While struggling to navigate through the tens of thousands of spectators at this year's Red Bull Joyride event at Crankworx, the growth and popularity of slopestyle events was quite apparent. It felt like all of Vancouver made the trip up the Sea to Sky to watch Joyride on Saturday and the sheer size of the crowds made things quite difficult for those of us who were trying to photograph the event. After failing to see over all of the SRAM hat adorned heads to successfully photograph the first round of Joyride, my photographer Robb Thompson and I began to pay more attention to the diverse faces that were stacked tens of thousands deep along the perimeter of the Joyride course. After about 10 minutes of awkwardly making eye contact with strangers the magnitude of the crowd really began to sink in and I began to wonder, has our sport finally made it?
In the 11 years since its inception we've seen the spectators at Crankworx grow from the hardcore bros and dumbstruck tourists, to full families who have been shaped by events like Joyride, planning their holidays around it and counting the days until Rampage. The oddballs, the intoxicated, and the crazies are still in the crowd, but so are young children, doctors, lawyers, and everyone else in between, even sometimes all showing up in the same minivan. The size and diversity of the crowd at this year's Joyride is a sign of the growth and success of the sport as a whole. Mainstream media coverage of diamond level FMB events like Joyride and Red Bull Rampage is bringing MTB into the living rooms and laptops of the masses.
The recent progression of slopestyle events has not only brought us winning runs consisting of mainly switch tricks, but it has also brought us a captive and passionate audience from all walk's of life. The level of riding in diamond FMB events like Joyride has never been higher and the crowds have never been larger or more diverse, and this is the sign of great things to come for the sport of MTB.
Words by Josh Palmer
Images by Robb Thompson
f*ck you sincerely,
The Pigeon & The Cardinal.
"Not sure if this guy was heckling or just stating his current situation"
"Some of these kids were so stoked they actually pooped themselves"
"I asked this girl what happened to her arm and her boyfriend shouted "I did it to her!!" what a keeper..."