2013 Red Bull Rampage: QUALIFY
For the athletes, qualies might be more stressful than the finals. For the 24 riders invited to try and land one of the 12 remaining spots in the Red Bull Rampage Super Finals, this is it. Hold back and risk not making the cut. Go too big and play with the very real possibility of injuring yourself and a quick - and quite likely painful - trip out of the competition.
The weather and riding conditions were near perfect and the riding super impressive. With two lower start gates on opposing ridgelines, most riders opted to head riders right, home of the infamous canyon cap. With so much building having been done over the past few years, both canyons are laden with booters, step downs and step ups. As a result, the riding is fast and flowy—on the big drops and gaps riders did well if they showed consistent style, on the smaller jumps, stomping a bevy of tricks was crucial.
In the end, Graham Agassiz bested a very talented field, riding a line he failed to nail in 2010. The Kamloops, B.C. rider looked good, throwing a huge can can off of the ridge top hip, and suicide no handing the canyon gap. He smartly took the win on his first and only run. Other notable performances included Fairclough hitting a massive gully jump he built last year but didn’t ride, Mitch Chubey enduring multiple crashes in practice and on his first run, rallying to 4th, Paul Basagoitia wowing the fans with his return to form, and slopestyler Thomas Genon really showing he can rip a big bike.
Fortunately, there were no major injuries today. That being said, Dustin Schaad, a 37-year-old from Salt Lake City, escaped what might be the most hideously spectacular crash in the history of mountain biking. You won’t believe it when you see the photos, but he limped away with nary a blown ankle.
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 Medics, helicopters, firemen, quads. Must be a Red Bull event. |
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| Ramon Hunziker and his posse getting ready to roll up the hill for a little canyon jump qualifying action. |
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| Let's hope not in 2013. |
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| Brendan Howey shows off his wrong side skid marks. |
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| Rider's meeting; Todd Barber laying down the rules of play for this edition of the Rampage. |
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| Aggy getting into the zone pre qualifier. |
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| Judging was fast and fairly applied - nobody bitching about anybody getting robbed yet. |
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| Bender in full-on judge mode. |
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| When you're good enough to ride at the Red Bull Rampage, you get your own bike carrier. |
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| Sam Pilgrim coming down ridge one on his first qualifying run. |
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| Property lines. R-Dog style on the ridge. |
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| R-Dog reppin' his all-American paint just nice. |
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| Utah local Dustin Schaad falling farther than most people should. Some how he limped away from the whole thing. |
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| Nico Vink showing style to go with his aggressive riding. |
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| Vink putting his own stamp on Gee's line lower down on the track. |
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| Kelly McGarry getting inverted. |
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| McGarry again, going huge further down the course. |
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| Kelly McGarry managed to score a spot in the finals. Nice work McGazza! |
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| McGazza on the long-haul flight across the canyon still long before the need to deploy landing gear. |
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| Run two: Mike Montgomery |
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| Brendog had no problems clearing his canyon gap. That's saying a lot, because last year he spent all his build time working on it, only to not ride it. Guess he worked out the kinks, and got a whole bigger set of balls. |
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| Fairclough's canyon gap. |
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| Brendan's line comes down through terrain pretty untouched by any other rider before heading towards his chasm gap. He made it totally clean on his second run. |
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| Garrett Buehler cracks out a table on the bottom part of the track. |
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| Mitch Chubey successfully sending it over the Gee gap. Pretty impressive, considering how badly Gee crashed off it last year. Even more impressive, after seeing Mark Mathews destroy his femur only a day before while attempting it, and even more impressive still considering he broke his pinky and his bike, after crashing off it his first run. |
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| Chubey, heart of a lion. |
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| Chubey said that he was most scared about the boner log today rather than Gee's gap that he crashed on in his first run. Scrambling to get to the top after a hectic bike fix, Mitch made it back up just in time to pull it all together. |
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| Chubey getting a VERY well-deserved high five after nailing the Gee gap. Actually, after seeing the amount of work he did on it to make it rideable, we will now call it the Chubey gap. |
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| Chubey nailing Gee's gap from last year. First attempt cased and after a hectic hike back up to the top, Mitch stomped his run clean. |
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| Aggy on his way to the top qualifier spot. |
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| Aggy throwing out the wings sending him in to the first spot of the day. |
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| Throwing down: Aggy sending it. 57 feet. Almost 20 meters. And a suicide no hander? Sick! |
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| And here are your 2013 Red Bull Rampage successful qualifiers: |
12. Ramon Hunziker
11. Nico Vink
10. Kelly McGarry
9. Mike Montgomery
8. Paul Bassagoitia
7. Brendan Fairclough
6. Garett Buehler
5. Mike Hopkins
4. Mitch Chubey
3. Thomas Genon
2. Pierre Edouard Ferry
1. Graham Aggasiz
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| Aggy goes first for the qualifiers, and if he sticks his insane run together tomorrow we won't be surprised if his name doesn't get moved around on the board. |
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From the Red Bull page, it looked like he didn't drop. Did his rear shock put a damper on his day again, or did he get hurt in practice?
