Born and raised in Whistler, Georgia Astle didn’t actually like mountain biking as a kid, preferring instead to run alongside her mum, who’d ride regularly with group of friends. Always active, from a family of surfers and kite surfers, Georgia only signed up for mountain biking at High School (along side every sport she could) in search of early finishes and afternoon trips out of school to competitions. But mountain biking finally connected with her and during a decade of racing she’s worked her way through High School XC, into downhill and enduro racing, then into freeride and this year’s appearance at the inaugural women’s Red Bull Rampage. To have achieved all this in just ten years of riding is hugely impressive.
Living in Whistler and with good friends like Casey Brown, one of the OG of women’s freeride, Georgia has perhaps had the ideal introduction to mountain biking to help facilitate progression. Back in 2021 she was a digger for Casey at Formation, the women’s freeride progression camp that paved the way for this year’s women’s Rampage. Georgia returned in 2022 as a Formation rider – and then 2023 saw the scrapping of Formation and yet still no women’s Rampage. Finally, 2024 saw Red Bull Rampage confirm a women’s competition, and Georgia found herself as third alternate. Then, with little more than a month to go, a series of withdrawals from the line up saw her being propelled from reserve to participant. After years of build up, Georgia’s Red Bull Rampage debut was something of a sprint finish.
She pulled together a dig team consisting of Evan Wall, Jacob Tooke, and Jarrod Anderson. All are riders and racers with plenty of experience of riding and trail building in Whistler, but none out in the Utah desert. Georgia chose them more for their personalities and the moral support they’d bring her – keeping the vibes high and positive throughout the challenges they’d face. While they didn’t bring much freeride experience to the team, Georgia had her experience as both a digger and a rider at Red Bull Formation behind her, and she figured there are plenty of big features on the trails in Whistler. She also knows that she performs best when she feels like she’s having fun, so good vibes count for a lot.
Heading to Utah, Georgia was hoping to fit in some natural techy drops and a big step down, but had no competitive expectations. She was just glad, and a little stunned, to be there. With the women’s venue being new, and a totally blank canvas, the organisers encouraged the women to collaborate on their features – better to finish a top to bottom line than try and dig too much alone and not get it finished.
Together they set about building their lines at the first ever women’s Red Bull Rampage. After dropping in through the top section on a line shared with Vero Sandler and Vinny Armstrong, Georgia planned a slightly different line into ‘Chuterus’, with a tricky tight left hand turn off it into a sharp right hander and drop before picking up the berm at the lower part of Chuterus, then crossing the F*cktagon (or Skatepark, or Spaghetti Bowl, depending on your nomenclature) and joining Vero and Vinny in a swooping berm round the edge of a cliff, then peeling off with Robin Goomes for the huge 41ft ‘Slut Drop’, then a series more drops and jumps towards the finish corral.
There were some big and tricky builds in there, with berms clinging to the side of the cliffs, yet having to accommodate the different entry points as the women’s lines crossed and intertwined at different points. Another challenge was the steepness of the site. Come competition day, the hoses delivering water to the course are pulled, leaving the features exposed to the drying effects of the sun and wind. On such a steep course, with the dirt loosening to dust, it would make braking (and slowing) ever more difficult.
During all the earthworks, Georgia’s team were working smart and learning. They figured out that, rather than letting the loose dirt cut away from a higher feature drift down the ridge, they could cut in terraces that would catch the dirt. This could then be piled up and shaped into the lander that they needed to make the line work. Shovel and chop at it once, catch it, shape it – a process that saved valuable time and energy. Nevertheless, the giant lander for the ‘Slut Drop’ took four and a half days. Jarrod described the process:
‘With the big landing, first of all we had to understand the logistics of widening it out and we had a lot of rock to work with to get everything wide. Once we got everything dialled in, we dug like rice fields a bit down the landing so any sort of slough that comes down, it all catches in the rice fields rather than going all the way down to the bottom. That way your landing fills in a lot more the more you’re going down. Once we got the rice fields all filled in, it was just a matter of getting everything watered for like two hours, so all the dirt was nice and wet and then you could just rake all the bad stuff out and it was just left with a really good texture of dirt. Then that’s when we were able to just slap the landing down. It took us four and a half days. That was a team effort with Robin’s team, so all up there was three diggers from each team plus the riders so that was eight people all up, with a team effort on that landing.’
