Free Rider archives

been digging through old forums looking for lost Free Rider tracks, and I think they deserve to be saved and seen by the community today. little bit of Free Rider history.

the first Free Rider track by Pete (the creator of Free Rider & Free Rider 2)
posted on the defunct OneMoreLevel forums, feb 18 2007. the day before Free Rider was released.



MTB Underground by moose_man
posted on the defunct FRDB, oct-nov 2007. track #4515.

Mario Bros by Maxi
posted on the defunct FRDB, nov 2007. track #5544.

Relentless by thefunkymonkie
posted on the defunct FRDB, nov 2007, track #6337.



Le Parkour 1 & 2 by WestCoastElite
posted on the defunct OneMoreLevel forums, mar 28 2007 & may 2 2007. (preceding Le Parkour 3)

Stig's Free Rider 1 tracks by Stig
posted by the defunct OneMoreLevel forums, dec 30 2007 (possibly not the first time Stig posted them)

Underwater Cruise by moose_man
posted by the defunct OneMoreLevel forums, jun 19 2007

Maxi's Mountain by Maxi
posted on the defunct FRDB, sept 2007, track #2644

Dirt Jump Mecca by thefunkymonkie
posted by the defunct FRDB, jun 2007, track #168 on FRDB

FR2DB by Maxime
posted on FR2DB (now Canvas Rider), dec 2007, track #1 (before moose_man's CE and Kazniti's CE were track #1)

Y8K: The Glitch by Ness
posted on FR2PF, oct 17 2008

Heaven or Hell by SATAN666
posted on TrackMill, march 1 2009, track #302390

A Lost World of Dinosaurs by Stig
posted on TrackMill, nov 2009, track #776728

untitled collab by LDPrider & Stig
shared through PM, may 14 2010

Trial Bike Physics by LDPrider
shared through PM, june 2010

untitled skatepark by uncfan
shared through PM, june 21 2010

untitled by gongo999
posted in CR VIP forum, oct 22 2011

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CR reuploads:

Turtle Beach by FUTURE MTNS, track 819064
Overland Expedition by Phil38654, track 513958
Fox Revolution by - Firefox -, track 423055
Tools of Destruction by Gräggen & Stig, track 291848

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I try to keep the editing to a minimum, but it's a little necessary sometimes. the FR1 bike was smaller, so I've had to widen some gaps/increase head clearances, especially in Mario Bros. and adding the boosts in Relentless felt like the best option, didn't have to edit any lines and worked consistently.

 

before FRHD - 2006 through 2008

2006 - Pete (Pete Shadbolt of Parroe Games) begins work on the original Free Rider. the game is being developed for OneMoreLevel.com, a flash-game website created by Ira Willey.

2007.02.10 - OneMoreLevel Forums are opened, and user "slackor" (Ira Willey) posts topic “Sneak peek of my new game, just for forum members!” with a link to the Free Rider Trailer.


2007.02.17 - Ira announces Free Rider will be released the upcoming Monday, and Pete posts a link to a gameplay video and shares the code for the first ever Free Rider track.


2007.02.19 - Free Rider is released on OneMoreLevel.com.


2007.02.28 - user PolishNorbi posts topic “Map Preview Flash & Geometric Map Creator”. in the thread, Maxime (Maxime Simon, who later creates the FRDB, FR2DB, and Canvas Rider) asks PolishNorbi to answer his private message, presumably about using the previewer on his upcoming track DB.

2007.06.17 - trackmaker moose_man joins OMLF, posts first tracks.

2007.06.24 - the Free Rider Tracks Database is created by Maxime. this is the first database for tracks, where the trackcode is automatically loaded into the game.


2007.07.05 - Freerider Community (FRC) is created by TheFunkyMonkie, moderated by Maximorpheus and Judgeman2021. early members include moose_man, Cataclism, westo, Neo39925, Relyt, and Maxime.

2007.09.25 (estimated) - a Free Rider page is created for Radio F Software Headquarters. RFSHQ, co-created by Dan Gusak (goose), is the website that will eventually become TrackMill.

2007.10.16 - RFSHQ has a working DB with playable tracks.

2007.10.21 - on OMLF, Pete posts topic "Free Rider 2 Game Footage" with a link to a gameplay video for Free Rider 2. in the thread, Maxime and Pete interact about FR2 being DB-friendly.


2007.12.03 - Free Rider becomes the most played game on OneMoreLevel.com, with nearly 6.5 million plays.

2007.12.07 - Free Rider 2 is released on OneMoreLevel.com.


2007.12.10 - Maxime posts topic “The Free Rider Map Previewer”. in the thread, Maxime links to the Free Rider 2 DB with a track previewer, but he says there won't be a FR2 database until he hears from Pete, and questions why his topics got deleted and he didn't get answers for months. FR2DB tracks are playable by the end of the year.

2008.03.06 (estimate) - OneMoreLevel forum goes down until March 11, Judgeman2021 is removed as moderator.

2008.03.12 (estimate) - FR2DB becomes too big for free hosting, website is under maintenance until May.

2008.03.18 - OML forum goes down again, this time until September 20. OMLF later closes indefinitely at the end of October.

