Throwback Thursday: The Evolution of Slopestyle at Joyride - 2004 to 2020

 Every year it was exciting to see the build and what insane features they came up with. I could be wrong but wasn't the Tower of Power supposed to be 5-6 ft. taller and they cut it down for the event?

 looking at the end of that 2013 video seeing brett and brandon hugging at 6:05 :c

 But the riding is so much better today... and to me more fun to watch. But you are right in that the courses look way better back then (though not as smooth)

 The discipline has changed. You cannot have a world tour and solid point system on a judge-based event with different features at every stop. Unfortunately this is the natural progression of turning a one-time event into an actual sport. Same thing happened to Ski/snowboard halfpipe and slopestyle.

 @scott-townes: a lot of folks also dont understand that the variance in courses severely injured lots of riders. The slopestyle athletes are the ones that push for what the courses are looking like, they practice their tricks and need somewhat controlled jump designs in order to showcase them, they require a certain amount of amplitude and landings that don't require massive exertions just to not wreck yourself. When you wreck in slopestyle there's such a high chance of injury that sets you back, and with the field being more and more competitive this can mean never having a shot at making it to the top. Which absolutely sucks because the current athleticism and dedication to get to the top these days means you're putting slopestyle riding first and trying to make a career out of it. If you make that kind of life decision, the last thing you want to do is get injured and destroy your prospects of making it on this path. With that, I'm totally at peace with not having things like seesaws and shit. I'd wager most people don't understand that riders can't just hit these courses the way snowboarders and skiiers can hit a bunch of different features in varied slopestyle courses. In this discipline, you're basically relegated to jumps/drops/whaletails/toilet bowls and the riders push the creativity within those elements.

Theres a matt macduff podcast with brett rheeder where he talks about how one of the courses (les 2 alps, maybe?) was SUPER shitty, and how the builders on that particular event in 2013 didn't know how to build what the riders were looking for. They basically turned a skills park into a slopestyle course. This is the event where Rheeder broke his back.

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/7-ego-is-the-enemy-with-brett-rheeder/id1503451187?i=1000477385596

Think he starts talking about it around the 47:10 mark

 @anchoricex: "a lot of folks also dont understand that the variance in courses severely injured lots of riders. The slopestyle athletes "

I wouldn't say the variance is what hurt the athletes but rather the absurdity of said different features and as you pointed out, it was up to the different build crews to get it right. I remember this coming up a lot during the 2010 crankworx with the massive drop with a sort of hip landing that Zink 360ed and Montgomery tailwhipped. So many people got destroyed on that.

You're right though, having a consistent build leads to better features thus less injuries but to bring any event to the next level, in this case into the Olympics and as a world-wide certified series, the features need to be as consistent as possible for each level of competition.

 @scott-townes: well said.

 @scott-townes: yeah ik, i'm sadly just dreaming here, would love to see a throw back event though, that would be sick, one comp on old style features instead of the new stuff

 @Bikerdude137: the circus has what you're looking for. The days of rinky dink features are behind us and I think it's definitely better this way. That sky totter was kind of dumb. What kind of tricks do you expect to see off something like that?

 @nickel: i just liked the creativity of it, although i will admit that this wouldn't work nowadays just because of the nature of slopestyle, the riders back then weren't pulling the kind of tricks they do nowadays, these features wouldn't work with the things those guys do now

 He had a bad injury and went back to BMX for a bit I think. Probably struggled to get up to speed as tricks really exploded? Good question!

 I first met Lance McDermott when he rode Cowans Jam on a 24" (frowned upon at the time by the US riders) and killed it there, was popping flares at teh quarter at the end of the course. Then got sponsored by Saracen, big deal, salary, van etc.. them a month later broke his leg badly and was hardly seen again on the MTB circuit. Was a real nice kid, just had a spot of bad luck at the beginning of his career.