¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ

Howdy, pals. Have we got a treat for you – Today, we’re gonna talk about a sport I love very much and also happen to be… not so great at: Mountain biking. There are few things in the outdoors as fun as zipping through the woods down a tacky dirt trail with soft bank turns and mellow lil whoopty whoop jumps. Especially right now in the fall when warm autumn light makes the golden Aspen leaves all sorts of ablaze. Ahhhh…I love it. Buuuut I hate biking uphill for that downhill. Nothing, not even the slog of a miles long backcountry ski, exhausts me like chugging upward on two wheels. And don’t even get me started on those bike trails with terrifying giant airs and unreasonably steep lines. I keep things pretty mellow when I bike. But I find the folks who fly down trails and launch themselves off [00:01:00] jumps to be some of the most impressive athletes in the outdoors. Perhaps nowhere more jaw droppingly displayed than the aptly named Rampage.

Rampage is an annual invite-only freeride mountain biking event put on by Red Bull in Utah. It is wild. Days before the competition starts, riders and their teams dig and sculpt their lines in the dirt and rock of the desert. Competitors are judged on how smoothly they navigate their complex trail, as well as things like style, control, and amplitude. Rampage is one of the most objectively impressive, intense, and terrifying events in all of action and outdoor sports. These mountain bikers are in the conversation with big wave surfers, big mountain skiers and snowboarders, BASE jumpers, wingsuit pilots, speed flyers, and the like as people who are pushing the limits of what's possible in human performance.

Rampage is also not without controversy, given how close [00:02:00] to grievous injury, even death, the riders are throughout. And this will be the second year women are competing, which is a fascinating thread in the vibrant tapestry currently being woven by the world’s best female athletes– from Caitlin Clark to Molly Picklum to Mikaela Shiffrin. And the women’s event starts tomorrow October 16, and the men compete October 18th.

So, we asked our pals at PinkBike, who are the end all be all of mountain biking, to run us through Rampage, everything from the who’s who, the locale, the stakes, all the hot, extra greasy bike chain gossip. You’re gonna love it.

Ok, enjoy the show.

Hello, everybody. You're listening to the ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ podcast, except this time your normal hosts are not here. Instead, I'm Mike Smer and I'm joined by Stefan Pier and we're from Pink Bike, and the reason we're here is because Red Bull Rampage is on the way which is the, I would say, hands down, wildest mountain bike competition [00:03:00] on the planet.

Those are big words,

Stephane: the Super Bowl.

Mike: Yeah, the Super Bowl of free ride mountain biking where riders huck off cliffs and they get judged by how well they huck off cliffs.

Stephane: Yeah.

Mike: it's coming up, but we thought that we would hop onto the outside podcast and kind of let everybody know about the event, how it came to be, what to watch if you've never seen it before.

Kind of explain the rules and how people are actually judged on how well they huck off cliffs and why you might wanna tune in and see what it's all about. So before we go too far, we should start with the very, very basics. We'll just imagine you walked into a room, a TV is playing, and the Red Bull rampage is on what you're gonna see.

You wanna set the scene, Stefan?

Stephane: Yeah, totally. Um, it's basically, uh, a bunch of daredevil, crazy mountain bikers that spend two weeks in the desert, uh, build massive drops and cliffs, like you said. Um. Off these, uh, big red kind of towering cliffs of virgin, uh, and then ride down it basically straight lines with giant drops [00:04:00] off, two, three story buildings doing tricks and flips and, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's a wild spectacle.

These guys, uh, and girls are nuts.

Mike: It's almost the equivalent. It is the equivalent of if you ever seen a big mountain free skiing competition or a big wave competition, it's kind of the ultimate, the, the biggest moves that happen in mountain biking happen at Red Bull Rampage. Things that people have never seen done before. You know, the size and the scope is hard to, hard to explain, but yeah, takes place in the desert.

They're given a set amount of time to sculpt their lines into the. Very harsh landscape. It's, you know, big rocks and sandstone. It's in, like Stefan said, Virgin, Utah. Um, yeah, it just looks kinda like you're on Mars. If you had to dig a trail into the terrain on Mars, it'd probably be something like what Rampage looks like.

