Photo Epic: Tires in Dirt - Red Bull Rampage 2023 Practice

The second full day of riding at Red Bull Rampage was hot and blustery, as it often is out in Virgin, but riders still got busy putting finishing touches on their lines and continuing to tick off features. Emil Johansson ticked off his new features which link Brett Rheeder’s old line to the road. Kyle Strait and Cam Zink both hit the drop that took Strait out last year, which was huge for Strait. On his second time, Strait cased the following jump and demolished his rear wheel, but walked away otherwise unscathed.

The day's biggest news was that Gee Atherton sent his massive plumb drop. He wasn't planning on riding, and the wind had picked up a bit, but all of a sudden he was kitted up and standing on top of that monster for a good 15 minutes. He rolled into it with a lot of speed, and sent it deep before a heavy crash. He was airlifted to hospital, and we're all sending healing vibes his way. [Note: we're not sharing photos of his crash at this time —Ed.]

Brendan Fairclough spent the day filling in the run out of his canyon gap before testing the run in – there’s a rumor he’ll try and hit it shortly. When Gee crashed, Brendan's team had to turn their attention back up to the battleship build at the top. They'd been sharing the workload with Gee's team, so there's some time pressure to finish that feature now.

Talus Turk spent the day checking off and tricking some of the lower parts of his line before stepping up to his big drop. Turk and Silva took turns running in the big one before Turk finally hit it. Keeping with the theme of the day, the wind picked up again before Silva could hit it. Turk and Silva also share that bit of their line with Reed Boggs who checked off many of his lower features before perfecting the run in on his section of the big drop. Rumor has it Sorge’s crew needs more beer to finish his line–here’s hoping they find some and the wind calms down a bit today.