Throwback Thursday: 15 of the Best Women's Freeride Edits

 I was thinking this is pretty weak. If you want to make a statement and call out Redbull, then make the statement. "we are posting today for absolutely no reason whatsoever" is not how you put a stake in the ground.

 @bman33: they did a call out on insta.

I'd like to see the pandering met with money to the prize purse and the extra resources to make it happen.

 They didn't post it on PB cuz these forums are about as toxic as it gets.

 Luuuce so good

 Who's hem?

 It's French... Le the mride.

 @Sardine-Vladu: Freeride the Hem One.

 These new fancy shreddits dont speak to my soul like a 2004 camcorder. That edit was next level!

 Ah thanks!! It sure brought back a great memory

 @fatduke: yeah corps love "feel good losing" investments.... ok.

 @fatduke: also..how much will BBC 2 need to spend for you to become a fan of Opera?

 @fatduke: I’m sure they could but they won’t. They aren’t interested in the sport, just the marketing opportunities

 @preach: BBC does have channels that are objectively not successful that they use to show and promote culture like opera (BBC Radio 3 and BBC 4). Because, even if the proles don't know it, culture is good for them. Same as promoting and showing women doing sport is good for them.

 @preach: Original response, you should at it to your comedy routine.

 this is just a stupid hypothetical nonsense argument

 @chrismac70: why cant it be both? The edits Red Bull make do not seem to generate too much money. They make money selling delicious batteracid-neural-sludge-jooce for gamers, middle america pre-teens and college kids. They certainly dump heavy cash for events and videos and my guess is there has to be some stoke-suffering, over caffeinated dawgs at redbull happy to push the sports into the mainstream. The boys at Rb probably love the sports along with the money they collect from gas stations. I will help them by downloading a toxic update from one of their slim cans right now!

 @LegitLegato: they could but they don’t want to. This is just an advertising method to RB. They aren’t interested in mountain biking just the marketing opportunities it creates

 There’s also a basic business concept called “investing” where you invest some money in an idea knowing it will lose that money initially but eventually will pay back much larger in the future. For reference: fourweekmba.com/uber-losses-by-year

RedBull used to be the pinnacle example of a forward looking company that invested heavily in athlete development (especially in fringe sports). They made big bets on talent and many of those bets have turned into marketing machines that have returned on that investment by many multiples. Why not bet on the women of freeride? Sounds like a decision based on fear. A changing of the guard at RedBull?

 @kbecker

 You really live in your own cave don't you?

Pretty sure that 100% of the women pushing for this watch "MTB." Pretty sure 100% of the women I know who ride follow female riders. Pretty sure there are more FEMALE riders out there hosting events like Hang Time, All Ride, Dirt Series, etc. sharing the sport of mountain bike and bringing more riders into the sport than there are men. I'M POSITIVE you have never said anything constructive or encouraging to ANY rider you have come across on the trail.

 @MollyJoyce: I think you missed my point...100% may push for it, but that 100% is a fraction of the amount of male riders. I've ridden around western nc for 30 years and can count on 1 hand how many lady mountain bikers I know (yes that's just anecdotal) but I'm a dad of 2 girls...if they had wanted to ride I'd have been all about it, but instead they chose music/vocals/dance. Now they're in their 20s and still have no interest in male dominated sports. My point is simply that it's always going to be a financially losing proposition to entice a group to become interested enough in a sport to make it profitable...when the vast majority not only isn't interested but hasn't even the bandwidth to even care in the first place. It's great that women (some) are interested and want to do it, but requiring that men give a crap about it, is about as asinine as men requiring women to care about MMA or Hunting.

 Zilch thus far. Not surprising.

 Simple. It isn’t getting a good enough ROI to want to run it again. It won’t let them ride Rampage as the number of riders is fixed to suit their broadcast and marketing aims of the event. Therefore they would have to reduce the men’s field to make space. So who gets dropped? More riders is not an option.

You do realise that RB employ influencers to be at the event to get their marketing message across.

 @chrismac70: Do u really need to comment this seventeen times? It's actually NOT that simple. Look at the viewership for the Womens World Cup. Bonkers. Freeride women haven't been given as big of a stage at this point, so you simply do not have solid numbers for this comparison. Comparing Formation, with less televised coverage to something like Rampage is not a fair analysis.

 @oragejuice: I think its only been commented twice, both times relevant to the discussion. You are mad, and your reasoning on women's free ride not being as successful is poor

 @oragejuice: I don’t know why it shows the same comment multiple times.

It is that simple though. RB are interested in selling drinks not promoting the sport

 @oragejuice: who do you propose pays for that bigger stage for them? You can’t add riders to rampage as the numbers are fixed to create the right broadcast package.