Stephane: Absolutely. Yeah, I find it, I mean, I feel like I'm a, we're bikers so we see it all the time, but I feel like if you've, unless you're living under a rock, you've probably seen like some random clip, some point in your life of those classic red cliffs, uh, and some mountain biker doing a flip or a [00:05:00] 360 off, like a three story building type thing.

Uh, but if you haven't, uh, that's basically what it looks like.

Mike: And the event gotta start all the way back in 2001. And it's kind of funny to look back at some of the videos of those days. 'cause what happened then they basically got their permission to run the event. So they had the, you know, it's still in Virgin, Utah, same area. And they had a set amount of time to carve in their, their trails basically for their runs.

And it's a lot more raw and a lot more. The riding is, it looks, uh, I don't know. I wanna be mean to them. There's some good riding, but it looks a little bit sketchier. They kind of, they land and they're landing in soft dirt and it looks like they're kind of barely holding on. And even the scope was still really big cliffs, but everything has changed over the years.

And the cliffs that are hitting now are even bigger. The moves and speed, the tricks, it's all, it's next level mountain biking.

Stephane: I think when it started, it really was, uh, like the, the big mountain ski comp approach of, you know, they almost did nothing to the terrain before, like maybe scratched in a couple takeoffs, whatever, but there wasn't a lot of extensive [00:06:00] work done, and it was basically just. Ride from top of the mountain to the bottom, find the craziest line down very, you know, ski snowboard influence the first little bit.

Um, and it's, it's really evolved over the years into, well, we can talk a bit about it, the evolution, but it is changed, it's gone through kind of different iterations, I would say.

Mike: Exactly, and throughout all the iterations, the, the basic judging concept has kinda remained the same. So even today, the way it works, if you, you do a run, you make your way from the top to the bottom, and then you're judged on your difficulty of your line, your amplitude, which is kind of basically how high you go or how aggressive you get during your run, as well as control and fluidity, and then tricks and style.

So it's not just a downhill race where, you know, in a downhill race, you're timed, whoever gets to the bottom fastest, you win the race. That's not what Rampage is about, but speed is an element of it. But then the judges, you know, kind of factor in other things, like how well you rode your line. If you look smooth, if you did a trick, no one's ever seen before.

So there's ways to, you could potentially ride a slightly less difficult line, but do a lot of [00:07:00] tricks and maybe score the same as somebody that did a harder line but didn't do as many tricks. It's kind of a, a tricky thing for riders to figure out. The riders are really the ones that decide where they're gonna go down the mountain.

It's same or not same, different. The way that it's different from a downhill race is there's lots of different options. You have your own line that you do and, and then another rider might have a different line. They're not gonna be usually sharing the same way down the mountain.

Stephane: There's actually usually a lot of politics involved with the line choice, but we can maybe get into that a bit more later. Um, but yeah, it really blends in, uh, world Cup downhill in a way with, you know, a crank work slope style, which are two kind of big mountain bike, um, gravity focused disciplines. Um, like you said.

Yeah. Nailed it. Um,

Mike: Which, and I guess we could, yeah, one thing to talk about. There's a lot, there is a lot to talk about, so we won't be jumping around back and forth, but we're gonna get get to it all by the end. But let's just start with. How those lines get carved into the mountain. You've been down last year. You went down, you helped a [00:08:00] rider dig their line.

How many, like how many people helped the riders dig their lines and build these crazy moves down the trail

Stephane: Yeah, for sure. So, well, last year was a bit different 'cause the, it was the first year the women were included in the competition. Um, because the women had a brand new venue with nothing kind of pre-existing there. They had, uh, two extra days of building and they had, um, three crew members. So three people in the crew digging.

Plus the rider. The rider. That's another crazy part is the rider is actually. You know, shoveling and hitting the pickax into the rock for 10 days before the actual event comes, comes to play. So

Mike: labor. Yeah. Do hard labor. Labor for a week and a half, and then you have to forget about all that and focus on getting from the top to bottom and not falling into a canyon.

Stephane: Uh, in the desert, in the beating

Mike: right in the heat.

