X Games Real MTB Joe Barnes Jimmer’s favourite kit New YT Capra, Santa Cruz Blur and Specialized Turbo Kenevo SL Malverns Classic A very special retro ride
We check out six mindmelting moves from the X Games Real MTB comp
The X Games Real Series is all about taking action sports like skateboarding, BMX, motocross and skiing and letting the athletes showcase their skills in their own backyard. Six contestants each team up with a filmmaker to hunt out or build the craziest features they can think of, then throw down their best tricks and video it. The all killer, no filler 90-second edits are then judged online and voted on by us, the people. This year saw the inauguration of an MTB category, with all-time legends Danny MacAskill, Brandon Semenuk and Cam Zink lining up against new-schoolers Brage Vestavik, DJ Brandt and MBUK columnist Vero Sandler. Out of all the insane tricks that were pulled, here are the six that left us slack-jawed and scratching our heads…
1 DANNY MACASKILL’S BACK-WHEEL BUMP FRONTFLIP
To most of us, mixing snow, slippery logs and barbed wire fences sounds like a recipe for disaster, but Danny Mac isn’t most people. For a trials mastermind, those are all the ingredients needed to fashion a take-o . Quite how the Scotsman managed to bump the log with his back wheel and then initiate a perfect frontflip over the fence is beyond our comprehension and the laws of physics!
2 CAM ZINK’S BACKFLIP CAN-CAN
If Red Bull Rampage is the ultimate proving ground for a freerider, then Cam Zink has nothing left to prove. His Real MTB segment, filmed partly at the old Rampage site in Utah, reminded us why he’s king of the desert – we’re talking huge hits, massive tricks and zero margin for error. Backflips and can-cans are impressive enough on their own, but combining the two and chucking in a 50ft cli ? The guy’s a madman!
3 DJ BRANDT’S 360 ROOF DROP
Something we don’t see too often these days is riders taking their DH bikes and going freeriding in the streets, launching drops and hucking stair sets. In an edit littered with mad backflip variations, American DJ Brandt’s massive 360 spin o the roof of a multi-storey building onto a grass bank was a BMX-meets-MTB moment and a homage to old-school freeride all wrapped up into one big move.
4 BRAGE VESTAVIK’S HUUUUUGE NORTH SHORE DROP
Norway’s Brage Vestavik doesn’t just look like a Viking, he rides like one too – raw, fast and fearless. His balls-to-the-wall edit wowed us not just with its creativity, but also the serious consequences if just one of his stunts had gone wrong. The half-cab log ride (180-degree spin on, ride backwards and 180-degree spin o ) showed his pure technical ability, but the ginormous drop he hit at the end was o the scale! Clearly we’re not the only ones who thought so, as Brage won the fan favourite award by a big margin.
5 VERO SANDLER PUTTING ON A CORNERING CLINIC
Perhaps it’s ’cos we’re from the UK and just love muddy corners, but there was something about Vero’s edit – filmed at Revolution Bike Park and secret spots in Mid Wales – that made us want to grab our bikes. As awesome as flips and spins are, they’re unattainable for most of us, and sometimes all we really want to see is some turn-ripping and roost-blasting. That’s not to say Vero’s submission didn’t have tricks, too, including suicide no-handers and crankflip variations, but it was definitely her corner shralping that got us most hyped.
6 BRANDON SEMENUK’S NOSE BONK TO SUICIDE NO-HANDER
With every ridiculous video that Revel in the Chaos partners Brandon Semenuk and Rupert Walker come up with, the pair never fail to surpass themselves, so of course an X Games edit from the greatest freerider of all time was always going to raise the bar. In 90 seconds of wall-to-wall banger tricks, executed with such precision that they almost look too easy, Brandon’s nose bonk to suicide no-hander on a steep and exposed desert ridgeline looks as epic as we know it would be terrifying to ride.