Red Bull Rampage 2012 - Riga Recap

Oct 9, 2012
by Margus Riga  
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  Nothing like an epic Utah sunrise to start the finals right.

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  Get to the choppa!

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  Even God made an appearance to check out what's up.

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  Don't worry, Satan was kicking around too.

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  Vanderham with Rocky team manager Peter Vallance. Shit is about to get serious.

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  Semenuk fueling up for the fight.

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  Brett Rheeder warming up the gap...

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  ...and the QP.

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  Gully, coming in hot turkey for thanksgiving back home in BC.

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  Soderstrom, bringing the Euro steez.

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  Sorge, had BIG plans for the finals.

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  With the warm up finished, it was time for the rider meeting.

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  Gully, showing the photogs where he's going to be sending it.

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  Videographers and their furry mics.

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  Cam McCaul and Strait, part of the American contingency.

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  Semenuk, lining it up.

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  Scott Markewitz...two cameras. One for each eye. What!?

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  Semenuk hitting his canyon drop. One week, seven dudes, a shitload of sandbags, a ton of sweat...all coming down to this moment.

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  Antoine Bizet, one of three dudes to ride this chute line from the top. He started falling just below the wall, and ended up tomahawking for a good bit. Had he fallen farther, he wouldn't be holding up his hands in the air to let us know he's ok.

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  Vanderham, stepping it up.

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  Vallance, not even able to look at Thomas's run coming down.

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  Wil White, solid on both runs.

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  Andreu Lacondeguy, fearless off the the Oakley sender.

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  Soderstrom, tweeking it to the moon.

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  Cam McCaul has some big balls sending the canyon gap after seeing Cam Zink's crash off of it the evening before.

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  I counted twenty-one frames with my camera shooting this sequence of Kyle Strait's massive no hander...two more than Cam's canyon gap.

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  James Doerfling crashed off the hit just before this, taking him out of contention for the podium. You done good bro.

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  The Claw's three attempt off his last hit. So close.

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  Logan Bingelli, the only man riding this year's event with a 650b bike. The times, they are a changin'.

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  Vanderham had two solid runs, but it just wasn't enough to podium. Eighth place this time around.

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  Lacondeguy going huge off the wooden step up.

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  Wil White, making easy work of the wooden gap to quarter.

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  Pierre Edouard Ferry had the coolest accent of all the riders. Too bad it wasn't enough to place on the podium.

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  The man of the hour...Kurt Sorge.

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  Bringing it on home for the boys.

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  Another Rampage down in the history books.

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  Time to party!

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  See you next year!




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91 Comments
  • 123 6
 Great pics! But again only one FUC*IN picture of Antoine Bizet, come on guys, man pulled of 4 backflips in one run ( FOOOUR ) and then we get only one picture of him while he's falling!
  • 19 2
 You're right !
  • 13 3
 as always..
  • 28 5
 For me BIZET is first place!.(gutted for hopkins!)
he took a different line than everyone else! + 4 backflips (one of them really early!).

I fear that future rampages will be just another slope event!,where teams come month ahead and pave dirt jumps into the mountains!.
  • 5 0
 what happened to vanderhams cherry red RM flatline??
  • 19 5
 I think there should be a set amount of build time, like only a couple of days. And that there should be a limit on how many can help you.
  • 8 12
flag octalex1 (Oct 9, 2012 at 5:25) (Below Threshold)
 Linch the judges!!!
  • 13 8
 Semenuk should say something,not just pissing off. everyone crashes.
  • 13 1
 same goes for White. the kid had 2 solid runs, and balls of steel...and gets one shot and a shitty placement. f****g politics
  • 6 0
 Margus is just one guy! Smile
One of the best, but only one guy! He cant be everywahere Smile
  • 10 4
 At the end of the day, lots of people rode well. Some peoples lines were more creative.. Sorge was a clear winner of Bizet as he had larger drops in his run and rode it faster too. Doing a thousand backflips shouldn't win Rampage on its own. Norbs got robbed though. But runs like Cam Mccauls, even though he hit massive things - they weren't massively created compared to others.
  • 4 0
 The riders know they are at the mercy of the judges when they sign up. It's part of the terrain. Cam McCaul said it best a few years back at Crankworx... something along the lines of: "I showed up and threw down my best trick so I am going home happy." This was after he threw down a front flip superman and was given low points.
  • 23 0
 Cam McCaul is a very humble type of guy who just plain loves riding bikes. He knows how lucky he is to get paid to do it, and to be among the best to have ever done it. I tip my hat to him.
  • 1 2
 Remember guys.........its a red bull event and even though they throw away big things and lots of money......still manipulate things
  • 2 1
 @chyu, if you are so stupid to dont understand why semenuk was like that you obviously have a very limited brain capacity, after he crashed he had jeopardized his chances of winning the fmb tour because if martin soderstrom had gotten 6th or better he would have won, also the amount of pressure on semenuk to lay down an absolutely brillant run was massive, and really should he have been happy that he crashed out, no of course not nobody likes trying your best and not getting amazing results.
  • 6 2
 Operator1997 I know you may love Bizet, but you need to understand how this works. This is one photographers photos, from the finals day. Bizet did one full run, and one that he barely started. The course is huge, and you can't shoot everyone. Margus shot Bizet on his first run when he crashed, and may or may not have a shot of him from his second run, depends where he was standing. And if it's an epic shot chances are it's in the process of being sold to one of his sponsors and won't be shown here anyway. I'm personally happy that I got a shot of him at all, there are a few riders that I missed almost completely, and don't have a single quality shot of, that's just the way it goes at an event like this...
  • 4 1
 Yes, of course we understand that but that's funny that the one who finished 2nd has been covered by 2 pictures in all the articles published here.. I understand also that there is much luck for a photographer to sell a picture of semenuk than a picture of the surprising frenchy.. surprising but with a lot of good results on the internationnal scene, and it was still with no coverage.. Perhaps you have to explain how the pictures are choosen to appear in you articles because i think that we can do a matrix style sequence of all riders with all the photographers who were at the rampage.
  • 3 1
 There was no decision to not cover him, there honestly just aren't any photos. The majority of great photos come from practice, from riders working with the photographers, and photographers working with the riders. I myself have only maybe one or two photos of Bizet, I just didn't see him in any of the places that I was shooting. The ones that do the most practice runs in the areas where the photographers are will get the most shots, and the ones that say to the photographer, "Hey I'm going to do this in a few minutes, do you want to come shoot it?"

