To all who are bitching and moaning about lack of riders, not hitting step ups, poor camera angles and that the fest boys could piss the course. Id say you need your facts straight first. Strong winds at top of hill made step up unridable. Gee/brayton/kerr etc are world class riders who said its far to dangerous with the wind. Didnt rampage get called off due to wind one year?? Fest boys have smooth run ins compared to hard lines rooty, rocky n slippy run ins. Show some respect to the riders. Several riders went home and didnt even ride. To hear brayton say he was scared, yes gas to flat, says something dont you think. I was there and witnessed the amazing riding on show. Respect to every rider.
I cant believe they were hitting the road gap in wind and rain on saturday. That was just practice! The top half of the course was closed on saturday due to the extreme weather. Most of the riders were just glad to get down in one piece in the post race interview haha. Serious props to everyone that rode
I think the results speak for themselves. They are some of the best to rip a bike so anyone else's opinion is pretty baseless. That trail looks gnarly enough even last year without the rain/wind and massive jumps. How the hell did they ride some of that off camber loose and rock slabs? Dan Atherton is one sick puppy... in a good way.
@phattymatt there were drones and real cameras covering everything, but redbull have the rights on that, and their video will be out soon I expect. As for the video clips you may have seen, they were filmed 'unofficially' and let's face it, the woods in Wales are very tight! Unlike the trails, Good angles are hard to get in Wales!
I watch these runs with a lot of excitement because it pushes the sport in the right direction! I'm so tired of seeing DH courses with no airtime... Being in the air is part of the sport, and its something that should be represented in the races.
Awesome run, awesome track. Yet, somehow this track sparked one question in me: When is it going to be enough? I mean, don't get me wrong, DH MB is something inherently dangerous, I get that (duh), but some of the stuff on this track really does look like it could kill a man. And Dan's injury pays tribute to that. Any of you guys get what I mean? Because for next year Dan is only going to go bigger and badder, but to me it looks like he's approaching this inevitable breaking point where he builds something so ludicrous that it ends up seriously hurting someone. Not that he wasn't seriously hurt on this years track or anything... Anyway, just my thoughts.
Agree. I live in Colorado where action sports are huge. More and more (young) kids are getting seriously hurt, as progression pushes them to go bigger and bigger. I can't image what they'll be doing in 10 years and as the father of a 3 year-old boy that makes me nervous.
I agree. We've already reached a point that to be a competitive action athlete you need to train year round and probably have rich parents that can afford to send you to woodward or pay for coaching (not ALWAYS the case but usually). It's really hard to be competitive if you can't safely learn that caliber of tricks into a foam pit or resi-ramp. Hell growing up competitions and videos was just guys doing tailwhips, bar-spins, x-up etc. tricks that can be learned on dirt with some risk but NOT the risk of death in most cases. Jumps and tricks get bigger and more complex but the risk goes up as well! Travis Pastrana gets nightmares from his near death experiences I'm sure some of our mountain bike idols are reaching that point too, if they haven't already!
P.S. @MacRamsay the word is that the step up was avoided due to high winds. All the riders agreed it was much too dangerous.
People were always going huge but its a matter of personal accountability and hitting things within your ability level. I think we've all tested that limit with terrible results, haha. The riders themselves know their limits so their input will help shape the course if they continue to have it. Dan was hurt doing something anyone could get hurt doing regardless of the size, which is testing a jump that has never been done successfully or attempted before. It seems the most dangerous aspect of the course were the new jumps which can be changed with some tweaks but with bad weather, everything goes out the window (at least it seems to me from my armchair).
@LaserEule its because people like you the sport is becoming shit hahah all my local bike parks keep making simpler the tracks and I keep getting pissed because they do that... thank god we have enduro! in a few years you will be able to ride bike parks with a bmx
Iv'e not read every post but i don't think there's been much congrats thrown his way so i'm gonna say it...... Well done Ruaridh Cunningham..... a local guy from Stow (in the Scottish borders ) cut his teeth at Innerleithen in the Tweed Valley, if you've been following the EWS you'll know where i'm talking about, also a former World Champion (junior) so he has the skills to win, he's had some injuries which has probably held him back over the years, hopefully this will put him back where he belongs, Scotland deserves to have a rider worth shouting after, I met him at the top of the hill once when he was with Rocky Mountain bikes and he had just ridden from Innerleithen car park to the top of Minch Moor in 42 mins, That time is superhuman to me, it would take me about another 30 mins if i rode non stop, Once again a massive well done fella
From talking with people who went the videos don't do the massive jumps justice but even more they don't actually show how hard the track was between the jumps.
There were bits where I could not figure out from track side how the fuck they rode it , I had to do a little interloping under the tape at lunch time to figure them out , fucking bonkers shit
^^^^ @bigburd exactly that! The bits people have seen involve air time, but they don't show the really brutal rock slabs and massive stumps just waiting to take a rider out!
No matter what anyone says about lack of riders/riding. It was an amazing day with a packed turnout the weather was decent (on the Sunday at least). The track was truly insane, and to top it off that's my #hardlinehorn you can hear as he's launching the final jump into the finish ????
That camera angle makes me want to barf. But congrats on killing an insanely difficult course.
Those slow drops in the rock gardens are beast. Especially the one right before the road gap and then the double gap right after that. That course was FULL of WTF sections. Very few people in the world can really handle that course. Crazy.
Soaking wet and windy , we as spectators were only allowed half way up the hill and it was quite windy there in a fairly sheltered valley , uptop I bet it's horrible
doesn't redbull have a helicopter, a drone . . . something! I know the weather sucked but so want to see some better footage of this thing. If anyone has a link please post!
Not sure why Redbull spent all that time and money to have no live coverage and then show a crap video. This is a big fail for a company that seems to do so much media so right
I'm sure a decent video will be coming along soon. Loads of videos on Youtube and you can see some very expensive professional Video cameras were there..
We spoke too a camera man at the bottom,and he said to run cables from top too bottom would of been crazy money for this size event,so they put more cameras along the track with cameramen and will be doing a video as soon as its edited.
Strong winds at top of hill made step up unridable. Gee/brayton/kerr etc are world class riders who said its far to dangerous with the wind. Didnt rampage get called off due to wind one year?? Fest boys have smooth run ins compared to hard lines rooty, rocky n slippy run ins.
Show some respect to the riders.
Several riders went home and didnt even ride.
To hear brayton say he was scared, yes gas to flat, says something dont you think.
I was there and witnessed the amazing riding on show. Respect to every rider.
As for the video clips you may have seen, they were filmed 'unofficially' and let's face it, the woods in Wales are very tight! Unlike the trails, Good angles are hard to get in Wales!
Here is a video of the floor 2ft in front of Ruaridh as he wins Hardline!
P.S. @MacRamsay the word is that the step up was avoided due to high winds. All the riders agreed it was much too dangerous.
youtu.be/KFxL8yQakrk
Once again a massive well done fella
Hilarious course though.