The 2024 Red Bull Rampage will go down as one of the most memorable; a veritable roller-coaster of emotions.
Let’s start with the positives. Women competitors finally got their long-awaited seat at the table this year with their own event, their own venue, on their own day. Red Bull came under a lot of fire last year for cancelling Formation (the non-competitive women’s freeride event held in the same Utah desert riding region the men ride). Formation ran for three editions, letting the female freeriders practice building and riding their own lines without the pressure and risk of judged runs. It was the perfect predecessor to the women’s Rampage event this year, which saw seven women drop in on the course. It would have been an even eight at the inaugural women’s Rampage, but Cami Nogueira made the wise decision to skip the start after breaking her nose in a crash during practice.
Red Bull did not livestream the women’s event, choosing instead to replay it that evening. While this led to some inevitable spoilers with social media and real-time results, I suspect Red Bull will give the women’s event more media resources in the future as the viewership numbers rise alongside the progression of riding.
On Oct. 10, women’s freeride had its moment. New Zealand’s Robin Goomes clearly had the best run, landing two backflips no one else was willing, or able, to risk. Freeride veteran Casey Brown—who’s been pitching for a slot at Rampage since 2018—was the only rider to hit her meticulously constructed “laundry chute,” an incredibly steep chute-to-drop feature that would send most freeride bros running for the hills. She placed third. But the run I was most looking forward to was that of Whistler’s own Georgia Astle, who has slowly but surely gravitated towards freeride events after years of downhill racing. Stomping her massive drop and managing a big no-hander took her to second place on the podium and made her hometown mountain bike community proud.
Like most years at Rampage, the men’s event on Oct. 10 was a mix of WTF-did-I-just-see? moments and WTF-was-that-score? moments. The first runs were mind blow after mind blow, with veterans like Tyler McCaul having the run of his 14-year Rampage career to get him on the podium in third. Tom van Steenbergen front-flipped the massive “The Price is Right” step down feature and somehow managed to ride it out at reckless speed. He earned himself the best trick of the day, but it turns out one huge mid-run air isn’t enough to win. Not this year, anyway. Many thought van Steenbergen was short-changed in fourth place.
Szymon Godziek seemed to have the winning formula of big air and a variety of technical tricks. His huge backflip over The Price is Right—followed by the coolest double backflip I’ve ever seen—put him in the hot seat with very few riders able to match his amplitude, style and variety of tricks.
Then came Brandon Semenuk, the guy who has won four Rampage events, one more than anyone else. His slopestyle-esque run made the most technical tricks of the day look easy, and it was up there with some of the riskiest. He pipped Godziek by just over a point for his fifth Rampage win.
The internet lost its collective mind. Armchair sportsfans declared Rampage is not a slopestyle event and the judges should honour its big-mountain freeride roots with their scoring. Brendan Fairclough returned to Rampage this year and had a unique, truly mesmerizing run with moments of deathly exposure, but unfortunately that’s not what Rampage is about anymore. Fairclough and his fans were the most disappointed of the day, with his run scoring a paltry 76 for 11th place, pretty much at the back of the pack with riders who made major errors.
The thing is, if every run was like Fairclough’s, Rampage wouldn’t be what it is in 2024. Media companies like Red Bull follow what the viewers want, and that’s the most visually impressive tricks, be it amplitude, technicality, or a mixture of both. I really wanted Godziek to win. I really wanted van Steenbergen on the podium for that crazy-ass front flip. And I wanted Fairclough’s run to be appreciated by the judges as more than lacklustre. But at the end of the day, no one else could do what Semenuk did in his run top-to-bottom. Godziek came the closest and the scores reflected that.
Rampage has been a clear driver of freeride mountain biking’s evolution since it began in 2001. Longtime fans may not agree with the direction it’s going and which riding styles are getting rewarded, but there’s no halting progress. More difficult runs get higher scores.
Vince Shuley can’t wait to see what the women bring in 2025. For questions, comments or suggestions for The Outsider, email [email protected] or Instagram @whis_vince.
