The thing that really struck me about that line is just how manicured the meat of it was. From 0:21 to 0:59 the quality of the trail build was..... so well.....cultivated. My image of the Utah desert is very different to what they managed to build in that section. Amazing imagination for the line, amazing building to carve that out of the raw Utah desert and amazing riding to pull it all together. Excellent.
All landings where in the sweet spot, he went super fast, whiped almost all jumps, and his line flowed from top to bottom. I understand better why he won which such a high score when seen from his point of view! + his bunny hop on the first drop is insane
I have to agree with Gabriel on how that run looked from Andreu's POV, but watching Rheeder's POV leaves me able to say the same thing about his but Rheeder gnarly flipped a flat drop. I loved Andreu's run but If I were to watch Strait & Sem's runs from their POV I'd be seeing gnarlier runs just like I did with Rheeder's. I'd be splittin' c*nt hairs tryin' to decide between Rheeder & Sem' but Strait is an easy 3rd & Andreu really deserved no higher than his unofficial home in 4th again. He only won because he sold it before he even took his run & then just rode clean enough for the judges to give it to the "favorite" for this year. He's just paid attention to how Zink & Strait have won recently. Build hype. Once we evolve past those half-wit f*cktard judges biased towards their buddies half the time & totally f*cking clueless the other half of the time then we'll see a real competition.
i would of clapped and cheered for anyone that rode, but it was when i saw andreu's run on the live feed that it was the first one i actually clapped and cheered for as a real time response, something came out of his dialed run that truly trumped some of the regulars on the top podium steps. well done andreu, F*cking steezed it, well deserved win!
its all an absolute f-ing joke how can this win when a quatre of what the judges were judging on were tricks .. he only threw down one on safest jump there.. his line wasnt even technical .. semenuk had it hands down so stylish all the way down threw in the big tricks super smooth super stylish and super rad adding in so many cheeky bits all the way and much harder line up top i feel he was robbed ! and straights/rheeders run were more rad ... its like the judges felt bored of seeing the same guy win it all the time and seeing certain riders style when all they wanted to see was someone huck down a mountain full speed on a line just bigger and smooth like a bike park course .. and they should have clarified that more in what they were looking for cus most the riders wasted there time making technical lines going for big tricks .. redbull sort it out .. from a fan that once thought this was a rad chilled event to be commented and judged by someone that dosnt care about the event and just paid to be there... get riders to do it or do a wildcard contest on pinkbike or something for it .. were riders we dont care about serious commentry we want to see someone go wild !
I have to say that I think he deserved it. For me, it was so close between Lacondeguy, Straight, Zink, Semanuk, and Rheeder. They all had sick runs! Tough to Judge, splitting hairs really. Imagine if Stenbergen would have landed that front flip? That was insane!
Totally true. Rheeders run was more impressive. A 360's and 2 backflips. My true belief in this is Lacondaguy won even before the event started...aslong as he held it together. There was so much hype around his 2 2nd places in a row, it was innevitable he'd win. No taking away from his talent and how cool he is but i dont think it was the winning run.
Since when is rampage all about tricks? I love how so many people hate on the fmb and all the slopestyle guys and then they go and say oh well where were all the tricks? Stop contradicting yourselves. I saw so many "Andreu or Aggy for the win" about a week ago and now its "Rheeder got robbed."
I never said aggy or andreu for the win. There were plenty of comments from the commentators on how hard it is to do tricks up the top part of the mountain.surely this should be considered in judgeing.. Considering this is an fmb event which in turn is what the fmb tour is about....tricks. id pretty much say that the winner should be one who throws as many down on the hill, rather than stomp down. Rheeder in my opinion had a better run than andre. And like last year i thought andreu was better than strait.
A no hander won rampage last year...Tricks are only a 1/4 of the overall score. Also Andy29 that rzr booter or whatever it was called looked to be about a 40 or 50 ft. Gap since when is that the "safest jump" ?
What are you lot on about? Admittedly i might not what i'm talking about but this is rampage not a slope style comp. It should be about big mountain riding and crazy lines. Tricks are great but the guys throwing a lot of tricks did a lot of traversing at the top and milked the jumps at the bottom. Not taking anything away from what the did but i'm glad that the balls to the walls straight down lines like this and strait/zink got the points.
Also, look at how fast and smooth he was. Almost zero time on the brakes compared to everyone else! Straight down the mountain, full speed, with steez. This is big mountain riding kids, not a slopestyle contest.
Lacondeguy won, IMHO, because of his flow and amplitude. The hip he boosted between his drops was mega with a smooth landing. If this was a run that was going to be filmed for an edit, they could have been done in one take if all the cameras were in the right places.
It's a shame Zink couldn't keep the adrenaline in check after stomping the 3-drop (just like last year). There would be zero debate and we'd have a 3x Rampage champion.
One of the announcers was a commentator for the Tour De France and he knew just as much about road biking as he does mountainbiking...how does he qualify to commentate for these big events?!
Aggy got a 94 on qualy on the exact same line, and he over rotated that backflip. When you take that into consideration a 95.25 doesn't seen so far stretched .
@reno-be Maybe if we saw all of the Qualifier 1 and 2 runs we would have been able to judge for ourselves. I bet you that if they showed them all, there would have been more comments regarding scoring at that time. You can't say that it was Nationalism.
I just think for getting 5 off a perfect score there is nothing about his run that is unbelievable, like zink's flip off the oakley sender, or a line that nobody else would consider. Im not saying he shouldnt have won, just not by that much.