Stephane: it's absolutely like, I think so much of the event actually happens before the actual event. Like the, the whole storyline takes place, [00:09:00] the weeks leading up to it. Um, but yeah, to, to simplify it as much as they can. Um, there's a scope day, so riders show up day one, they look at the whole course.

There's usually a couple ridges involved or spines or whatever, and you can kind of pick and choose. Um. There's no rules. You can basically choose any line you can possibly dream up. Um, and the only limiting factor is the time and, uh, how much earth you can move, basically. Um, and then, yeah, there's, uh, it depends, but, um, you know.

A, a week and a bit of digging. Uh, and then in that time they'll start actually practicing and ticking off features, um, sort of as they go. Some, some venues in some years, they're able to ride their whole line before the actual contest days, other years, uh, some riders, depending on how ambitious they got with their build projects, sometimes they, they hit their stuff for the first time in their contest run.

Mike: Which is, yeah, crazy to imagine if, I mean, there's not really too much, I guess, equivalent, that big wave [00:10:00] equivalent kind of comes back to play, where if you're, you've never gone down a wave like that before. You're just trying to drop in and every wave is a little bit different. So yeah, super. A lot of, uh, impressive mental fortitude is required to.

To finish a rampage run and also the length of the days, I mean, the, the diggers and the riders are out there from sunrise to sunset, just working so hard.

Stephane: Yeah. And at that time of year, I think, yeah, you're kind of leaving the house around 7:00 AM and leaving the venue around 7:38 PM so. These, these riders and builders, they're, they're basically the gladiators of mountain biking. Um, and yeah, it's just, it's such a spectacle.

Mike: Yeah. And then I guess we should also kind of set the scene as far as what these people are riding for the type of bike that you might need to do to do a Red Bull Rampage event. It's not gonna be the same bike that you would go into your local bike shop just to ride your, your local trails. These are, you know, it's downhill bikes.

They're closer to downhill bikes than anything, but some of 'em are modified so that the riders can do tricks. Some people ride a single Crown fork, [00:11:00] so if you're familiar with, I know not everybody's even seen the, no, not everybody listening will know the difference between a downhill bike and a. Kinda a regular bike, but a dual crown fork almost looks like a motorcycle fork, and that's what a most downhill mountain bikes have.

It's stiffer. A lot of travel, usually between around eight inches of front suspension travel, and then you know, seven to eight inches of rear travel on the bikes. There were full suspension bikes. There were some people in the early days that tried to do it on a hard tail, so no rear suspension. It didn't go that well, but it was added to the.

The fun to watch it, um, aspect of it. But, so yeah, these days a lot of 'em are on downhill bikes, but they're set up super stiff. Even their tires have a lot of, lot of air in the tires and it's just designed to absorb big impacts.

Stephane: Yeah, it's really interesting. The, the bike setups are basically the exact opposite of what you would ever want for actual, you know, mountain biking. It's really hard. Tires, really stiff suspension. Um, really small bike so that you can maneuver it around easily. Um, so yeah, [00:12:00] if you took it to your, if you took one of these rampage bikes to your local trails, it would basically feel, um.

Like a bumpy shopping cart 'cause they're so stiff. Um, and yeah, they're just built to take massive abuse.

Mike: Yeah, the Rogers are kind of hanging on it. The sections in between their big hits on their run. They can handle a bit more discomfort in order to have the comfort that the bike can hopefully provide when they're laying off a a 70 foot drop or. Backflipping over a hundred foot Canyon, and those numbers aren't hyperbole either.

Like these numbers, these drops are actually 70 feet high in some

Stephane: Yes. Yeah.

Mike: the record drop is, but they're very, like no one else is hitting drops as big as these riders are during this weekend, during the year. So

Stephane: Yeah, essentially, yeah. I got vertigo when I was up walking around some of the lines. Um, like it's crazy and it's hard to describe. I, I don't want to like go too deep into detail, but like all of these takeoffs as well, when you're coming up to the takeoffs that these riders are dropping off, you can't see anything, like, you can't see [00:13:00] down where the landing is.

You just see across the valley essentially. So they're blind takeoffs, really high consequence. Um. And yeah, it's just, it's like a crazy, crazy event. I kind of wanna talk a bit a bit about sort of, I, I feel like there's been three sort of evolutions in the rampage history.

