Near the top of a prehistoric mesa in Zion National Park, Utah, is a sand-coloured boulder the size of a small truck.
It clings precariously to the side of the mountain, poised to plummet to the desert floor below. And it has a fitting name: Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson. The Rock was christened by Brendan Fairclough, a 30-year-old freerider from Surrey, who is planning to ride his bike off the top of it.
Once he’s done that, Fairclough explains to MH, pointing up at the vertiginous mountain in front of us, he’ll race down its ridges, sail over its canyons and roll across the finish line, a 237m near-vertical drop below the start gate. These are not the kinds of runs that bikes are designed to handle – nor humans designed to survive.
The Red Bull Rampage is a mountain bike competition unlike any other. Competitors must be invited to take part by a committee of veteran riders, and only the best merit a spot. It’s not a race to the bottom, though points are awarded for speed. Riders are judged on a number of criteria, including airtime and tricks, as well as more virtuoso factors such as fluidity and style. To put it bluntly, they are rewarded for taking risks: riders score points for their willingness to tread the narrow line between victory and injury.
Rampage was founded in 2001 by Todd Barber, who took his inspiration from big-mountain skiing and snowboarding competitions. The first event attracted a motley crew of dirt jumpers, slopestylers and downhill racers. It was, in a sense, the UFC of mountain-biking: a mixeddiscipline event, at which competitors pitted their skills against riders from a broad spectrum of backgrounds, with no guarantee as to who would come out on top.
The 13th event is held on the outskirts of the small town of Virgin, where Mars-like canyons, mesas and monoliths provide an awe-inspiring stage on which the riders can showcase their skills. (The location, incidentally, was first recommended to Barber by his friend Josh Bender, a Virgin native and rider who had attracted attention in the sport after attempting a 17m drop – and ending up in hospital.)
Accidents are not uncommon but, as Fairclough, who has ridden at Rampage six times, puts it, “Normality is distorted out here. You’re scared, but everyone is scared.” He shrugs. “And it’s kind of normal.”
DIGGING FOR VICTORY
From top to bottom, the average run is over within the space of a couple of minutes. But that doesn’t tell the full story. In reality, success is hard won over a period of around eight days, as riders and their two-man dig teams toil in the desert to carve out and then practise their routes. That’s another thing that makes Red Bull Rampage unique: no two riders will run the same line. And finding – or, rather, building – a creative path within the site boundaries is crucial to their final score.
If you want a sense of how complicated this process is, watch an online video called Risk vs Reward at Red Bull Rampage. In it, Californian rider Cam Mccaul explains a “blind take-off”: a drop in which the first time the rider catches sight of the landing, it’s too late to adjust speed or trajectory. “Two miles per hour too fast and the rider will land halfway down and explode upon impact,” says Mccaul, matter of factly. “[Going] two miles per hour too slow will put the rider before the landing – and cause them to get catapulted off the bike.”
Tensions run high in the days leading up to competition. The teams are typically up on the site before sunrise, enduring the bitterly cold desert winds in the hours before daylight hits the mountain. After that, the temperature quickly rises to 40°C, and the rest of the day is hot, dry
and dehydrating. “It’s hard to keep up morale, so it’s important to have people you trust and can relate to,” says Fairclough, whose dig team comprises his childhood friend and fellow pro-rider Olly Wilkins, plus friend and former Royal Marine Ben Deakin. “At the end of these tough 10 days, you’ve got this intensely physical and mentally demanding task. On that day, you can’t be at your lowest point. You’ve got to be ready to go.”
Carving the perfect line is very much an art, not a science. “The judges have set criteria, but it’s also about the overall feel,” explains Gee Atherton, a downhill racer from Wiltshire, who placed second at Rampage in 2004 and 2010. “You can’t be too clinical about it. Your run has to have some life to it. It’s that soul, it’s that fire, that’s going to impress the most… That’s the thing that marks you out.”
As a result, the stakes get higher every year, as the riders battle to outdo their previous performances, as well as each other. “It’s advancing quickly,” Atherton says. “Lines that guys built for final runs a couple of years ago would be used to warm up on now. Every year, it gets bigger, and the drops and gaps get a little bit longer. And every year, you think: maybe this is the peak, maybe this is as big as it can get. Then, inevitably, everyone pushes it a little bit further. It gets a little bit crazier.”
DANGEROUS GAMES
In 2015, a rider named Paul Basagoitia from Nevada crashed on a step-down and shattered his vertebrae. He was evacuated by helicopter and required nine hours of surgery. The same year, Boston slopestyler Nicholi Rogatkin tumbled off a cliff in his qualifying run, enduring a 12m beating on the way down. Miraculously, he was unharmed: he dusted himself off and cleared the canyon gap on his next attempt.
