let me do it.”

But Chris Jordan of Leading Edge Flight Academy in Bend was game. Jordan is a longtime freeride mountain biker in Central Oregon and a mentor of Storch.

“He was up for it,” Storch said. “I just kind of underestimated a couple factors. I executed the trick perfect, but I forgot about the rotor wash from the helicopter blades. That caught my wheels and I hit the ground pretty hard, a 15-foot drop onto a steep landing. It did not work and I learned a lesson. I tried it, and I’m never trying it again.”

Storch needed time to heal his collarbone and then prepare for the 2021 competition season. They filmed the rest in summer 2022, doubling the length of the jump line.

“It’s just kind of a passion project,” Storch said. “There is no concept. It’s just what I enjoy doing. I love digging, I love building jumps. This is basically me as an adult living my childhood dream.”