Mike: Yeah, let's get into that. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Let's go back to maybe, yeah, start with that. Those first era that we talked a little bit about. It was 2001.

Stephane: yeah, we already chatted a bit about that. So really raw, really kind of, um, natural sort of ski style where you're just sort of A to B down the hill. Uh, and that progressed over the years. Little bit more building all the time. It kind of got. The building aspect became more and more of a thing rather than this sort of like raw free ride.

Um, I don't know the exact years, but there was a, a weird period where I think Rampage got a little confused, got a little, um, yeah, between the disciplines. Anyway, they started building a bunch of really big, giant wood features, like giant wood, wooden structures for canyon gaps [00:14:00] and wooden drops. The Oakley icon sender is like a really.

Iconic thing that happened in Rampage history. Cams Inc. Freed it. It was this giant wooden, like 55 foot drop, something like that. Um, and then they went back to the drawing board, said, no more wood, it was going a bit too much dirt jump, slopestyle sort of vibe. Um, and. Now it's all raw again. It's all, you know, picks and shovels, all hand dug.

The, the riders are allowed a certain amount of sandbags each year, which they can help kind of build up walls and stuff like that. Um, but one of the biggest changes that Todd Barber, the event organizer said was they added water at one point. Um, so they pop, they set up a, a watering system from way up above.

And that has been transformative in the, uh. The ability of the builders in the desert to actually build up lips and landings that are solid and not just blue kind of thing.

Mike: Yeah, and, and then that the reason that the landings aren't, or sorry, that the [00:15:00] reason that the landings are more packed down than they used to be. If you look at the early days, it was just kind of loose and raw. But riders are going so much bigger now. If you tried to huck off a 60 foot cliff and land in soft, loose dirt, you would just go right over the bars of your bike.

It just wouldn't have any support when you landed and you would crash and it'd be more dangerous. So even though it is inherently a very, very dangerous event, they're trying to make the. Aspects of it, um, as safe and controllable as they can. So you can have, it's like danger punctuated with moments of safety.

So yeah, it's kind of, and also the, the change from having those wooden structures of that kind of time period in Rampage, everybody kind of funneled into the same zone. But nowadays there's a lot of lines that come off of this ridge line, um, of the venue. So every rider drops in from a little bit different and then they kind of, sort of funnel towards the same spot at the bottom.

But there's a lot of really unique features that. Riders can build their own course to kind of suit their riding style. You know, some people like a more technical line and technical being more, you know, maybe more steeper rolls or strange, slower speed things. While some riders are a little bit want the flow and the bigger jumps, and they [00:16:00] can sculpt that into their line.

And really the winning run will have a mix of everything. It has the technical aspects as well as the, the big tricks and, and jumps.

PAUSE PAUSE PAUSE

PADDYO VO:

More from the PinkBike Podcast, after the break.

 MIDROLL  MIDROLL  MIDROLL  MIDROLL  MIDROLL  MIDROLL  MIDROLL  MIDROLL

Stephane: we should talk about judging a bit.

Mike: Yeah,

it's controversial. Like I said before, there's those, I kind of laid out how the judging works, but yeah, I mean, Stefan, you've been there and sometimes the crowd doesn't think that the judge matches. It's like figure skating, you know? I feel like when people watch the Olympics, you think, I don't really watch figure skating much, but if I did, I've seen how it works.

You know? There's always controversy over because it's a judged event, and that's what's tricky about this.

Stephane: Yeah, I think well, and because it blends sort of different disciplines, it blends a bit of like that downhill speed aspect and fluidity as well as, uh, tricks. Uh, so more of like a slopestyle, freestyle aspect, but there's also sort of this like. I don't know, maybe for the outside audience you could compare it to free climbing, uh, like free soloing or something like [00:17:00] that, where it's just the risk and the purity of like how wild and dangerous the exposure can be.

Um, you know, the, the risk I think plays a big role in the judges' deliberations. And the judges actually do walk around all throughout the build, so they're not just watching it on camera. They've gone and seen. How gnarly the features are. A lot of the times too, it's not even just the feature, it's how you get into the feature or how the exit of the feature is.

