Red Bull Ride Wrapup

“This is the best course I've ever ridden on for a freeride competition," said 18-year-old world renowned Canadian bike prodigy Thomas Vanderham. "The whole thing is just awesome."

Among the bruised egos, broken-in-half bikes and bravado on display at the world's toughest freeride event - held in Jindabyne, NSW, Australia, on the toughest mountain bike course ever created - Western Australia's reigning 17-year-old World Junior Champion Sam Hill made the day his own.
After scraping into the 10-man final in ninth position, Hill stamped a near flawless final run to take the AUD$15,000 event from standout WA rider John Waddell, 22, and an imposing flannel-shirt-clad Rennie, 22, of Kurrajong Heights, NSW.

In an amazing result, Australians claimed eight of the top 10 placings from a 27-man field of invited competitors from nine countries. British World Cup Champion Steve Peat withdrew early with a badly gashed knee, gallant French world no. 2 Cedric Gracia was the highest placed visa-holder at seventh, and a host of North American freeride superstars including Tyler Klassen, Kyle Strait, Dave Watson and Robbie Bourdon were judged just outside the 10.

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"The Australians are taking it to a new level, really. I don't know why. The ground's a lot harder here, but a lot of us race and are fit and can handle a lot of the different sections of the course... but then, so are the Canadians, and they do a lot of [big] drops," said Waddell. "Maybe the international guys just don't have the all round adaptability that we do?"

The precipitous kilometre-long course included a nine metre (30ft) vertical drop, a 14-metre (46ft) step down gap, rhythm jumps, a wall ride and a 'sled-saw', a giant moving seesaw on rails that had never been seen before in mountain biking, and that lead to Peat's knee injury.

"Sam nailed it from the sled saw all the way down past the north shore section when I was watching it," said Waddell. "He almost cleaned the whole course!"

"The wind was really strong for the big drops and it was really smoky towards the end, but I don't think the day could have gone any better," said Hill after popping a no-footer off the 14-metre step-down on his final run, and before hearing his score. The Red Bull Ride site was intermittently choked with thick smoke of 400 Canberra homes tragically destroyed by local bushfires throughout the two-day event.

The top 10 riders from the qualifying round were offered the chance to better their score with another run in a Tuesday afternoon "final". Rennie, the leader after the first round, momentarily between sponsors and the standout of the practice rounds couldn't better his effort and dropped to third. His final score of 118.5 was only 0.5 points ahead of an unlucky Marsh, another pre-event favorite who accidentally neglected the second section of the 13-part course in the final.

Fifth and 6th places respectively went to Canberra-based Australians Jared Rando and Ben Cory. With the wind rising neither chose to make a second attempt at the course. I'm really worried about getting hurt with the wind gusting and these big drops. The more you ride, the more chance you have of getting hurt, and racing is really what I'm getting paid to do," said Rando, 21.

"It's been about five months since I've gone in any competitions because I broke my hand pretty badly. I'm just climbing back on the horse again," laughed Cory, 19.

Cedric Gracia's bike was lost in transit and he was unable to ride on Monday's practice session. In the competition the 24-year-old Frenchman was riding some sections for the first time. He pulled a wide-open one-hander on the hip jump in his first competition run and stormed into seventh. "You have to understand - since we are kids we were taught to race. We impress people by going down really fast, and we don't care so much about line!" said Gracia.

Vanderham's chances were blown by mechanical failures in both his qualifying and final run, with drive train problems each time. Without a derailleur he still pinned a burly step-down gap and a smooth tail whipping line through the rhythm jumps.

Rounding out the top ten were Cairns, Australian rider Sean McCarroll – who blasted the whole course at breakneck, seemingly-suicidal speed, and fellow Queenslander Shane Wode, who went for a huge backflip in the rhythm jumps but lost the landing. "I just went for it," said Wode, 27. "I did it at the same rhythm jump that Timo (Pritzel, of Germany) made his on yesterday, but I didn't sight the landing properly. I'm still stoked."

Among the further carnage of blown shocks, trashed derailleurs and busted wheels came four more remarkable stories of courage:

Fourth-placed South Australian Steve Marsh, 27, was recovering from a second knee reconstruction and a judge at the 2002 Red Bull Ride. "I was told two years ago that I wasn't going to be able to ride a mountain bike every again, full stop, because of my knee," he said. "And here I am competing on the hardest course in the world."

Vancouver's Darren Berrecloth, 21, who only traded his pro BMX for a mountain bike last year, suffered a suspected broken wrist on Monday's practice. He recovered to compete. "It's just mangled: ripped tendons all through the bottom to the top of my hand, dislocated fingers, a dislocated thumb and torn thumb tendons. During my run I got to a couple of spots where I bottomed out and I had no strength in my wrist to get through it – I crashed out a couple of times. But I just took a lot of codeine," he said.

Squamish-based US rider Shaums March walked away from the biggest crash in freeride contest history. The 28-year-old early standout took too much speed into the 43-foot step down gap. "I didn't think anything was going wrong when I was in the air - everything went good until I landed and my front tire went," he said. That tire popped on impact as his front wheel simultaneously buckled. A fraction of a second later March's whole bike snapped in the middle into two large pieces. March went through the gap and piled into the dirt. Steve Marsh, who was on hand, said, "everything I've seen in videos or contests or anywhere, nothing beats that rag that Shaums took. That was the heaviest thing I've ever seen."

Wiry South Australian stunt maestro Grant Allen was the first and only rider to take on the huge 30-foot vertical drop. While a "vertical" drop, the big drop is actually part step-down gap, and Allen has to project a good 10 feet to land smoothly - which significantly boosts the height. After an age at the top and a morning boosting can-cans and an aborted Superman on the rhythms, Allen (who was the first to take on the 20ft+ vert drop at last year's course) pinned his landing perfectly with every lens on the mountain on him. "I just had to keep my rep!" he said. "What was I thinking of? My girlfriend!"

A presentation was held for the winners at the Jindabyne village that evening, away from the dust and flies of the course, where a softly-spoken Hill claimed his prize to the applause of Waddell and Rennie. Highest-placed international Cedric Gracia was one of the first to congratulate him.

"I've been happy with the day - oh, it's been fantastic," he said. "Good weather and good people. This is much harder than racing! Much harder!"

Normally sleepy Jindabyne is the gateway to the winter time ski fields of the Snowy Mountains, and a stopping point on the way to Mt. Kosciuszko (2,228m), Australia's highest peak. Jindabyne was relocated in the 1960s, when the original town was swallowed by the world famous hydro-electric scheme, built largely new European migrant during Australia's post war boom.

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