5 Things We Learned at Red Bull Rampage 2019

Now that the dust has settled on another edition of Red Bull Rampage let’s take a deeper look into what we spotted from the sidelines.

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1. This was probably the best Rampage ever





2. The Proving Grounds qualifiers failed to make the Top 10






3. Year 2 in this venue seems safer, but maybe not easier

Last year was a brand new venue for Rampage, and the combination of new terrain and the stresses of building seemed to wreak havoc on the field. Many athletes commented this year that they felt way better on the hill, with less digging needed, but when you compare the results, the number of crashes seems pretty even.


The apparent parity of crashing could be just bad luck—a lot of the crashes this year were weird, small mistakes at the bottom. It's also possible that there's some safety in a fresher, raw venue, versus year two when people are pushing harder to get tricks into their lines. It also seemed like only one person (Johny) got taken out due to injury this year, compared to several last year. My unscientific takeaway is that year one is more dangerous, but year two is harder.




4. Returning riders building on their 2018 runs had a big advantage


On the other hand, riders that were first timers at the event were at a clear disadvantage. Emil, Johny, Bienvenido, and Reece had to scratch lines in with the leftover terrain and avoid the existing lines built by the returning riders, and Reece's especially got penalized for a lot of down-time in his run. None of them finished higher than 12th place.

All of them missed out on the Top 10 that get invited back automatically, and will have to earn their way back into the big show again next year. I'd love to see a way to level the playing field a little bit for returning riders, especially since line choice and creativity plays such a huge part in the judging. Maybe since returning riders don't have the advantage of a year's experience, they could get free rein to ride a section of other riders' lines without the original builders whining about it? I'm sure someone has a better idea than that, but I'd like to see something.




5. Bikes aren't invincible

Every year I'm blown away that bikes don't self-destruct at the mere mention of Rampage. These machines are legitimately incredible; the bikes of Rampage simply don't get enough credit. Not only are the forces involved in casing or over-rotating a 50ft 360 absolutely heinous, but freeriders are notoriously terrible at taking care of their bikes. Yes, some of them are meticulous and have the budget to have spare frames and mechanics doing full teardowns and inspections for cracks after each day, but many of them don't. Hell, of all people, Semenuk's brakes sounded awful all week.

So, while I'm sure that marketing folks and mechanics work hard to hide any failures in practice and elsewhere, it's always been surprising that there have been so few broken bikes at Rampage.


To be clear, these failures don't mean there's anything wrong with either of the bikes that failed. I'm sure others failed behind the scenes, and I'm sure their failures don't reflect the quality of the bikes. Absolutely nobody should be riding Rampage level moves and feel like their bikes deserve to emerge unscathed.




A few more thoughts:

• Kyle Strait is the most consistent Rampage rider. The veteran has been at every event since it began, and is still one of the riders to beat. His score of 83.33 was solid, and it's nice to see him adding 3 drops to his bag of tricks. Looking back through Strait's career, he has only dropped below 70 points twice: a 65.75 in 2012 and 59.8 in 2008. After securing ninth place this year he will be automatically invited back for 2020, his 15th Rampage.

• Brandon Semenuk joins Kurt Sorge as the most successful Rampage riders of all time. Brandon Semenuk was looking for redemption this year. Two crashes in 2018 were clearly on his mind. With more time to refine his line and add a few new features, it's no surprise he came out swinging and earned a 92.33 from the judges. With three wins a piece, he joins Kurt Sorge as the most successful Rampage riders of all time.

• Not everything went smoothly in production. As much as I'm calling this the best Rampage ever, parts of the viewing experience shortchanged the incredible riding. The cable cam didn't work at all—I don't think I saw a single shot from it that worked all day, it kept awkwardly trying to correct itself during the final hits. I'm also not sure why long lenses are harder to come by than helicopters. And did I hear fake bike sounds? What was that? This thing costs Red Bull a shocking amount of money, and as an industry we're indebted to them for giving these athletes a stage, but sorting this stuff out doesn't take money (actually it might save money).

• When Brandon wins, Canada wins. Every year except 2013 has had at least one Canadian rider on the Rampage podium. For 2019 it was all three medal positions going to Canadians Brandon Semenuk, Brett Rheeder and Tom Van Steenbergen. The only other time this has happened was back in 2008 when Semenuk took his first Rampage win.

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Racing and Events Things We Learned Red Bull Red Bull Rampage