Like, it's, there's so much that goes into it, so it is, it's extremely hard. I think I wouldn't want to be a judge. Um, but yeah, they, they, um, they're trying to basically break down all these factors and do some crazy arithmetic to, to decide, you know, who's the winner. And I think for the most part they get it pretty, pretty close.

But, uh. There's, I, if you're new to Rampage, the, the controversy is the judging every year,

Mike: every year, and luckily they do have that, there's a People's Choice Award where the viewers can watch or the viewers [00:18:00] can vote on their favorite run of the day, and it is kind of nice. Or if an athlete thinks they might've. A lot of times if you do follow along on social media, if you're on Pink bike, we have a lot of Red Bull Rampage coverage, and you go into the comments, people say, so-and-so Rider got robbed.

That's kind of the, the trope that comes up if somebody doesn't do as well as you thought. But they do have a People's Choice Award so that the viewers can vote. And it's kind of nice to give recognition to maybe a rider that the judging didn't quite match their run or didn't seem to be. Um, but again, it's hard to be behind a screen if you're not there.

It's hard to express how big and how different it is when you're really on the ground in Utah.

Stephane: Yeah, and I think, uh, one thing also worth mentioning is it's, it's the biggest prize purse, I think in mountain biking, probably. Um, I don't you, you could maybe check me on that, but. It's a a hundred k prize for the first place prize. So it's, it's a pretty big payday for mountain bikers. Like, it's not mountain bikers, not exactly known for, uh, you know, huge paydays at these kind of events, but there's a lot on the line.

Um, and yeah, riders, it's, it's like a [00:19:00] transformative thing for, you know, lots of riders have built their careers and, uh, lengthy careers at Red Bull Rampage. Um, so yeah, it's, it's a big deal for mountain bikers.

Mike: and there's only one Red Bull rampage every year. It's not like it's a series. You know, there's, you can, if you're a World Cup racer, you get nine races to kind of prove yourself. A Red Bull rampage only comes around once a year. So if you do, well, people remember it. If you don't, it's, you kinda have to wait for a whole nother year.

So, you know, 12 months later to. Hopefully get invited back to it isn't invite, invite competition unless you placed a certain level the year before. So, um, it's, it's hard. This is only the best of the best get to even go there in the first place. It's not just like random people off the street can't roll up and say, I wanna give this a try.

Stephane: That would be a pretty epic format. I think that

Mike: Yeah, very.

Stephane: should

Mike: Maybe, I don't know. That's right. They have a wild card invite. I don't think we, I mean, if you rolled in off the street, even if you could, I don't think people would even. Be able to convince himself to get outta the start gate. Like just dropping in into this is, uh, yeah, pretty much[00:20:00]

Stephane: I think one thing that I can only say and you like, you can't really, uh, get a feel for it unless you're there. Like how. Big, all these features are, um, the camera, you know, does not do any of that justice, so keep that in mind if you, if you are watching it, it's way scarier looking in person.

Mike: Yeah, if you need to try to imagine it, imagine you're on top of a, let's say a three story building with a flat roof back up all the way to the, so you can't see over the edge, and then run towards it as fast as possible and jump off. That would be Red Bull Rampage equivalent, like the blind takeoffs and dropping outta the sky three stories.

And then once you do that, you have to do that multiple times in your run. And there's people cheering for you and it's hot and you're dehydrated. So yeah, just a wild event. Um, yeah. So this year come Oh yeah, keep going.

Stephane: Yeah, I was just gonna say there's like, you know, speaking to how kind of crucial this event is for, for mountain bike, but I don't even think just mountain biking. I think a lot of, you know, sports look to this 'cause it is such a spectacle. [00:21:00] Uh, it really has become this super bowl of, uh, of mountain biking.

Um, but some, some really incredible performances have happened and there's a couple like cool history things to shout out. For example, Kyle Strait, uh, is one of the riders that's in it. Uh, in the event, he's been in it since 2001, he's been in every single Red Red Bull rampage. Um, I can't remember how many it is.

Do you know Caz? It's like 20 or something.

Mike: don't know if we're up to 20 'cause there was a hiatus for a bit, but at least like 17. We should know this. But there's a lot. I mean, he's in, he's done so many, it's just the fact he keeps placing well enough to keep coming back after all these years.