With the basics of the line in place, I joined them on the site after their rest day, and on the first day of practice. I watched from the neighbouring ridge as the women lay down the dig tools and started figuring out some of their smaller drops, and then the lines that led into the F*cktagon. Pairs of diggers continued to work on bigger features, while another would help their rider figure out the smaller, finished, features. Looking through the zoom lens of the camera, it was easy to normalise these ‘smaller’ features, until you zoomed out and realised that just a swoop of sculpted dirt lay between the rider and the long fall below. Georgia could be seen climbing up a wall of rock, passing her bike above her, to reach an entry point above the Chuterus berm. Track standing, hopping, then disappearing off the far side of the outcrop before reappearing and climbing back up to try it again. This was not terrain for clipless pedals, and while the line is designed to be ridden top to bottom, where possible it helps to be able to break bigger features down into smaller sections – though entry points like this rocky outcrop could be a huge struggle to reach, or start from.
Georgia described just how tricky it is: ‘Flat pedals and being comfortable with track stands and starting in little spots… you don’t realise how much it helps in those moments. When all the cameras are pointing at you, and you’re balancing on the most awkward rock in your life!’
There was a heart in mouth moment for onlookers and Vero, as a mistimed jump threatened to buck her over the edge of the F*cktagon. A cloud of dust from the top, a yelp, and a few hugs of relief all round signalled all was well, but next day, having hit the F*cktagon jumps a few times, Vero and Georgia had decided it was all too tight for what they’d designed, so they set about reshaping elements of it. Georgia explains, ‘Once we rode the jump we realised that it was pretty tight if we did want to make it a trick jump – to have the whale tail right after – so it just wasn’t quite the right square footage for both of these features together. So instead we’re just going to make it more playful, delete the whale tail but have it so we can fully rail the berm after without getting weird and offline. So right now we’re just adding a little roller boob, to kind of have some body movement on it’
Roller boob sounded to me like the undesirable effects of a particularly tight sports bra, but Georgia assured me it’s a technical term and exactly what they want. Picks and shovels were deployed, breaking up the carefully smoothed surface, and redesigning it into something that would be safer, but also allow a more stylish ride position. It struck me that it’s not just about hitting a few big features – it’s also about linking them together in a way that looks good and feels fun. At such steep angles, and with such exposure, there’s no down time on the trail – every inch helps you reset from the previous feature and sets you up for the next one.
Getting the in between bits right is important, and the consequences of too much speed were made abundantly clear the night before as Cami Nogueira went too deep on her Blood Drop lander and broke her nose rolling through out of control.
Perhaps with this lesson in mind, to help slow Robin and Georgia down after the huge Slut Drop lander, the diggers got to work adding a catch berm to slow them, sending them off to one side before they resume their journey down the ridge. While traction might be OK in practice, once those hoses were pulled and the dirt dried out, hauling on the brakes might be both ineffective and damaging to the lander. Both women wanted to be able to slow, and to leave enough of the lander intact to be able to take a second run if wanted. The catch berm would help them scrub off their speed without breaking up the lander. Georgia says that building her own freeride lines gives her the confidence to be patient with the process, knowing how a feature is meant to work, and knowing they can adjust it if they need to. Patience leads to less stress, and confidence on the bike. It’s a process she clearly thrives in.
Georgia makes everything look neat and easy. Surgical even. I don’t see any sign of sketchy lines and bobbled landings. Just control, precision, more control, execution, completion. The only time I catch her seeming less than composed is when she drops into the Chuterus, only to discover that her turn built off to the left has crumbled to dust and there’s nothing to catch with her wheel. She chucks her bike onto the cliff edge, and I swear there’s a little frustrated stamp of her feet, before she turns their energy into firming up the line that should be there. I’d seen Vero wipe out there a little earlier, and I wonder if Georgia’s turn has fallen victim to tyres and boots in the process. With just a single ridge for all the women to ride down, and the criss-crossing of their lines, it’s easily done. Add in the looseness of the hillside, and even walking around to check out an angle can send a shower of rocks tumbling onto a freshly swept feature below. There’s no room for switching off here.
