Rampage In Photos
Through Margus Riga's Lens
Words by Margus Riga. Photos by Margus Riga.
Date: 2008-10-28
Click all Images to Enlarge
Virgin Utah is a three hour drive from Las Vegas. We landed on a hot Wednesday afternoon - September 29th - and the Red Bull Rampage started on Oct 1st. That meant Cory Leclerc (from Pist N Broke Productions) and I had one evening in Vegas. Fourteen hours and many mistakes later, we woke up at a public camp site on the side of the highway, somewhere close to the Utah border. Better here than jail, which was one of the many options presented to us during the course of our night out in Vegas. &%$# Vegas. 
Oct 1st. Opening day at the Red Bull Rampage. The night before we drove blindly through the desert for half an hour in a soon-to-be dirtbaged rental car, on a questionable road, so we could camp at the base of the site and take shots at first light. The new Rampage site is even more scenic than the original, which was off the side of a heavily tourist-traveled road. This year, it was a shuttle on the back of a pick up or open air shuttle bus to the middle of nowhere, amongst the desert and mountainous spines of rock and dirt.
Marzocchi was representing large at Rampage. These little suckers were in front of a lot of rigs. That's 'gotta say something.
That's right. It was big, brown and mean. All curled up and rattling. No one gave a shit though, they had bigger problems.
Burly. This is why these boys get the big bucks.
The Chute Line, a hundred-foot 65 degree chute that shoots you straight to a 20ft step-up hip. Kenny Smith demonstrates perfect ninja technique on this one.
Chris VanDine. Looking ultra confident starting his run on qualifying day.
The top of the course was where riders really got a chance to be original and create their own lines. A lot of eyes were on this line. Mike Kinrade worked on this section for a long time. This is Mike testing the track: Twenty-footer to side-hill landing, and another one, then a twenty-foot step-up gap. In order to clear the gap, the first two needed to be done with accuracy and panache.
The number two start gate. It was a long, hot haul up there with your forty-pound buddy at your side. Good luck at the top.
Kurt Sorge couldn't keep his feet on the pedals, which in turn earned him second on the podium. I also hear he placed high on the podium in his hotel room.
This is what happened to dirt at the site when a freak rainstorm soaked Utah all day Saturday. This changed the game plan. The finals needed to be moved to Monday, leaving a lot of people, including myself, scrambling to change their flights and the riders with only one qualifying run on Sunday. The upside was that the dirt was perfect afterwards.
Cedric Gracia raced back to Vegas every night of the Rampage, and back for the mornings. He's French and he likes his nights out, and his jeans white and tight. I was kidding about traveling to Vegas every night, although he would have us believe that. Seriously though, he was the first guy on his bike ready to rip almost every day. And he did go to Vegas on the rain delay day.
Gee Atherton, like all the Athertons, was cool and calculated. He would hike his bike to the top of something, not really talk to anyone, and just stand there for a long time looking at the line. Then he'd send it bigger than anyone.
Kelly McGarry got a raw deal on this hit. He tossed it so big that the ground literally gave away when he landed, and he slammed hard. Most would take their punches and bow out, but Kelly composed himself, shook out the dirt in his helmet (most of it anyway) and ripped the sickest backflip off the daunting table at the bottom, sending the crowd into orgasm. This just demonstrated that one run to prove your case was not enough. This is also where Gee landed in a bush, but somehow was able to pedal over it and regain composure over the last two big airs to finish his qualifier.
Like a bunch of mad rocket scientists the riders who qualified got to spend the rest of the day sculpting out and planning their lines for the finals. Too bad they only had two hours before nightfall, and then only a couple of hours more in the morning before the comp. Timing was tight.
The trusty tool of Freeride Films and Red Bull. I heard this sucker was costing them $50,000/day, and that it was the same heli that films CSI Las Vegas. I don't know how the pilots flew on the day of the finals. I could have sworn I saw them at the bar pounding margaritas the night before.
Robbie Bourdon is nuts. His line in the finals was nuts. He was passing out beers to whoever would help him finish it on the morning of the finals. In the middle of it there was a line straight into the coffin if you messed up the landing. He spent two hours hacking a trench into the takeoff because it was so menacing. No one else even looked at it his line, that's how nuts it was.
The infamous canyon-gap-to-case. Cam McCaul is a tough mother$#@*&#!. He did this twice in ten minutes. Then went on to send it on his last attempt in the finals.
It was game on. The heli's flying, the tape's rolling...let's go. Mike Hopkins, gets set to let one rip from the number two starting hut.
Kyle Strait getting set at the right starting hut. For the finals, riders were allowed to start from either the far left or the middle hut - which was also in play for the qualifier. Brandon Semenuk, Cedric Gracia, Darren Berrecloth, and Robbie Bourdon all started from the centre hut, while everyone else started from the left. Options were almost limitless once you dropped in. It's easy to imagine many more creative routes getting pounded out over the years if Red Bull decides to keep Rampage at this location.
Darren Berrecloth's finals line through the middle of the canyon was both burly and tech. On his first run he ended up sketching out just before dropping a sniper fifteen footer, and jumping off his bike and down to the landing. Any normal human would have broken something from the impact. Darren just dusted off and got ready for his second run.
This sweet air saw a lot of moves. It was 360'd by Paul Basagoitia, no hander'd by Graham Aggasiz and Kyle Strait, and no-foot can'd by Graham Aggasiz in this shot.
Brandon Semenuk, the 17 year-old Whistler kid may not realize it yet, but by winning the 2008 Red Bull Rampage, he has re-defined the face of mountain biking. Like all the young guns in skiing ten years ago, he has added the element of style to the high-speed, big huck, world of big mountain riding. In fact, I don't really ever remember using the term big mountain before this year's Red Bull Rampage. Take a look at big mountain skiing to see what mountain biking may look like in ten years.
One, two, three Canadians on the podium. Maybe it's the fact that the beer in Utah is only 3.2% alcohol, and has absolutely zero affect on us red-neck, beer-bellied Canadians. &%$# eh!
Any comments about Margus Riga's photography or captioning skills? Bring 'em on...
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