@superdanu politics has nothing to do with it. And as far as the photos go see my comments above.
  • 1 1
 French people - he's not well known on that side of the world so no, photographers wouldn't be jumping at the chance to run to the other side of the mountain to snap a photo of him over say, Semenuk or strait. Also, he did one good run which got him 2nd.. the first run didn't show much potential in the nicest way (as he crashed early on). Which also explains why they wouldn't have expected so much from the 2nd run.

Make more sense?
  • 1 0
 Wil White got robbed, he should have won the whole thing! He was the first person to do a superman to. Judges must have been high!
  • 1 0
 abzillah - are you kidding? His run was good yes.. but win? haha
  • 1 0
 hylands, i was referring to the politics in the judging, and not within the little photography club
  • 32 1
 I hope the site is cleaned up after this event !
  • 2 1
 it's private land, it'll get cleaned up.
  • 1 0
 Wanna go there to build my own Smile
  • 9 28
flag dwdw (Oct 9, 2012 at 10:08) (Below Threshold)
 They can clean it up, but the damage to the fragile desert environment will take ages to heal.
  • 9 1
 hahahaha butthurt
  • 4 1
 The damage here is like a pin prick on a grizzlys back , next to nothing. But no excuse to litter.
  • 1 0
 i doubt the canyon gap ramp or the oakley sender will ever be disassembled...
  • 1 0
 who cares though? Now they are icons in the mountain biking world. Bad Ass im my opinion
  • 1 3
 this is true, who cares if theyre cleaned up theyre in the middle of nowhere
  • 1 1
 All of the wooden features will be torn down and burned, probably done already, same as in 2010. All the garbage will be cleaned up, all that will remain will be tracks, memories, and a bunch of rocks and sandbags. No idea what will happen to those...
  • 3 0
 finrambo that is even more the reason to clean it up.
  • 24 0
 he has a gun wtf
  • 7 0
 Haha I thaught this too!! but maybe coz were British it's abit more of a wtf moment lol Smile
  • 11 0
 Why the hell does he have a gun, he looks like a 10 year old sticking his head out the window, and a random gun in his hand.
  • 3 0
 Its a water pistol.
  • 14 0
 It's Utah
  • 2 1
 yeah the mormons will take him out
  • 2 1
 Someone told him a couple of riders got robbed during the afternoon, so ... come the night, better safe than sorry ! Smile
  • 2 0
 Amen Jester1826
  • 6 21
flag bullit76 (Oct 9, 2012 at 9:14) (Below Threshold)
 Everyone has a gun .. it's the US. Try living here and you would have one too.
  • 16 0
 ^'Everyone has a gun'?