One of Georgia’s diggers sets about rebuilding her turn, and she climbs back up to reset. It’s now long past lunch break time, but we’re high up on the ridgeline and it feels like the only sensible expenditure of energy is to tick this feature off. Most of the other riders have now retreated from the sun’s heat, leaving Georgia’s dig team, the course marshals, and a handful of camera wielders to bake in the heat. It’s hot as hell, and tense. The more time that passes, the hotter and more tired everyone will get – including Georgia. Burn all her matches now and she’ll pay for it later in fatigue. But walk away, and it leaves another feature in the head game, playing on her mind. Her digger shouts up, the turn is ready. She drops in, links the turn to the next one, drops through the Chuterus catch berm, and pulls up on the top of the F*cktagon to a chorus of whoops. The tension disperses as she rides the high of the moment, digests how it went, makes a mental note for the next time she runs through it, and then bails down the hillside – running down, towards a scheduled massage. Again, she moves precisely – trotting down the loose and steep terrain as casually as if it were a Park Run. Those trail runs alongside her mum’s mountain bike posse look like they’ve given some skills that have stuck.
Next morning I watch as they figure out the creeping move into the final drop – below the Slut Drop, that looms above, still untouched. Little bounces, mini-endos, micro-adjustments. Foot down, both feet down, dismount and roll back up. Only once she was confident that she had the angle and speed figured out did Georgia hit the drop, pulling up before the next gap jump. It’s a whole process, nibbling away at the features, figuring each one out, working through them until all that’s left is the biggest, scariest one. I note to Georgia that somehow the features seem to shrink when you’re watching them pick off one little piece at a time, and she agrees, ‘It’s all perspective. You’re like, “well, this is the thing I have to be least scared of, so I better get comfy on it!”‘
Georgia is just about to quit for lunch when she spots veteran Red Bull Rampage rider Darren ‘The Claw’ Berrecloth on the ridge. He offers to help figure out the speed for the Slut Drop – though warns he’s only got 15 minutes before he’s heading for lunch. Georgia makes the most of the reassurance his experience provides, and she’s not even used all his time before she finds herself rolling up to the edge and able to visualise continuing off it to the lander. ‘I saw it happening in my head’, she says. She pushes up, and says to Robin that she’s going to do it… and does. Slut Drop ticked off. Lunch time, and then all that’s left is to link everything together in a run.
That she rode this huge feature before Robin came as something of a surprise to Georgia – Robin has much more experience at figuring out and ‘guineaing’ features. But the ease with which it happened fits with how the rest of Rampage went down for Georgia – and how it appeared to me as an onlooker. I wondered whether the cool-as-a-cucumber execution was just a front, but she said that both Formation and Red Bull Rampage had felt ‘chilled’ to her. Where races could bring on ‘crippling nerves’, these events saw her having ‘so much fun on my bike that translates to better riding‘.
As competition day falls, a long wind hold keeps the riders off the features, and the practice session they hope to spend tricking the lower jumps doesn’t come to pass. Georgia had managed to hit the Slut Drop again the evening before, rolling into it from the feature above, so while she hadn’t linked everything together, knowing this she could hit this huge feature from a rolling start was a major boost. She worked to keep her nerves at bay and fun levels high by flitting between her dig team and Casey and her crew, chatting and keeping moving as everyone waited at the top for the windsocks to drop.
Finally, it’s Georgia’s competition run. From alternate to rider, she makes it look like she was meant to be there. Near perfect execution of every feature, deft control through all the steeps, entry points hit. Check, check, check. It looks smooth and easy, with an overlay of style. As she finishes her ridge run and hits the trick jump, she even throws the Sui that she’d been hoping she could pull if she was feeling good. Her score proves the point that she was ready for Red Bull Rampage – from alternate to rider, to a second place podium. It’s an incredible achievement, and it’s only after the last run is finished and her place is confirmed that emotion of it all finally gets to her. Tears flow and hugs are shared as Georgia enjoys the moment.
Chatting to her in the days that follow, Georgia says that she hopes to carry through the ‘calculated laid back approach’ that she’s managed to adopt for Formation and Red Bull Rampage. Having fun and working through the process feels good and lets her perform at her best, and freeride seems to nurture that. With this success to her name, she wants to scale back the racing to just the ‘fun’ stuff like her local Crankworx, putting the focus on freeride events like the newly announced ‘Natural Selection’ in New Zealand. After such an impressive Red Bull Rampage debut, I can hardly imagine what possibilities lie ahead as she builds on her skills and experience. It’s a story that echoes that of the whole women’s freeride scene – I think we’re all excited to see what’s next.
Thanks to ABUS for contributing to Hannah’s travel expenses.