Stephane: Yeah.

Mike: first one, I think he was 15 when he did his first one, 15 or 16.

He was the youngest, uh, participant in the early days of it.

Stephane: did he, and he won.

Mike: Yes. Maybe Did he win? No. Wade, Wade

Stephane: No, it was Wade, Wade

Mike: that. Yeah. I can't forget about Wade. Wade Simmons is a legend. Yeah. He was like, wait, I won. I was there. Yeah. No, Wade won. Wade crashed in his, uh, in the early days you could crash and still win because there [00:22:00] was, it was just so new and different.

Um, but yet, uh, Kyle got ninth that first year, so. Um, it

Stephane: And then other legend, couple other legend, like Kurt Sorge, big mountain rider from Nelson, bc. He's won it three times. Uh, last year, Brandon Ock won his fifth Red Bull Rampage. Uh, he's the all time leader for Rampage wins. Um, and yeah, interestingly enough, Brandon won't be there. So our, our, you know, I don't know, Brandon's the, the goat of mountain biking.

I don't know how else

Mike: Yeah, that, that's very accurate.

Stephane: He's the best to ever do it. He's, I would say he still is, but he's been doing it so long, he's already won five. So anyways, what I'm saying is there's a bit of a changing of the guard this year, which I think is one of the most exciting parts about the new rampage coming up.

Um, a lot of young up and coming riders. So you got a mix of the older guys like Tom Van Steinberg and Kyle Strait Camp Inc. Some of these legends that have been doing it for years and years. And then you've got a lot of. [00:23:00] Rookie riders this year. Um, Hayden Blaney, Aiden Parrish, to name a few off the top of my head and also the ladies field.

Um, they came in last year for the first time, blew it out of the water. I think the women, the, the level on the women's side was mind blowing. And last year being the first event, I think it just lit this fire for so many women riders out there to like that, you know, maybe hadn't thought of it as an option.

And seeing the girls out there. There's way more drive on the Women's free ride side right now. It feels like a lot of momentum there, so it's gonna be a really exciting year, I think 2025 Rampage.

Mike: Yeah, exactly. Robin Gomes won last year and this year we're gonna see Hannah Bergman, who was supposed to compete last year, but she was injured just before she'll be back or well she'll be in the event, which everyone had high hopes for her. Yeah, it's gonna be great to see that. And we have a little clip from Hannah.

We were able to catch up with her earlier this year at Crankworx Whistler. Just kind of talk about how the women ended up [00:24:00] in Rampage and how they get ready for it. So we'll transition over that real quick and have a little quick check-in with Hannah.

Hannah Clip: I feel like Rampage is a, is cool in that you're building your own line for the event. So even though it is an event where you have to like perform at a certain time and there's all that pressure, you are creating the thing that you're gonna ride. So in that sense, like the reward is higher 'cause you're, you're, it's your vision that you're putting out there.

So. Cool. Okay. I feel like that helps a lot, um, in that particular event. But there is a lot of prep I do like before to like be able to. Be in like a stressful state and then perform at like even hard lines. Good prep for Rampage in that example. Just because like being in that high adrenaline state, high stress and then like being able to ride at the level you wanna ride when you're stressed is, is part of the game

Mike: all right. Yeah, that was a little, little word from Hannah and we're excited to see how she does this here and as well as all the women. It's just great to have them there. And like Stefan was saying, the level of progression. From men and [00:25:00] women is, is off the charts. And oh, we have, I should mention also Dylan Starks back this year, which

Stephane: Oh,

Mike: Yeah. He's, he's a kind of a character in the mountain bike world. Originally was a BM Xer and then kind of came into mountain biking. And when he was, his first time in Rampage, he had a little, um, like a grind. He, he put a rail, he hid a rail in the ground and it was time for his run. His buddies dragged it out and put it, so he did almost like a BMX move in the middle of a mountain bike competition that.

I don't think people understood what was happening. It was kind of funny. It was almost like a, he's a character, so it's gonna be cool to have, have him there. And yeah, there's, like we were saying, a mix of veterans and newcomers and different styles. It all just kinda a, a melting pot. Melting pot of, uh, extreme athletes, I guess you could say.