2008.05.24 - on the new FR2DB forum, Maxime posts topic “The FR2 DB is back online!”, marking the return of the DB and the beginning of the forum. View attachment 54514

2008.08.10 - moose_man wins the first FR2DB contest on FR2DB with his contest entry, which becomes FR2DB track #1.

2008.08.19 - on RFSHQ, goose uploads youtube video Free Rider 2 skateboard vehicle


2008.08.22 - skateboard is added to RFSHQ version of Free Rider 2.

2008.11.30 - RFSHQ is now TrackMill, forums are opened to all members. user moyyom posts topic “First Trackmill Contest”.

2008.12.21 - RichhIBuildJumps posts the winning entry of the first TrackMill contest, Stage Finite, which becomes TrackMill track #1.

 

I remember that too! I didn't have any idea who he was when he came back. but I had played Maxi's Mountain that stig had reuploaded, I think that was most people's introduction to him. it is deleted now but I have that code too.

I found a few other FR1 tracks from him that I'll upload here, he was definitely one of the best in his time. plus he was a moderator and admin for different forums, he was always very helpful and encouraging, a cool personality.

 

I'm not confident that I have actually recognized any of these yet, but I am expecting for one of these uploads to give me a full on flashback to 2007/8/9. Cheers

 

updated with Le Parkour 1 & 2 by WestCoastElite and Stig's Free Rider 1 tracks

I hope that happens! I know most people are seeing these tracks for the first time, but even without the memories, there's a certain feeling you get going back in time with these tracks.

 

love this account ! i had started something similar last year (https://www.freeriderhd.com/u/free_rider_archives/created), as i'd been doing some research into Free Rider's origins and found myself on all sorts of forums and databases, ranging from Gauto's Free Rider 1 Database, to this really obscure Free Rider 2 Forum that has a gallery made by Ness himself, to of course the web archived FR1 and FR2 subforums on the OneMoreLevel Forums

in saying that, these tracks are much more interesting than the weird tracks i found lol, and from the likes of Maxi too - a mod on FR1 itself, iirc ! loving the history posted here, which would otherwise stay lost. really cool stuff 8)

 

I hadn't seen this! it's cool we had the same idea, it's really important to save these old tracks, sadly a lesson learned a little late

lol yeah that's me. there were a few forums I was on before fr2db, mainly fr2pf (which is completely lost from what I know). I have so many lost tracks from that era

 

added five Free Rider 2 tracks:

FR2DB by Maxime (original track #1 on FR2DB)
Y8K: The Glitch by Ness
untitled collab by LDPrider & Stig
untitled skatepark by uncfan
untitled by gongo999​

and two Free Rider tracks:

Underwater Cruise by moose_man
Maxi's Mountain by Maxi​

even after Free Rider 2 came out and the OneMoreLevel forums were shut down, a few people had held onto the code for Maxi's Mountain and shared it on the FR2DB forums. definitely one of the more legendary tracks that stayed in people's memories.

edit: added Dirt Jump Mecca by thefunkymonkie

 

Now I don't quite know if trackmill tracks really qualify for this, but one that is completely lost to my knowledge is Heaven Or Hell by SATAN666
http://trackmill.com/free-rider-2/tracks/302390 - must have been uploaded ~feb 2009
I would absolutely love to see it uploaded, I remember there being lots of secrets

 

gun

here you go friend: Heaven or Hell

 

oh my gosh, this is so legendary, I have been wanting to play this track on FRHD for as long as I can remember, do you have access to the trackmill database!?!?!

 

the Wayback Machine saved a lot of pages from TrackMill. finding the track page was easy enough (Heaven or Hell track), but finding the trackcode took more digging. but if you have the track-id for other TrackMill tracks that you want found, or at least the username and trackname, I'm happy to see if I can find the code on the archive.

 

Based ness

 

Damn, those TFM tracks take me back! We had a collab in the works a life time ago that never saw the light of day. I remember playing Maxis mountain on FR1 and it would barely load on my old PC, thanks for the trip down memory lane x

 

hey does anyone know how to recover old tracks from trackmill?

Would love to have tracks like Castle Siege by Andy Pandy brought back to life FR2 Castle Siege - YouTube

 

JacksofAmerica

here you go: Castle Siege by ANDY PANDY

 

how do you do this lmao
IF you are up to the challenge, I would love to see silentfish's 3d bmx park , Arnau's simpsons, and bikingMIKE's Sky trails series haha

legit have no clue how you get these tracks

 

the tracks you requested are attached to this post (only the first of the Sky Trails series)

some of the more popular track pages were saved on the Wayback Machine, and then if you're lucky the mapcode link is saved too. then looking at the network activity while that mapcode page loads, you can sometimes find the code buried in there.

feel free to try it yourself, this is the mapcode page for Castle Siege, and you could put another different track ID at the end of this: web.archive.org/web/http://trackmill.com/free-rider-2/mapcode.php?d=179991

and here is the link to bikingMIKE's gallery, so you could find the track IDs for his other Sky Trails tracks: https://web.archive.org/web/20101222015724/http://trackmill.com/free-rider-2/creator/bikingMIKE

 

Dude I am so thankful for this! so many awesome tracks that inspired me to play this game have been resurrected!