Tyler McCaul had a wild time at Rampage this year, cracking into the top five and having a blast in the process. His second run, which you can see above thanks to his on-board GoPro camera, pushed him even further up in the standings.
Unfortunately, high winds forced the end of the event before everyone else could get their second runs in, and the standings after run one were taken as the final results. Either way, TMac lit up the crowd with a creative and challenging route down the mountain.
Check out the official Red Bull Rampage site for more videos, photos, and a host of awesome interactive features.
Title image by Nathan Hughes
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redbullbike
Member since Jun 28, 2012
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Seeing that makes me think he should have won! He had jumps just as large as zink and straingt and built it all himself and was 100% confident and having fun. Great Job Tyler!
I don't want to start a riot on here but that run was tons more techniqual than mcgarys... I was generally scared for t-Mac send 30+ feet blindly onto narrow tight landings
Had the second run counted, he still wouldn't have won. Tyler and Andreu's second runs put them in 3rd and 4th (ahead of Zink but still behind Strait and McGary.) All four were unbelievable runs that probably would've won in past years. Zink getting a chance to link the backflip into a full run could've made it five. Great for those of us watching regardless of the judges' scores.
I really liked how T-Mac kept it without no wood features, hes heading the sport in the right place i say, without making rampage a gnarly slopestyle course with all the wooden features and keeping it natural terrain. keep pimpin T-Mac!
Ya I like the natural stuff too, but throwing in a little bit of wood opens up some possibilities. And I'm pretty sure that the jump at 1:01 wasn't made out of dirt either . Take the canyon gap for example, it wouldn't be possible without that massive man-made jump.
Who cares. Big wood features or big dirt features, they're both nuts and both are pivotal in freeriding being where it is today. You're a 14 yearold living in Whistler... you should know better than to hate on wood.
That was so gnarly and exposed up top! When is T-Mac going to get his own segment in a bike movie?! (He was in 'Where the trail ends' but we didn't get to see much of his riding).
I am in the first crowd that he passes after the backflip to fifty foot cliff. this was my favorite ruun there. it looked Way scarier standing under him doing the flip to like 50 degree landing for fourty feet and straight off a50 footer~! watching this in person sorda made me and my friends sick sorda dizy, before logan crashed!
Met this guy in an elevator in Whistler. He immediately started a conversation with me and was hilarious and really humble actually. Which is awesome to me. And this line scared the crap out of me. It was so well executed, and so high risk. He looked poised throughout the entire run. Keep riding hard man, we all notice and appreciate how skillful you've become on a bike.
theres no way to get an idea of just how impressive their lines are without these POV cams. the day the judges have live feed from them will revolutionize their judging ability.
As much as I love POV, it doesn't do the riding justice. It's incredibly hard to get depth perception, which results in everything looking fairly flat, and giving very little sense of speed or angle. Looking through headcam most of this looks rideable, but I'm sure stood there on that line everything would look much more nuts and steep. It doesn't help that these guys make it look so damn easy!
The airtime is insane on that big drop and some of the backflips, but I just don't get a sense of the actual difficulty, but then again, I guess this is going to be a close as we get to actually riding it.. I would like to see some footage from a 3D GoPro kit to see if it gives more sense of realism.
I'm thinking in a few generations the POV recorders will have 3D & tilt meters. Altimeters & speedometers will come with the built in GPS functionality. Then you will need a TV that can shoot wind, water, hail, sleet, snow, dirt & mud at you when you watch the video to make it 4D. And Mike Tyson waiting behind you, in case your POV recorder happens to take a fall. This will give the riding more justice, but still not a sense of realism. We just gotta go find 65 footers to jump or huck. Then we might have an idea.
I love these POV angles we see after rampage, we see all the little errors that the rider feels that we couldn't see from the heli angle. I saw a few landings were just a bit off camber and thought "OHH SHIT" but nope totally played it off
That's what I was thinking. He filled the entire run with huge airs from top to bottom. He practically fell the entire way down. Defiantly one of my all time favourite rampage runs.
Agreed. Biggest natural drop of the event. Amazing run. He got screwed for going first.
I'm a big fan of his and his brothers. They came up riding the hits I helped start and build. I think Cam got hosed last year and I think Tyler got hosed this year.
Not to take anything away from what Tyler did, but I don't see why his drop would be considered better or more natural than the Oakley drops. While yes it wasn't made of wood. It still had a nice buffed out run in and a big buffed out landing just like the wood features. Huge credit to him for building it himself there was still a lot of building involved in creating that drop. I think it's a stretch to call most of the big features many guys did 'natural'. Gee's big gap, Semenuk's big drop etc. Just because something is dirt and not wood doesn't mean it's not man made.
Er, because it's natural, and not all made of wood, with a team of diggers and machinery! The 'buffed' out but was all done by TMac and his crew of 3.. It was also unique to only him, it required foresight to see the line and realise it.. I think you have misunderstood the term Natural with regards to mountain biking. If you think anyone is going to just launch 50+ feet or even 20 feet, without clearing some kind of run in and run out, you'd be mad! Besides the likelihood of finding something totally rideable without touching it, which is what you seem to be implying.
I never said anything about not touching it or not grooming it in some way, that of course has to be done. But that doesn't change the fact that they built a run in, and built up and shaped a nice, basically perfect landing. Like I said, I'm not taking away from what he did, I think it's more that I think people sell short the wood features. People always compare the 'man made' vs 'natural' when I think they really mean 'wood' vs 'dirt'. Because lets be honest, at this stage of Rampage, everyone's run is full of 'man made' features. When you go to a bike park and see a buffed up trail with jumps and berms do you call that a 'natural' trail just because its all dirt? No that's considered man made.
So sino428. We all know every line at Rampage is "built", and the judges know what line the rider is planning on running. So what will make it fair? Should the riders get bigger build crews that can build their own wood work? Or are some riders just going to be more lucky with selecting lines with the woodwork already built? So they have more time to practice.
I'm not sure what you are asking here but my only point really is that most of the big stuff (Jumps and Drops) in Rampage are man made, whether it be out of dirt of wood. I'm just saying that to me the riders should all be given the same credit for going huge whether it be off their own line they built themselves or the pre-built stuff.
- meanwhile i was nervous watching it on a screen. much respect to these riders. simply amazing. the exposure he had and that drop was scary.