Everyone does NOT have a gun. What kind of statement is that to make. You make it sound like the whole of U.S is under attack from gangs/terrorists/aliens? Stop watching R rated movies dude.
  • 3 1
 no joke, some of us have more than one. Just sayin Wink
  • 5 0
 Its an air pistol. You can see the twist tab at the bottom of the grip frame where a 12 gram co2 powerlet goes.
  • 6 0
 couldnt have said it better myself. how many people from all over the world does it take to figure out its an air gun? 10 and one canadian to tell them its an air gun!
  • 2 0
 @built76: that is just ASSNINE... No, not all of us own guys (I do, but they're for bckcountry bear/drunk hic safety for the most part). Nothing about "living in the US" requires a gun in fact if we had less of them in morons hands we'd have a WHOLE LOT LESS random crime. Way to feed the streotype machine about Americans dumbass.
  • 1 1
 ^^last line sums him up!!
  • 16 0
 next time, lose the judges and everyone on pink bike vote for the top ten, makes more sense than what they came up with this year... let the world wide M.T.B. community decide, apart from the tool protour of course!
  • 11 0
 Seriously is everyone a Kona hater?! Antoine Bizet deserves more pictures! He KILLED it with four backflips and a very tech line!
  • 1 7
flag trickland (Oct 9, 2012 at 10:25) (Below Threshold)
 He did do VERY well...but you can start claiming four back flips! Come on, the last one was piddly...wouldn't quite call it progression!
  • 2 1
 For lax gun laws in AZ you don't need a Concealed Weapons Permit if your over 18 you just cant take your firearm in any government institution Smile
  • 1 0
 lol bud your post got stuck to a far off thread @rlogansx
  • 3 0
 Arizona has an open carry law still also. You can wear your side arm on an exposed hip/leg holster into a bank if you want. No special permit needed.

Sure does cut down on random muggings and bank holdups... But the anti gun lobby will never admit its true.
  • 1 0
 You can't take it into a bank but yes you can hip it just like a cowboy haha. Oh and you can mix alcohol into the picture as well and now you have the wild west again haha.
  • 9 0
 Just casually hanging out the window with a gun. Yeah no worries...
  • 4 5
 thats utah for you, mormans with multiple wives and lax gun laws....and sick freeriding spots
  • 6 0
 Pretty sure its just a bb gun anyway. If you look at the bottom of the grip there is a thumbscrew for the Co2 cartridge. The real thing wouldn't have that.
  • 2 0
 I could be wrong though!
  • 2 0
 kids on the loose!
  • 20 1
 Multiple wives f*ck that I get my ear bent enough just off the one!!
  • 2 1
 Welcome to Amurika!
  • 3 13
flag NorCalikonaryder (Oct 9, 2012 at 8:20) (Below Threshold)
 No
That gun is real the magazine probably carries an extra round in it(kind of like an extended magazine) so it would protrude like that....he shouldn't have his finger sitting on the trigger like that though...hahaha
  • 4 0
 isn't that kid with with the gun Messere.
  • 3 0
 It's clearly an airsoft gun.
  • 2 1
 To add to Jester1826.....Multiple wives, now why the hell would I do that to myself ?!?!
  • 1 0
 @Helm72 I agree, that looks like Messere. Definitely not a real gun. Looks very similar to a Beretta m92 though.
  • 6 0
 some of these shots are just a crazy as the riding
  • 3 1
 What I find interesting, even compared to the last event a couple years ago, is all the hating that goes on in regards to carbon frames, inverted forks, air suspension, and 650b wheels, that the number of equipment failures is way down compared to years past. We are really seeing equipment refinement, and riding skill that shows the evolution of the sport. Overbuilt isn't necessarily stronger. Heavier isn't stronger, and wheel size isn't limited by strength. That 650b inverted fork KHS tracked beautifully, and jumped fine. All the Treks and GTs held together. The CCDBAirs and RS Vivid air shocks (and air forks) held up. I think the debate is over. We don't need old aluminum coil sprung bikes with small wheels to hit the big stuff, so It'll stand up to anything I dish out.
  • 1 0
 short term yes probably Smile
  • 3 0
 I don't understand that bottom part: "see you next year!" ? isn't rampage every 2 years or they made an acception?
  • 1 3
 Im sure he is referring to " next year" of the rampage. Its obvious that it is not going to be the next calendar year.
  • 4 0
 They announced at Rampage that they would be doing it again NEXT year! I'm stoked!
  • 3 0
 haha measuring Strait's no-hander by how many camera frames it lasted. good stuff.
  • 7 5
 More kill pics! I'm buying a Red Bull today. No, on second thought..I'm buying a whole case of Red Bull!
  • 1 2
 I think I'm gonna try Rockstar Razz
  • 2 0
 anybody know why Alex Pro didn't ride, was he injured? Hurt his back rolling cars?
  • 3 0
 I drink red bull.....why can't I ride like that?
  • 1 0
 Same here.
  • 2 0
 Great report of a great event! Cheers to everyone who loves to ride.
  • 3 0
 great shots margus!
  • 1 0
 Leave it to Margus to make the Utah desert look cold and gloomy. Ha! Wink Nice shots, man.
  • 3 1
 Epic pics!
  • 1 0
 Thanks so much for the fine work. Wink
  • 1 0
 I WONDER IF RED BULL CAN DO IT FOR ME
  • 1 0
 Will be much POD's Smile
  • 1 0
 Let the audience judge!
  • 1 0
 Awesome pictures
  • 1 0
 bizet should have won..
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