 @oragejuice: It is that simple though. The venue for this years rampage isn't even the ideal year for the first women's appearance, there's not much left to pick off in terms of great terrain... Even the new men are going to struggle to find new stand out features.
They would be better off going into a fresh venue, brand new slate where no one has a line. It gives them a chance to pick and choose more features to suit their styles and stand out.
There is so much more to Rampage than the majority of commenters currently understand. It's not like Dark Fest where you just turn up and ride the line.
Long term knowledge of digging skills, shaping jumps, understanding speed and distances when looking at the terrain. Male freeriders have been doing this since they picked up a bike. It's a giant factor that many people are lacking and no one appears to be practicing alongside the riding skills. And you can't compare that to rehashing already proven, existing lines and jumps at Formation, especially when dudes were out there doing a lot of those jobs.

I believe women deserve a shot at Rampage to continue the progression, but there is a lot more to consider than the riding that the general instagram commenter doesn't understand.

 @oragejuice: bro, the last World Cup had a total live viewership of 1.12 billion for the women’s and 3.57 billion for the men’s. That’s in a sport that’s much less male dominated to begin with.

Call me old fashioned, but I think the best riders should be getting the airtime. I’d be happy to see a woman riding at the level of Semunuk or Vestavik, but that doesn’t mean it will happen.

 @rideordie35: don't talk sense with people who are emotional here.

I'm of the same mindset and happily admit it. Which company is going to pay to sponsor an event with lower views and less return on investment?

I'm yet to hear how pinkbike or any other company are stepping up to fund the broadcasting time or prize money for the women's?! It's reality and money runs the world unfortunately.

I'd prefer that there was an open format rather than male and female, get people pushing each other. f*ck categorising folk in a style competition where athletecism doesn't have as much a bearing on the end result compared to racing!

 @oragejuice: Rampage would be easy to promote the women's event because you could run it separately the day before and then use replays during the inevitable downtime during the men's even when everyone is watching. Give them a different part of the hill for their own features and all.

 @Joyrode: 100

 @oragejuice: you mention viewership of women’s World Cup. Would you/everyone that’s upset be on board with a separate rampage event for women in the same way the women’s World Cup is a separate event from the men’s World Cup?

 @Joyrode: Redbull has been speaking with the athletes over the course of the year, regarding this years Formations/Rampage type competition. All of a sudden, they pull the plug on Formations, without offering an alternative.
Typically, when Redbull pulls out of an event, they allocate their budget to another project within the scope of that field. If this years venue doesn't make sense to host the first women's rampage, then why would they cancel formations this year? I can appreciate your point, but at the end of the day, Redbull started the Formations movement, then left these athletes in the dark. They SHOULD be called out.

 @rucwyper: obviously I don’t have any insight to the decisions that are made within redbull’s marketing department, but I don’t think it’s fair to say that redbull left the Formations athletes in the dark.

Across basically every industry, we’re seeing budget cuts everywhere right now. Formations is awesome and certainly has a future, but if redbull’s bottom line says they can’t afford to do everything they hope to do, they will have to cut stuff.

I guarantee you that a group of incredibly smart financial analysts at redbull came up with a list of things that have the lowest ROI, and then made cuts as they deemed necessary. I’m sure every decision was difficult, but if they want the business to survive, you can’t make such decisions based on emotion. Formation will come back, and if it gains enough popularity and viewership, it’ll stay. Redbull isn’t a charity (although they do so much awesome stuff that I can argue is charitable) much like every other company in the bike industry.

That’s just how this works; if it doesn’t make money, and times get tight, it’s gone.

 Word. If redbull really cared about developing blah blah they'd have a U17 category at Rampage.

 sit down, lil' bro

 Thank you for laying out this perspective clearly. It's a good example of how logic can produce incorrect assumptions when fed with an incomplete data set.

This same argument was made commonly during the late 90's about Elissa Steamer's contributions to pro skateboarding. People (boys) knocked her because "plenty of no-namers can do the same stuff." But here's the thing - one's contribution as a pro athlete isn't limited to winning runs and NBD tricks. Now 25 years later, Elissa is one of the most celebrated skateboarders for her cultural impact, namely making women's skateboarding more visible, while the army of no-namers had literally zero cultural impact and are rightly forgotten.

Does that mean that Formation (or whatever replaces it) should have equal payouts and equal broadcast time? Not necessarily. But claiming that riding ability is the sole factor that dictates market value for professional athletes flies in the face of reality. Plenty of entitled wanna-be pros could stand to learn that lesson.

 @akbikegirl: Is "sit down, lil bro" supposed to mean something? Not even a good insult

 @PB4UGO gets it

 This. It’s all about the ROI for RB. It’s got nothing to do with sport

 How can you say the viewership isn't there if women haven't been in rampage before? Thats the whole point, of course there are no viewers because there hasn't been any opportunities on that level of stage to watch.