I still hope it's a bad joke.
If not, well that sucks... :-(
Basically, I only waited for rampage because of Kirill (and Zink
Let's hope it's a joke, cause it's not funny at all.
Otherwise here's my hunch:
To him, it was becoming all about filming and building and building and filming; there was almost no time for riding itself. To him, it was just nonsense. So on the qualifier morning, he probably got up and asked himself, "What are you riding for; are you riding for money?"
Of course his answer would have been, 'no, I've always been riding because I just love it.' So now he doesn't give a shit about competing (along with sponsorship apparently,) and he is just trying to perform the riding he's always wanted to see.
Now maybe he realized that nobody at Rampage actually likes riding Rampage on account of its gnarly as f*ck, and realized he was riding once again for money. Maybe he realized that he likes to see great riding, but he doesn't like seeing people getting severely injured more. After all, Rampage is just a bicycle competition and our Canadian trials rider (Ryan Leech) would point out that the gladiator style of competition is uncivilized. He might have then had the parallel thought that his edits were only loved because he was one of the gladiators that was winning the most (in other words, his massive hucks and front/back flips made him famous - not his sense of humor and personality (which I want to interject is the reason his somewhat extraordinary riding became famous in the first place)).
At any rate, Benderoni is out of Rampage now, and apparently he'll only ever amount to being a Matt Hunter - which is damn respectable anyways. It'd be nice to see him get a job at a place like Highland bike park though so he could teach people to love mountain biking instead of to love the competition if that's what he believes in. I'm sure any park would accept him in a heartbeat if he applied.
It'd be a shame to see a talented person with that kind of philosophy quit mountain biking forever.
You have to keep in mind that he basically has no international competition experience like all the other guys and I'm not even speaking about the disadvantages of training possibilities and such.
vk.com/benderoni
Some news about the rampeydzha and my part in it. Motivation to skating in my last year became less and less, but I thought that in Utah it will all change. However, has not changed. Yesterday was a day of training, I went to last year's big Drop - it was no more than the ones I hopped on a hardtail in the old days - and I realized that I do not want to force myself to jump. And that meant only one thing: I can no longer ride. If you can not or do not want to force myself to jump, you are no longer mountain biker. Qualifications I did not go on the bike and do not sit down. During qualifying this drop no one jumped, and in the evening Gulevitch tried to jump, double nedoletel and fell heavily, so I'm not afraid of nothing. However, the fact it does not change. Perhaps all this will upset someone, but believe me - the most upset I am. Please do not write to me and ask me anything about it. Just a couple of days this page will I need to connect to the house, and then I will destroy it, so that can be removed now. Perhaps that's it.
Scared? Intimidated? Unhappy with the reality of sponsored pro riding? I'm sure a lot of people will speculate about why he really quit. Fans will take his side and turn him into some kind of "purist". Haters will do what they do.
I say,
On any given day, if you don't feel like riding, DONT RIDE.
Some news about rampage and my participation in it. During last year I had less and less motivation to ride, but I thought that it will all change in Utah. However, it didn't. Yesterday we had training day, I went to last year's big Drop (previous big Oakley sender - my remark) which was not bigger than the ones I've jumped on a hardtail in the past - and I realized that I do not want to force myself to jump. And that meant only one thing: I can no longer ride. If you can't or don't want to force yourself to jump, you are no longer a mountainbiker. I didn't ride qualifiers and I'll never sit on my bike again. No one has jumped this drop during qualifying, but in the evening Gulevich tried to jump it, cased it two times and went down hard, so my dreads weren true. However, it does not change the facts. Perhaps all this stuff will upset someone, but believe me - I am the one who is upset the most. Please don't write to me and don't ask me anything about it. For a couple of days I will need this page to have a connetion with my home, but I will delete it shortly after, so you can remove me from friends list already. I guess, that's it.
And wins or places in 95% of dirt or slope comps ?
And he's still a skatepark rider ?
Yolo was, just bear with he here, yolo just might have been joking.
i.imgur.com/opiLNFj.gif
drink RedBull
thanx
as an old git myself I need to know who to root for
Ok so I didn't qualify for rampage but I had a good time and I'm actually glad I don't have to ride that scary stuff anymore!
looks like an irish midget but hes french can you bring in some gold?
www.pinkbike.com/photo/10205410