Haha, the only people who might have gone down the mountain faster that him is a WC racer, and they wouldn't have done it with style or a 76 foot drop. I guess that is normal, not unbelievable?
I think semenuk, zink or strait could have done the same line with the same speed as Lacongdeguy, but they chose to hit big lines with speed and better tricks, but scored quite a bit lower?
I want to punch myself in the face after listening to the commentary going on by redbull tv announcers during this event!
Other than that rampage was sick to watch good job to everyone that rode
"you guys are all cool and all with all your slope-style tricks", but lets take this down the big mtn line like a man with steez, and shred it. andreu held it down, no questions asked.
Now here's a rider that knows how to keep his adrenaline in check and not phone in the rest of his run after going big.. Top to bottom amazing run Andreu, well deserved your score and title.
Red Bull Rampage is about extreme downhill, not about FMB event. And the fact is that every year the competition is more about FMB than dh. In this situation this year the winner is the one who keeps the idea of a fast and fluid dh run, with only a trick per try. I think that it's obvious where Red Bull wants this competition to go.
I keep in mind Gee's second place on 2010, speed and flow. I think that's the idea.
Agreed, that was pure channeled aggression! More please, a lot of these fancy tricks leave me a little "meh", regardless of how hard they may be to pull
Once he hopped into that first drop, it was pretty much full-throttle and mega-flow. One of the few riders that actually appeared to REALLY attack his line...which was sketch as hell.
@rokboy - The section above the canyon gap was ludicrous...that was too narrow to even be considered single-track and he railed it pretty damned good. He would have been top-5 if he was able to cork the back-flip he was planning.
that run was rediculous, fast, huge, craziness, straits second run should have been close. with so much diversity in the line choices its so hard to compare, i would never want to be a judge, i think we should probably trust their opinion sometimes, they actually got to go up and run around on everyones lines!!
Awesome run, my bet was this would've been his second rampage win if he got a second run last year. He has so much fun riding that he's a winner no matter what
Definitely a pretty high score for Andreu, but I would say more of a 90.5. I'm guessing the judges were really looking for amplitude, flow and smoothness.
Any word on Van Steenbergen? If he would have stuck that front-flip, the contest would have been for 2nd place at that point. To think it's only his first Rampage.
so stoked he won ....its funny you look at the video in be like okay I can get my skillz up & do SOME of that .......then you see the pov footage...then shit just got real !!!! you be like this dude is nuts ......a whole different view from top of da mountain ...hahahahahaha
Glad he won but not sure about the accuracy of the judging. No way that was 5% better than BS or BR or CZ IMHO. So disappointed GA injured himself - I think he would have given AL a run for his money. Great contest and yay, no wind stoppages. Flawless streaming even down here in the southern tip of Africa - thanks RBTV.
I'm thinking 90-92 at best...only because he didn't have more techy tricks. Otherwise, that was fast and flowy with big-scary drops that are tough to land...let alone trick off of. If any rider defined flow and amplitude yesterday, it was Lacondeguy.
Austrian sponsor, Catalan winner, worldwide coverage.. And that permanent brain f** with commercial for national guard.. wtf they think to target ?? Dude with 99% MTB on his mind? European enduro rider?
Andreu was pleasure to watch, all other too.. Great individuals, all of them... Chapeau
well, that was a clean run, thrown down by one of the talented freakin rider our time, but, dear judges, this was not a 95 point score! other contested had even more risk, put in the same speed and style, have chosen a more risk line, and at least, they topped that with some fuckin rad tricks. My vote would have been on Strait or Semenuk. Best for van Stenbergen and all others killing themself for our entertainment. Boys, you are awesome!
Look @the progression of all the riders. McGazza was the only one to back flip last years canyon gap. There were many this year even a front flip attempt! A lot of winners today.
I gotta say, the GoPro 4 footage does not look any better than the GoPro 3. Unless you can afford a post production studio, the footage is going to look the same.
Niiiiiiiiice! FINALLY! Well done my dear Catalan Fellow! That was a smoooooooth run! Keep setting the bar up in the sky, so you can JUMP it down! FORÇA!!
I was hoping to see a 2nd run. He would have to throw down harder if he did need to take that run needing to make the podium.
If anybody got robbed this year, it was us the fans. The judges overdid his score to near perfection. I still think Andreu had the best run, but more along the lines of 90-92pts. Nobody else even cracked 90, which I think Semenuk, Strait and Rheeder should have based on Lacondeguy's score.
rampage is all about the most the technical and steepest line while taking the biggest hits. zinks line was at the top with the most tech if not the most difficult and he threw in a 50 foot natural 360 to put it away. his run defines what rampage and freeride is about. zink is our winner and the ambassador of freeride mtb to the world.
Better than Zink? Probably, at least top-to-bottom. Better than Lacondeguy? Closer than the scores indicate, but not better. Semenuk definitely out-tricked Lancondeguy, but was nowhere near the flow and amplitude of Andreu
Amen.
It's a shame Zink couldn't keep the adrenaline in check after stomping the 3-drop (just like last year). There would be zero debate and we'd have a 3x Rampage champion.
Holy though, who were these announcers??? This was some bad programing!
m.youtube.com/watch?v=FIXuC8uQyig
The live feed camera angles didn't do his canyon jumps justice
Oh and that absolutely massive hip at the bottom.. did he pull a foot off the pedal?
Any word on Van Steenbergen? If he would have stuck that front-flip, the contest would have been for 2nd place at that point. To think it's only his first Rampage.
Andreu was pleasure to watch, all other too.. Great individuals, all of them... Chapeau
A lot of winners today.
JMO.
*girlfriend comes over*
"yeah