 @chrismac70: How does doubling your represented demographic not lead to increased profits? 1.2 billion people watched the women's world cup last year, there are a lot of us who watch women's sports.

 @thatguyzack: this assumes that either there is equal or greater interest in the sport from women, or that women need media to tell them to take an interest in a sport.

Perhaps we should consider that women just aren't as interested in mountainbiking as men are on average. That's not a bad thing.

 @thatguyzack: you're also assuming that people that watch the women's world cup are female; I doubt this is the case.

 @naptime: And businesses invest in things that make them money.

 My wife rides and keeps up with all the DH racing and she enjoys watching the world cups she keeps up with all the female racers and she doesn't really care to watch the freeride edits/events. You are taking a small percentage of the demographic by limiting it to women that ride then even smaller to the women that actually care to watch freeride content. The women get tons of coverage on the world cup content and they are always entertaining, maybe freeride just isn't that popular.

 Isn't that MORE of a reason to have a women's Rampage?

 @thatguyzack: You would have to demonstrate that’s actually true for a start. It assumes that by having a ladies event would attract similar numbers of new viewers on top of the men’s event.

 This argument just doesn't make sense. Do we really think someone like Talus Turk (??) is going to drive more viewership for Red Bull than Vaea Verbeeck or Casey Brown?

(ps no offense to Talus Turk)

 @thatguyzack: I’m sure there are 1.5bn watched the men’s final. What you would need to know is how many of the 1.2mm who watched the ladies final weren’t in the 1.5bn who watched then men’s. That’s your actual new reach of the event

 @mattddrchs: Often the women in the sport prefer the primary focus of the coverage to be on their skills/abilities rather than themselves; whether or not that actually drives viewership is another question.

Does a Redbull Formation clip do as much for womens mountainbiking as a video like Girls Gotta Eat Dirt? Personally, I doubt it. youtu.be/Q3e19CzlIcY

 then why don't you start watching women's events? or is your point that it's valid for people to just not care?

 So let them ride Rampage

 how many years has rampage been around vs formation? FAIL you can't compare

 @thatguyzack: and 3.5 billion watched the men’s World Cup. How many of the 1.2 billion that watched the women’s World Cup were not already part of the 3.5 that watched the men’s? I’m all for getting more women riding but I’m against bullshit arguments.

Also the women’s World Cup is a separate event from the men’s, but when a separate women’s rampage is brought up people get annoyed at that idea. That the women should be invited to the men’s event. I even saw a comment comparing a seperate women’s rampage to Plessy V Ferguson.

 @Kevindhansen: Where are you getting these viewership stats from? Genuinely curious.

 @theloamrangerchannel: Yeah there is no way they are getting even 1 million live viewers. I'd be surprised if they were getting 100k viewers actually streaming live which I think they would be more than happy with if its that high.

For reference some of the Supercross events that are on NBC so actual cable not their usual Peacock streaming service are in the 500k range.

 @Aem221: Once he mentioned the men's and women's world cups are "separate events" I realised he's not talking about bikes, but some other sport. I was thinking football (a lot of people seem to call that just The World Cup, without mentioning football), but the numbers and years don't match to what I quickly googled. But anyway, I think we're talking women's sports in general here.

 @theloamrangerchannel: sorry for the confusion when I left it at just “World Cup,” specifically referring to FIFA World Cup in response to another comment. Article below for men’s viewership numbers.

www.espn.com/soccer/story/_/id/37567822/world-cup-was-watched-more-3-billion-people-fifa-report?platform=amp

 I'm curious, do ya'll get dividends from RB or something? Because you seem so concerned about their ROI as an excuse for not supporting women's freeride on a larger stage.

Also, maybe you should read a few more articles than just citing YouTube views. Forbes reported in Nov. 2022 that viewership of live sports broadcasts were down in every category EXCEPT for women's sports. People want to watch. So make it accessible.

But all that is beside the point. Women deserve to compete, and in no other segment of cycling is there this much hate from internet trolls. Maybe you'd like to talk with Rachel Atherton or Jill Kintner, or Haley Batten, or any other championship winning, Olympic winning, World Cup winning female athlete, about how they feel about representation and the ability to perform their sport at the highest level?

 @wburnes: Sit down.

1. There are women in every key mountain bike market who LOVE mountain biking.
2. We are tired of MEN like you telling us that this is a man's sport.
3. Women do NOT need the media to tell them anything.
4. Women and MEN watch women's sports.
5. Less than 1% of U.S. broadcast airtime is dedicated to women's sports. Yet, we still WATCH and have to dig to find the content.
6. Finally, as of November 2022, there is a dedicated network to broadcasting women's sports. I'm a subscriber. www.cnbc.com/2022/11/02/women-athletes-now-have-their-own-sports-network.html

7. Perhaps you should consider the facts, and not your assumptions, and realize that there is a large population of women around the world (professional athletes and recreational riders) who love this sport and want to continue seeing it grow? That's not a bad thing.

