washedupsloperider

It blows my mind that Red Bull invites the top freeriders in the world to the desert, tells them they can build whatever they want, and a bunch of keyboard warriors are saying it's not "freeride" enough. If the best freeriders in the world are building this, you better be damn sure it's freeride.

A Lillypad is pretty freeride if you ask me, and he was the only one on the mountain to do that. So that's pretty unique. Not to mention, he truck driver'd off of a big boulder. That's pretty friggin cool man. He also flip one canned an absolute sniper drop that sent Cam Zink (an absolute freeride legend) to the hospital (rest up man, we're looking forward to having you back). The tricks were slopestyle, but the line? Pretty freeride IMO. It's already changing - a few years ago, flipping off of a canyon would have been a top 3 run. Now riders are scoring midpack all while flipping huge drops. The methodology doesn't seem as broken as people are claiming it is.

@roma12: Everyone seems to forget that the score is broken down across 4 categories. Brendog had basically no tricks, and out of 25 points, that counts for alot. Nor did he have much amplitude. The other 2? more or less maxed out.

Break it down across the 4 categories, sum up the score in each category, average them between judges = 76.

@Inertiatic: This is how it worked this year, minus the being in the same tower part

Or maybe Brandon is just a really well rounded rider?

@Kasperr: Yes, I think that 360'ing down a 50ft drop is gnarlier. Based on your profile, it doesn't look like you can 360 (or flip), which proves my point. If you were able to do either, you would know that 360'ing a massive drop is harder, BY FAR. Flipping has significantly less risk, and drops are way, WAY higher consequence, also Brendog's flip had a really nice run in. All things you would know if you, well quite frankly, you knew what you were talking about.

I'm going to provide a controversial opinion and probably get downvoted into oblivion. Most of you don't know what a "true rampage line" is. This is not a world cup race, this is freeride - where the only rules are get down to the bottom in 3 minutes, any way you want. If you want to watch people get down a hill quickly, go watch the world cup. All of these riders are incredibly talented - it should be obvious to you that making it down the hill is table stakes. People are choosing to express themselves with tricks and to put themselves above others. Unless you're able to hit mega jumps & drops down a cliff AND do tricks, quite frankly, your opinion doesn't carry much weight. How can you judge a group of people who understand how to ride a bike orders of magnitude better than you? I'd bet that 99% of you that are upset that people are doing tricks, can't do any tricks yourselves. Let's be clear - you are not professional riders. You have not previously competed in rampage. You are not a rampage judge. You are not on-site walking the lines like the judges are. You do not understand the degree of technical competency it takes to 360, tailwhip, or barspin down a 50 ft cliff - so stop acting like it. Show me that you're able to tailwhip a downhill bike down a huge drop and that you STILL don't feel like tricks should be allowed, and maybe I'll hear you out. But you don't exist, and if you do - you are a complete anomoly. Rant over, also - Brendog's run was obviously SO sick and smooth, but was scored correctly IMO. Stop being a sheep and following the herd and have your own opinion.