Stephane: Yeah. Crazy daredevils. Um,

Mike: I guess, what's the point? We should, we should kinda like step back. What do you, like, you mentioned the money, but what do you, why do you think these athletes are, are doing this? Because I don't think the money's enough. You know, it's, it's a lot, but it's not enough to really, you wouldn't do this just for the money.

There's easier ways I feel like you could figure out to do it,[00:26:00]

Stephane: the, the, I feel like the blunt way I would answer that questions is they literally have a couple screws loose maybe, but, uh, but yeah, no, it's, it's. I think there's a lot of like personal, just those people that wanna do rampage are literally trying to push the end envelope to that next level and push the sport beyond what people think is imaginable.

I mean, I, I think to Tom Van Steenberg and last year, who front flipped off the biggest drop on the mountain. It was, I think 65 feet, uh, tip to tip like. It's hard to describe, like, think about 65 feet. Like that is, that is like, what, a three story building and he just front flipped off it. Like the, the consequence is insane.

But also that's gonna be one of the, like, that is one of the most legendary things that's ever been done on a bicycle,

Mike: Yeah. And also when you do front flips, you can't see your landing. So if you, if you, I mean, imagine you're standing there, you do a front flip, you don't see the ground until your head comes back around. Where when people [00:27:00] do back flips, obviously still a very impressive, very hard thing to do on a bicycle.

You see the landing come around a lot quicker. So when you're front flip, you're blind for a good portion of the time, you're jumping off a three story building on a bicycle. So, yeah, I don't, I feel like we're gonna have, we won't be able to convey how wild this is, no matter how many times we say it in this podcast.

But, um, definitely after you listen to this, go watch some clips and just try to get a idea of what, what you'll see this year. 'cause it's, it's worth watching. It's kind of, you know, I keep using big wave parallels because it does, it does tie in really closely to that. There's that a hundred foot wave series where you can watch the.

The surfers that go out to Nazarre and they're trying to, you know, push the sport of surfing and try to surf a hundred foot wave or the biggest wave ever done. And it's very similar. And the, the heaviness of it is pretty similar too to those days where, you know, if the, the surf is firing, it's super serious and people have to be focused and there's a lot of logistics to make sure people don't get hurt or if you do get hurt to

Stephane: Mm-hmm.

Mike: make sure they get off as safely as possible.

So yeah, I mean

Stephane: Yeah. Picture of marriage of, uh, skiing big, [00:28:00] big wave surfing and freestyle motocross, and that's Red Bull Rampage, I would say

Mike: And I think that the risk, you know, risk versus reward, it, it really comes down to the athletes. I think they, no one's forcing them to be there, is what it comes down to. But it's also very scary to watch to some extent. Especially if you know the riders. It's, it's hard. It's like,

Stephane: Should we, should we? So if you are, if you're listening to this and you're like, you've heard us ramble on about Rampage and you want to check it out, uh, you can watch it. You can watch it. They have a full live broadcast. It's actually kind of. Funny, like saying it's like the Super Bowl is pretty accurate 'cause it is such a crazy production that they put on for the, for the show.

It's almost

Mike: Yeah. It's got the pregame that goes for a long time.

Stephane: yeah, get ready. It's honestly like if you're gonna watch it at home, uh, get some snacks. It's, it's a bit of a long show and, uh, but it's a good show and, uh, but I can't stress it enough. If you have the ability, if you're nearby, you gotta check it out in person. It is. It's on another [00:29:00] level.

It's pretty special to witness.

Mike: Yeah. And even if you can end up on a road trip or when the, uh, event's not there, but you can still go wander around at least kinda like look up from the bottom of these cliffs and see how big, how big they are. Um, the one another thing we should talk about quickly too, speaking of the live broadcast is the weather.

Because there's been multiple years where the weather plays a role, which you wouldn't think, you know, if you just thought, oh, the desert's always hot and sunny. Right? It shouldn't matter. But why do they keep delaying? Why does it, what happens?

Stephane: So wind, I think, is one of the biggest struggles Rampage has faced over the years. Um, it every, not every year, but it, it gets really windy there, especially in the afternoon. Once the sun gets hot, the wind starts blowing. Um, they've gotten better at kind of planning around it and riders sort of train in the morning or in the evening.