It’s undoubtedly a profession that calls for a fair amount of mettle, but competitors are more than just thrill-chasers. (“Are
“The stakes get higher every year. In 2015, a rider shattered his vertebrae in a crash”
you calling me stupid?” says Fairclough, laughing, when asked about his motives.) In reality, the risks are carefully assessed. “It’s all calculated,” says Fairclough. “You don’t go jumping off something without knowing exactly what you’re jumping off.”
Evaluative skills are just one tool in a rider’s arsenal. Physical training includes weights-based strength and conditioning work, as well as practising tricks and developing endurance on the bike. Core and upper-body stability is as important as quads of steel when manoeuvring down narrow, bumpy terrain.
Atherton isn’t a fan of the “adrenalin junkie” label. “It’s not like I’ll do anything just to give myself a buzz,” he says. “I’ve been in this sport for a long time, and you have to know when to push harder and when to draw back.” Still, he concedes that Red Bull Rampage “does attract people who are willing to walk a very fine line”.
Most riders have suffered their fair share of injuries. In a recent crash, Atherton dislocated his hip and knocked himself out. “The psychological side of recovery was almost harder than the physical. It took me a while to get back on the bike,” he says. “But I worked through it. It’s a risk, but I’m doing something I love.”
One rider who has previously been somewhat sceptical about the safety
precautions at events such as Rampage is Nevada-born Cameron Zink. In the year of Basagoitia’s accident, Zink elected not to do the second of his two runs down the mountain – though it could have helped him move up in the ranking – claiming it wasn’t worth the risk. But he has been back each year since, has placed on the podium a total of four times and describes Rampage as “an event unlike any other”. “You have the freedom to go as big as you want, to do anything you can dream up,” he says.
This time, however, things don’t go so well for Zink. He is ruled out of competing because of an existing shoulder injury, for which he is scheduled for surgery. “I was just going to deal with it, compete, then get it fixed,” he tells MH. “But I was coming down on a cash roll, which is basically a front-flip 360, and it popped out on landing. The medics didn’t want to put it back in because of liability, so I had a friend, Mitch Ropelato, do it. There was a grinding and an elaborate pop… Bummer.”
A DOWNHILL BATTLE
On the morning of the competition, the air is especially cold. High winds, which unsettled a few of the practice runs, now threaten to set the riders off course. Fortunately, they quickly die down as the day warms up. Spectators crowd the surrounding hills, scrambling up to the best vantage points, already caked in dry, red mud. The medical team is on standby, and helicopters circle overhead.
Then, one by one, the riders make their way up to the start gate. The new site is higher and longer than those of previous years, adding around 45m of vertical drop. It can take the riders 40 minutes to hike up to the top, their bikes over their shoulders – it’s simply too steep for cars or buggies.
The first rider, Szymon Godziek from Poland, crashes hard after misjudging a backflip. He shakes it off, picks up his bike and finishes the run. Then, Fairclough drops in. From the base of the route, he resembles a distant dust cloud. He speeds down to the Rock for his signature piece – then drops off it with seeming ease, a fall of almost 11m. He runs down the ridge line, leading up to a 20m canyon. He clears it. Then he rides down a sheer cliff drop and builds up to a soaring backflip, before – finally – passing the finish gate.
The canyon gap holds particular significance for Fairclough. “Two years ago, I built a jump that was 18m, but I only managed about 15m and ended up dislocating both of my thumbs,” he explains. “So, we were looking for redemption.” Wasn’t he afraid? “We’re pretty dumb. We forget pain, you know…”
After much debate, it is announced that the top prize goes to Brett Rheeder, a first-time winner from Canada who impressed the judges with a staggering backflip that drew gasps from the crowd below. Second up on the podium is Andreu Lacondeguy from Spain, followed by wildcard Utah boy Ethan Nell. Fairclough – this year’s only British rider – takes tenth place and receives the Kelly Mcgarry Spirit Award, named after the relentlessly positive New Zealand rider who died in 2016, and given out to commend a participant’s good humour and resilience.
MH catches up with Fairclough as he steps off the podium. How does he feel about the result? He looks down at himself. “I’m in one piece. My legs and arms are in the same position as when I arrived,” he says, and smiles. “So, it’s all good.” The next Red Bull Rampage will be held on 25 October 2019. Visit redbull.com
“For one rider, the psychological side of recovery after a crash proved harder than the physical”