GO BIG OR GO HOME!

“Life’s too short to not go big!” With that motto, Josh Bender took freeride to new heights (literally) in the early 2000s as he hucked off a succession of ever bigger cliffs in Kamloops, British Columbia. He steered the sport in a new direction – look through the VHS tapes and you’ll see madness on two wheels long before Red Bull Rampage was conceived.

The culmination of Bender’s relatively short but hugely influential career was the infamous 55ft Jah Drop, which he tried – and failed – to nail at least four times on his monster twin-shocked, 330mm-travel Karpiel Apocalypse, despite a crash on his first attempt leaving him with seven weeks of memory loss. As the wipeouts began to eclipse his riding, and the concussions and broken bones added up, Bender disappeared from the scene when he was on the brink of trying a 100ft drop and began drinking heavily.

Today the 47-year-old is a five-years-sober family man with a young daughter. Back on the scene as a Rampage judge, he could be seen walking the slopes of Virgin, Utah, at this year’s event with hiking poles for mobility, yelling encouragement to veterans and newbies alike. They all have total respect for this rider, whose weathered face tells of a man who’s seen and done it all.