But almost every year you're gonna get some amount of wind. I mean, it's one thing to ride a, you know, like a dirt jump in a bit of wind and you kind of feel it blowing your front wheels. Your wheels kinda act as sails when they're spinning that fast. Uh, you get [00:30:00] that centrifugal force. Um, but yeah, when these riders are hitting 60 foot, 70 foot drops, the wind plays a huge role.

Um. So, yeah, we'll see. I mean, that's always a risk and that's always something that the organizers, I think, look really closely at. Uh, and they do build in a bit of, uh, like a weather day. Um, so they, they have it on the Saturday so that they can push it to Sunday if they need. Um, hopefully not. Hopefully we just get good weather, good vibes, good riding.

Mike: Yeah. Yeah. And the women drop on a different day than the men. So the women this year go on. Thursday, October 16th, and the men are on Saturday, October 18th. So there's that kind of day after each one just in case weather happens. But basically 16th and the 18th. Keep those dates in mind and you can check out Rampage.

Um, also with the wind too, they do have, you know, riders will have their spotters basically on course next to their line to kind of radio up to them and say, Hey, looks good. You can drop. Or I wouldn't go. And there's wind socks placed in certain areas just to try to make, make everything as. [00:31:00] Again, as safe, even though that's the wrong word, as potentially doable as possible,

Stephane: Yeah, a hundred percent. And we also, obviously Pink Bike covers this event very, uh, thoroughly. So if you are interested to learn more, especially in the coming weeks as we'll have, uh, a bit more of a buildup, uh, and behind the scenes and lead up content around Rampage, all that stuff will be on uh, pink bike.com and we'd be stoked to have you over and, uh, check it out.

Mike: Definitely coming over. We do a lot of bike checks too, so you can kind of get a little better idea of what these bikes actually looks like as well, as well as some interviews with the riders and just, uh, there's a lot of that behind the scenes stuff. Even the building, watching the lines progress from nothing into.

Just a really sculpted and still impossible course. So yeah. Um, I think that's probably enough rambling about Rampage for now. I appreciate outside letting us sneak in and get this little podcast out here. Hopefully you enjoyed it. We also do a podcast every week on Pink Bikes. If you're a mountain biker or interested in just hearing some mountain bikers, talk about everything, we talk about so much [00:32:00] stuff.

So yeah, feel free to listen to our podcast as well. You can subscribe anywhere you listen to your podcast, apple Podcast, Spotify, all that, as well as in the Pink Bike homepage. If you made it this far, don't forget to check out Rampage October 16th and 18th and check out the Pink Bike podcast. And you're already listening to the outside podcast, but you should keep on listening to that too.

Stephane: Yeah. And thank you so much for tuning in.

Mike: Yeah, thanks for listening. And maybe we'll hop on again, uh, another time. If there's something you want us mountain bikers to contribute to the outside podcast, drop that in a comment somewhere and we'll see what we can do. Thanks. Bye everybody.

MUSIC IN THE CLEAR FOR A BEAT

PADDYO VO:

You just heard from our friends over at the PinkBike Podcast. Check out all things bike, from news and events to gear reviews to community forums to the selling and or buying of bike parts, even entire bike-cycles, hell they even have a downhill mountain biking fantasy league, and you can hear or watch more pod episodes, at PinkBike dot com. If it has anything to [00:33:00] do with mountain biking, PinkBike is your spot. And you can follow along on Instagram at PinkBike.

And as a reminder, lovely listeners, we want to hear from ya. Email your pod reactions, guest nominations, outdoorsy romance advice, and whatever else you want to tell and/or ask us to ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Podcast At ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Inc Dot Com.

The ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Podcast is hosted and produced by me, Paddy O'Connell. But you can call me PaddyO. The show is also produced by the storytelling wizard, Micah "chamois butter is not actually butter" Abrams. Music and Sound Design by Robbie Carver. And booking and research by Maren Larsen.

The ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Podcast is made possible by our ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Plus members. Learn about all the extra rad benefits and become a member yourself at ¹ú²ú³Ô¹ÏºÚÁÏ Online Dot Com Slash Pod Plus.