Well the Redbull Rampage was back after being in oblivion since 2004. My understanding was since the last site was on Crown Land it was difficult to get permissions and the tree huggers (well more to the point up there, the scrub and red dirt huggers) petitioned against people riding and walking over the dirt as it created some erosion and killed plants. People who know me know that I am all for conservation within reason as long as it serves a proper function with a solid outcome. America in this sense is very strange. It seems that having an engine makes things ok. There are vast, vast tracks of land in Utah and California where there is no one living and in the Californian case some of the land is well stark to say the least. In these areas Motos rule. In Utah huge areas are set aside for Motos to tear around breaking bones and ripping up the earth but a small area which is not exactly wilderness by any means was shut down because people powered machines were doing too much damage. Well whatever. These examples are found everywhere. The local MTB riding location in Redlands can be a death trap. Motos rip around when they should not be there making a mess and quite frankly being dangerous. Spose the lesson is make sure you have a motor under your arse in these parts.
Anyhow the Rampage was back and I headed to Virgin Utah with Russell and Margaret and we met Al and Rob up there. They had not had rain up there for months. Of course I just sleep under a fly the first night on the side of the road. What happens… yep at 6am the heavens open up in Mormon country. It rains for the whole day and the Rampage is postponed. It was somewhat depressing after driving 6+ hrs. Still we went riding ourselves. We did Graften Mesa and Karate Monkey as shuttles and played around at the old Rampage site. Good times other than the mud. Thick, thick mud. Nasty stuff. So thick my rear wheel did not turn. The Enduro was so clogged even down some steep as terrain the rear wheel stayed locked up at times. I really should have cleaned the bike better because the mud set like concrete. From 33 pounds to 60 pounds. Made for a good workout up hills.
We headed up to the Rampage the next day. It was a 4 mile uphill ride to the site. It was fun ripping down after watching the world’s best shred some gnar. The area was amazing. Real Southern Utah scenery (= Mesa’s) and these dudes were to be riding down it. Just nuts. We settled down for the day and watched in the sun and clear skies. I’m not going to go into all this too much. What the guys can do on 2 wheels really is beyond belief. Huge stuff which cameras and videos just do not do justice too. The steepness was awesome and the commitment massive.
We watched the semis/qualifications on the first day. The only Kiwi Kelly McGarry I believe got robbed but there is an element of bullshit judging like all judged sports. He did crash but got up and did the only backflip on this massive hip jump with a chunked out landing. Some other ‘bigger’ names that crashed got through.
For those taht dont know basically Redbull invites the world best 'freeriders' to a location in Utah. They get plocked ontop of a mountain with 3 starting points and down in the slopes below are a number of ramps and obstacles built up by men. The rest of the terrina is natural. They then havea few days to create, choose and practise any lines they want. The goal is to get to the bototm within 4 mins. To win they need to show a combination of creativity, skill, guts, big b*lls, tricks and no brains without crashing and having a clean run down the hill. The guy that won did not do the hardest lines down the hill but manages to do a trick almost everytime he got air and held the run together without eating Utah dirt. The second place guy, Kurt Sorge did a much more technical run down the face of the Mountain and hit the 60ft canyon jump doing a superman style trick over it. Just insane... This is where the commitiment shows, once you start runnig ndown to that jump thats it, you cannot pull out. You dab the brakes you might come up short, hit the canyon face and fall 10m to the bottom. Yikes.
In the final day Gee (a favorite and world downhill champ crashed hard) and was out during practice. The course/routes were down some different runs on the mountains and were bigger and steeper than the day before. Loose rocky faces and massive drops and the 60ft canyon jump were definite highlights. Also sneaking into an area where you needed ‘passes’ allowed me to get better views an some pretty cool shots and video.
Huge crashes happened all over the show. Some like Matt Hunter who broke a collarbone were not lucky but it always amazed me what they picked themselves up from and continued like nothing happened. Tough buggers. When they were applying for a sponsored biking job I think they must have told them they were built to crash, not just built to ride.
Anyway it was a great weekend. Utah is wicked. I must go back. The amount of road tripping, hiking and biking there is limitless and we only just popped over the border. I can’t wait. Bring on a massive all American Road Trip at some stage.
I have a ton of video but will take a while to process. In the meantime look at the professional stuff on http://www.redbullrampage.com/
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9 years ago
