Squeaky Bum Time – Rampage 2023!

Rampage is my favourite MTB event to watch. It’s just insane. That ridge gap is ridiculously tight, no margin for error.

I feel really conflicted about whether the riders should be encouraged to take such a mental set of risks.

Me too, especially as its primary purpose is to sell tins of drinks. All th RB professional influences will be social media ering to sell it

https://m.pinkbike.com/news/gee-atherton-air-lifted-from-the-red-bull-rampage-course-after-crash-in-practice.html

God, hope he’s as OK as is possible this time around.

Oh shite, that’s terrible news

Ah crap.

Healing vibes. I hope RB cover all the medical bills. I hope no one suffers a life changing injury

oooooooff

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyO9tz1LRgr/

Jesus Christ!……I wish gee would just go off and do something like the enduro ws,

Give it up Gee, 😭.

Jesus. Really hope he recovers ok.
There’s just a horrible inevitability from it all 😐

Not completely sure that Gee knows where to draw the line.

I wish gee would just go off and do something like the enduro ws,

Either that or he’ll be doing adaptive mtb events at this rate.

Sad, but not entirely surprising.

Oof! Went so deep – but that was always a risk with how steep a drop it was. Heal up Gee!

Oh Christ – I assume that was his first drop in too to that feature? There are other vids of him doing much smaller features and still only not getting thrown off

I hope my fears above are not real, but unfortunately titanium metal bars are stronger than bone.

Watched the Ride Companion last night and they said each team got £10k for entering for all expenses. So does that make it a work place ? And at that point there appeared to be some serious lacking in H&S on site with the dig crews (being slightly pedantic I know)

Watched the Ride Companion last night and they said each team got £10k for entering for all expenses.

$9k (£7.323) Bren said in his vlog to all competitors no matter.
So he said he’d paid about £3k in hotels for the 3 of them and £3k in flights, and that was most of the money gone in one.
The rest he covers himself and other sponsors chipping in..

I love watching Rampage but feared this year that it maybe has gone a bit too far with the gaps and drops. Not so much the distances on jumps as that is a calculation when broken down but, the run ins to said jumps are so sketchy, one wrong move or slip and they don’t make it.

That short vid of Gee’s crash looks very nasty, although some of the impact will hopefully have been taken by the bike as it did rebound a bit before spitting him off. Still horrendous and I expect him to be quite badly messed up again 🙁

TBH i thought the crash went better than i expected from the air-ambulance title of topic…. It looked fairly brutal but i honestly thought it could’ve been worse in terms of impact.

So does that make it a work place ? And at that point there appeared to be some serious lacking in H&S on site with the dig crews (being slightly pedantic I know)

It’s America and I’d imagine they’ve signed a pretty comprehensive waiver too. Gee is Red Bull sponsored though I think(?) and it seems like they take care of their athletes.

TBH i thought the crash went better than i expected from the air-ambulance title of topic….

I’m hoping that it’s air ambulance because, well, it’s going to be a helicopter ride from a remote location like that regardless of severity, rather than him being badly screwed up.

Hopefully, the fact that they posted the crash footage on Gee’s Insta means that the outlook isn’t too bad?

(or that they’re cynically trying to use it for clicks)

Gee would’ve posted it himself, if the original Pinkbike story is anything to go by.

weeksy

TBH i thought the crash went better than i expected from the air-ambulance title of topic…. It looked fairly brutal but i honestly thought it could’ve been worse in terms of impact.

It looked like a regular everyday crash compared to the horror of his Ridgeline crash. but impact of any fall that side of a 60 foot drop must be enormous.

The fact that it was posted on his own instagram is good news.

Race day is always underwhelming IME it’s all about the digging, line prep and guinea pigging jumps

Is it the same venue as 2013? (Zink talking about his legendary flip drop that he’s hitting again) isn’t that the same venue as Gee’s wallride and mcgarry’s gap? I don’t get how there’s all these new lines if thats the case

It looked like a regular everyday crash compared to the horror of his Ridgeline crash. but impact of any fall that side of a 60 foot drop must be enormous.

They measured the Rampage drop at 60ft. I would say it was worse than the ridge line crash because at least in that he tumbled rather than stopping almost instantly so the energy dissipated. Add in to the mix that most of the big bones in his body have strong metal rods in them, its not going to be a great outcome.

I would say it was worse than the ridge line crash

No chance. If you held a gun to my head I’d choose to bellyflop off the Rampage drop rather than ride down that ridge line.

Just epic… epically epic !

From a UK point of view, I would most likely have called in HEMS from that sort of location and a fall of that height. Even with relatively minor injuries (fractured bones, etc, the walk and drive out would have been a long way and really uncomfortable. The helicopter makes the most sense, especially when you factor in a 60 foot fall and the likelihood of  life changing or threatening injuries. Also RedBull’s insurance will be footing the bill. 

A horrible event. An annual sacrifice to the sugary drink gods. Yay capitalism.
They should just have them playing russian roulette.
Less risk of costly life changing injuries that are icky for the brand.

Less risk of costly life changing injuries that are icky for the brand.

How many life changing injuries have there been at Rampage?

Long-term paralysis for Paul Basagoita in 2015.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CyRVIpyPSYr/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

From that angle it’s obvious just exactly how ridiculous the run in to that is…

I wish I had even one percent of Brendog’s skill or cojones.

So chuffed for him that he cleared that… absolutely incredible

I wish I had even one percent of Brendog’s skill or cojones.

I’m kinda glad I don’t! I may get ideas above my station and hit things!

Just a few skull/vertabrae fractures for Gee. just.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CyRcun_x1aJ/?igshid=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

That’s a win!

I was genuinely worried about Brendan’s gap so really pleased he made it. 

Still can’t get my head round the ‘battleship’ gap* that godziek is trying

*Does he mean ‘aircraft carrier’ gap? Snappy title 

That’s lucky.