How And When And Why To Watch Red Bull Rampage

Red Bull Rampage is on Friday 13th October 2023. Let’s hope that’s not a superstitious portent of disaster, we want to be watching live stoke and awe, not injuries. Here’s how and why (or why not) to watch it.

Why You Don’t Want To Watch Red Bull Rampage

People might get badly hurt, and you don’t want to see that. You don’t want to encourage the commercial incentivising of risk taking.

Why You Do Want To Watch Red Bull Rampage

Risk is everywhere, and these riders know what they’re doing. They’d probably do it anyway, just for the thrill of it.

Why You Don’t Want To Watch Red Bull Rampage

You don’t like energy drinks.

Why You Do Want To Watch Red Bull Rampage

You don’t like energy drinks either, but you’ve enjoyed Red Bull’s coverage of the World Cup for the last ten years regardless.

Why You Don’t Want To Watch Red Bull Rampage

You don’t like all that digging away at the hillside. What about erosion, leave no trace, etc? It’s just slopestyle, not MTB.

Why You Do Want To Watch Red Bull Rampage

There’s acres and acres of bare rock out there, a few tickles with a shovel isn’t making a difference. And look at the trail building skill!

OK, OK, we’ll stop. But the debate will go on. And so will the show. Some of you are going to watch it. Here’s how.

How and When To Watch Red Bull Rampage

The easiest way is probably on Red Bull TV – available via apps on smart TVs, phones, and streaming sticks – or view on your web browser. If you’re in the USA, coverage will be streamed on ESPN. The build up show starts 4.15pm UK time, with first runs from 5pm. The show then lasts a few hours – maybe many hours if there’s a lot of pausing for the wind (more on that in a minute).

This year there are some new additions to the viewing experience. We’ll have some riders with a mic attached, so we can hear them as they ride down their lines. That should add some pretty immediate insight into the effort and mental focus involved in completing a run. And how on earth would you not swear dropping in to something like that?!

There will also be former Rampage rider Geoff Gulevich in the judging booth, providing insight into the often controversial scoring process. That should be interesting to hear!

Who to Watch?

Everyone! They’re all putting themselves on the line, so they all deserve some respect and attention. But everyone has favourites… Benji thinks Brendan Fairclough should have it for his canyon gap with its technical run in.

Brendawg Knievel’s canyon gap has won it already for me.

Benji

I’m hoping for great things and awesome shapes from Jaxson Riddle. It’s like ballet on a bike, and his impossible flexibility would be impressive just on the ground, never mind flying through the air.

The Wind and Strategy at Rampage

The terrain at Virgin is subject to a typical weather pattern where it’s calm in the morning, and then the wind picks up during the course of the day. This week the wind in the afternoons has even been strong enough to lift up shade structures and put a halt on all riding. This means the organisers are keen to kick off the event on time in the morning, because the more that time drags on, the greater the chance of the wind picking up.

Each rider takes a first run. Depending on how those go – maybe a crash slows up proceedings – then there may be time for a second run. Riders have to make a choice: go all in on the first run, knowing it might be their only run; or get in a clean run first time and gamble on getting a second run to put in the bigger tricks once you’re confident.

The approach a rider takes here can be affected by how much practice they’ve had through the week. If they’ve been working on a big feature that’s needed loads of digging and adjustment to make it work, there’s a good chance they won’t have had a chance to string all their features together into one run. Throw in the fact that the wind often stops afternoon practice happening, and there’s a whole world of build/wind/practice maths and judgement calls to be made.

With all that in mind, here’s a bit of PR blurb about the weather, and more, from Red Bull:

Predicting the weather in Utah for the competition is a full-time job – just talk to Rob Sease, Red Bull Rampage’s weather advisor. Sease tracks the weather patterns in Southwest Utah to ensure that the competition organizers and athletes are well-informed. 

Sease has tracked weather and created safety plans for other large sporting events, like Nitro Rallycross and NASCAR. The four weather systems he tracks include wind, rain, lightning, and flash floods. While the latter three aren’t as common during this time of year, wind is a constant concern on the athletes’ and organizers’ minds. 

While wind lived up to Sease’s predictions today, he believes Friday is looking promising and should be a great day for a competition. 

For the first few hours of the morning, when the weather showed a glimpse of what’s to come, the riders made major progress on linking together their lines. About hour into the day, cheers erupted from looker’s left when Brendan Fairclough tackled his monstrous canyon gap. 

Fairclough and canyon gaps go hand in hand at Rampage; this year, he’s built another show-stopper, a 60-foot sender. The canyon enticed the Brit, as past and current riders didn’t heavily utilize it. One of the most challenging aspects of building the feature was ensuring he had enough speed. With canyon gaps, you won’t know the true speed until you’re in the air. Fairclough and his team have been meticulously chipping away at the run-in to avoid that situation altogether, yet the entrance is still a highly technical chute.  

Rampage-veteran Cam Zink also unlocked his three key features during practice. Those features were the same that were shared in a line with Kyle Strait last year, but have been refined to flow better. One of those features was the Sender, which Zink hit almost 10-years ago. 

“To be able to do [the feature] that Kyle did last year… as well as the Oakley sender which I did 10 years ago. It’s still the biggest step-down I’ve ever done,” said Zink enthusiastically when sharing his practice run. “But now it’s a little bigger since there’s no wood platform… it reminded me how confident I should be in myself. It’s easy to forget we’re confident and competent.” 

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