Red Bull Rampage 2014: R-Dog

RED BULL

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ON THE BUBBLE

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RAMPAGE

Ryan Howard is on the bubble. He landed himself in 10th place after his first run and as one of the few riders who managed a second run he is waiting on the weather, like everyone else here, to find out what the future holds for him.


Tell us about your line for quallies.

It was good, I was really comfortable with it, so I just rode how I wanted to ride, just kind of flowed. I didn't send anything too gnarly and I just wanted to make it to the bottom of the hill. I saw a lot of people build some pretty gnarly stuff this week and it got me thinking that a lot of them could be getting in over their heads. I wanted to build something that I'm comfortable with because then I will ride it better and just look better while riding it. That was my strategy.

What was your approach with picking your line the new location when you arrived?

I walked the area that I thought I could go in and I walked right up to the edge where the big dogs are going, Brandon, Aggy and Andreu, I looked over the edge and was like 'uh, not going that way' so I better find another way down.

Did you determine your area based on ability or were there other factors?

I'm really comfortable with jumping, I'm stoked on jumping, so I tried to just be in the air more than I was on the ground. I teamed up with a few guys, Kyle Jameson, Makken, and Carson. It's been dubbed the "Fest Series" line.



With teaming up you must have had a huge build team.

No, not really, no one brought diggers, we just all did it ourselves. Carson brought a couple diggers but he only helped out for a day or two. He asked if he could ride with us because he was stoked on our line. We aren't super competitive, we weren't trying to win, we just wanted to have a good time.

Did you find that teaming up together helped manage some of the issues that other people were experiencing with line stealing?

Yeah, totally, it was just less people trying to find lines, helping each other out, and building stuff that we all want to ride. I'm not very competitive, I'm not out here to win, there are such gnarly dudes here, I just want to do my thing. I want to do some whips!


What has your experience with Rampage been?

This is my second year riding, three years ago I came as a digger for Brandon. I personally think that was the best way for me to start out my Rampage experience, just coming as a digger and getting to figure out the terrain, the dirt, and the digging process. It was a really good experience for me.


Did you have any previews of the new site ahead of time?

I saw a few photos here and there, but no, it was definitely an eye opener when I got here. It was really steep.

How was it coming into the brand new site with a fresh slate after working at a site last year that had pre-existing lines and where standards had already been set?

It was really cool because there was no hype around one specific feature, most of it had to be hand built and it was just about how you wanted to ride. There was no certain ridge that you had to ride. It was just all fresh and you could do what you want to do. It says a lot about a person's riding style.



How are you feeling about the current weather situation and what do you think the best case outcome would be at this point?

I want everyone to get their qualifying runs, everyone deserves the chance, like I said earlier there should be a lot of people in the finals who aren't yet. I hope qualies go down and we just get 'er done on monday, that's the best case scenario. Tomorrow I hope we can finish qualies and finish our lines if we need to and then yeah, Monday, fingers crossed.


What did you do with your day off today?

We went to the Trading Post, then to Walmart, bought some CDs and t-shirts, we went to the driving range and hit some balls, got some Mexican food, lit some fireworks and now we're watching Happy Gilmore.

Check out all of our images from the Red Bull Rampage 2014 here.

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Interviews Red Bull Red Bull Rampage