 @MollyJoyce: Sit down? Lol

Please work on your reading comprehension. You're presuming hostility where there is none

"7. Perhaps you should consider the facts, and not your assumptions"

Please take your own advice

 @MollyJoyce: "this much hate from internet trolls"

There is no hate here. This is utterly absurd

 Of course it’s about viewers. Sponsors want the exposure in return for paying for the event. You want prize money, you want medical cover, everyone needs accommodations. It all cost slot of money

 you guys must not be watching the EDR/World cup. Redbull getting out of mountain biking isn't great.

 Booooo!

 Lmao

 Yeah. Same way as how “price point” is just “price”.

 @pmhobson: Like “color way” means “color”?

 @pmhobson:

Is an unedited video still an edit?

 @Garradmiller: never was

 Don't want to lose that sweet sweet advertising $

 Ehh it felt weird as statements can be cheap and we'd rather show than tell—maybe I made the wrong call. Either way, we're keen for folks to know our stance:

"The Pinkbike editorial team is disappointed that there’s no women’s field at Red Bull Rampage in 2023—especially in light of the cancellation of the Formation event. The women’s freeride movement has grown exponentially over the past decade, and has proven that women deserve a field of their own at the highest levels of the sport.

We are adjusting our coverage at the event in October to make sure the world’s best female freeriders get more of the visibility they deserve.

Acknowledging that there are complex logistics and decisions involved, we hope this is a constructive moment for the sport. We encourage mountain bike event organisers to take note of the excitement and eagerness from the mountain bike community to see men and women on equal footing.

It’s overdue for women to get the call, and we have confidence that people at all levels across the bike industry support female freeride. We look forward to women continuing to blow minds on two wheels and testing their limits at Rampage very soon.

—The Pinkbike Editorial Team"

 @brianpark: at the very least, that statement should have been made at the top of this page

 Absolutely - without this context this page doesn't have quite the same impact..

 @brianpark: I don't really think it's an either-or situation. A concise position statement combined with pictorial and video material can make for a complementary impact.

 @brianpark: what an interesting way to support a movement that is extremely important in the current freeride conversation. "let's put our stance in the comments of a post about women in freeride, instead of front and center where it will gain the most traction."

People need to be TOLD. It's not enough to try and "show" them. #letthemride

 @brianpark: The "which we are posting today for absolutely no reason whatsoever" at the start of the article makes it seem like you're afraid of some advertiser repercussions or something. Not everyone is following this story so having that statement in the article would be a lot better and provide everyone clarity on why this is being posted... because its more than just "reasons".

 @kookseverywhere: that was sarcasm my friend. But yes, I agree I could have presented it all better.

 @kookseverywhere: exactly. @brianpark reposting PinkBike's stance in the comments is purely reactionary, posting it as a stand alone post would have been proactive. #letthemride

 @kookseverywhere:
Do you need [sarcasm][/sarcasm] tags?
I got it, very tongue in cheek. Everybody knows why this was posted.

I am curious however what "We are adjusting our coverage at the event in October" means. is Pinkbike NOT broadcasting Rampage??

 @brianpark: seems worth it to put this statement on the homepage

 @brianpark: So put on an event Pinkbike

 @Leethal-1: Yes, Pinkbike should do a women's only free ride event.

Redbull doesn't think it's worth the time/money, but the Pinkbike editorial team clearly thinks otherwise. rather than just complaining on their website, they should take action.

Pinkbike editors should self-fund the event too. Put your money where your mouth is!

 @brianpark: Any idea about the reasoning behind the cancellation of the Formation event?

 @notthatfast: I know it was sarcasm, but people who aren't up to date on formation and the push for women in rampage wouldn't get that. I follow mtb pretty closely and needed all this explained to me fairly recently. wouldn't it just be easier for PB to put why they are posting this actually in the article? Seems like a weird half ass way to support these awesome women.

 @kookseverywhere: we've got stuff on the way—I'm especially excited about a podcast I'm sitting down to record this afternoon with one of the Formation riders. Lots to discuss.

 @brianpark: perhaps pb would like to organise and fund the event if it feels there is enough commercial interest to make it viable

 Probably cuz these forums are full of toxic bro shit heads

 @slayerdegnar: you're the toxic one here

 Just let them compete with men. If a woman is competitive in various events, invite her.

 "I hope that this comment section can be seen for what it is - a case study in the combative, hostile aggression women face on a daily basis in the cycling world."

OK now I think you were just trolling, in which case 10/10 great bit