Growing up I always watched Brian Lopes, I remember seeing him in the movies back when he used to race downhill and my respect for the man was always of the highest level as he crushed the competition throughout the years of 4X and DS. How could it not be? he was one of the most consistently fierce riders out there (his Kranked 2 Dirt Jump segment was also a favourite for a 13 year old).

A few years ago, when I joined twitter, I immediately followed all of my favourite mountain biker racers, past and present, Brian included. I was introduced to Brian’s own unique thoughts and opinions. This is of course the benefit of having twitter, being able to read and enjoy the thoughts of people you personally know, as well as the people you don’t, all packaged together in one feed. It serves as a way for a person who is in the spotlight to effectively put themselves on the same level as everyone else by giving you access to their own thoughts and opinions. Some athletes/celebrities choose to go the conservative route and some choose to say what they truly feel and think, regardless of their obligations or status. Brian takes the outspoken approach to twitter, tweeting what he thinks, and what he feels. This was a classic Lopes tweet – “Good thing I’m factory Oakley & don’t have 2 but cloths. Just did some shopping 4 designer threads, barely can afford 1 outfit.” ..

This year at Crankworx, Brian came in to the Air Downhill as the FIVE TIME defending champion. Now in this situation I found it appropriate to cheer against Brian in the hopes that someone would dethrone the FIVE TIME REIGNING champ. It’s never fun to see the same team or athlete win over and over again. Why do you think people hate the Yankees or Lakers? This year, Andrew Neethling (all around good guy) bested Brian’s time, and took top spot. I tweeted about the fact I was stoked that Brian had not won. My tweet was “@BrianLopes lost! Stokedddd“. Harmless, right?

Apparently not so, later that evening he obviously took so much offense to my tweet that he concocted this response in the form of a private message; “stoked I beat you too, whoever the hell u R. Funny how nobodies talk shit & follow people they don’t seem to like. I’d never follow you for sure“.

First off my message was public, and he replied with a private message, specifically in response to my tweet which had been directed at him. I had no problem publicly displaying my tweet? Why hide your response? Second – if claiming that I am stoked about you losing is shit talking, I would hate to see what your message would have looked like had I mentioned that you were washed up or something else along those lines. Third, he seems concerned that I follow him – I’m a mountain bike fan Brian. Fourth, he informed me that he would never follow me – That’s ok, I don’t expect you to, I’m a nobody, remember?

Now originally I didn’t publicly mention this anywhere other than to a few friends in person. A few days ago I realized that Brian had continued to show his displeasure with me tweeting at him about the Air Downhill results, that he blocked me from viewing his tweets. This changed my mind about whether I should write about what had happened. In my mind, anyone in Brian’s high profile situation shouldn’t ever take it upon themselves to take it too personally that someone is happy they lost the race, game, contest, etc. and a) go out of there way to send a hate message back to a fan. Does anyone think Lebron James privately tweets at all the haters on twitter? I highly doubt he even cares that people hate him. b) restrict a fan from viewing your public profile. Brian obviously has differing opinions from mine – he shouldn’t change them either. That’s the beauty of twitter, access to your character, remember?

There is a certain website out there that chooses to hate on many riders and companies in the industry. Albeit some of the content is witty and a good laugh, the website is anonymous and thus the author is discredited. Specifically he has a page about Brian and his alleged antics that he feels are worthy of dedicating an entire section of his website to attacking his image and character. I don’t entirely agree with what this author is attempting to do, but after my “encounter” with Brian, I do understand where he is coming from.

I’ll say this, yes you are a legendary Mountain bike racer, who still continues to this day to consistently prove this fact by finishing well in every event and discipline that you race, but now I am starting to believe that the certain website that does trash you, is actually more right, then wrong, when it comes to its opinions on you. Although I am no longer a fan, I will continue to follow your racing career, and I will quietly cheer when you do lose, just as I do when the Yankees fail.

I’m definitely not looking for an apology, nor am I looking to change anyone’s ways on twitter. I am merely writing this to tell an interesting (to me) story.

I remember when Dual Slalom was replaced by the upstart BMX racing inspired Four Cross. At first, Downhill racers participated and the bikes resembled something that looked aggressive. Now the bikes are light hardtails with XC tires, and the racers are almost all strictly four cross racers only. The sight of a professional downhill racer racing a high level four cross event is rare. Here in Canada, more specifically BC, our provincial grassroots series, which has a very very strong downhill scene, dropped four cross a few years ago. Interest was low, and course construction costs were high.

Can someone please start running a dual slalom style event that renews the interest of downhill racers. My suggestion: parallel tracks, same running format as Dual Slalom, but on a course where a 6 inch bike with downhill tires is ideal. Picture an event where Danny Hart is racing Sam Hill on a 45 second track that alternates between off camber grass turns, berms, fade-aways, and gap jumps. An event where the gate start is only relevant to the first section of track, and not the whole race.

You might say that the Sea Otter slalom is this exact race, and I would partially agree, but my imagined race is much faster, has longer speed jumps, and the corners are very wide and sweeping with many line options. Both lanes are very wide, with gates on the inside of all corners, there are sections with moto-whoops, and corners with deep ruts that dictate the racing line. The racing is flat out, foot out, and super exciting. The fact that the worlds best downhill racers are participating, and are very competitive, is enough of a draw to excite people about the racing on Friday or Saturday.

Speaking of the Sea Otter slalom, the world best Downhill racers continue to participate, and the Sea Otter festival doesn’t even offer a four cross event for anyone. It’s one of the most popular races of the weekend with a huge turnout of a fans and celebrity gravity racers.

The beauty of my suggestion is that the courses could easily be run on mowed grass ski slopes, with nothing more then flat grass turns and some hand dug whoops and ruts. Set up on the cheap to allow the ever important grassroots race series’s to participate without having to spend thousands on building a manicured downhill BMX track with an excavator and a 10 person build crew.

Four cross is boring. Dude gets the gate, and he’s going to win 9 of 10 times, processional racing. Lets get something going where mistakes can easily be made due to the speed and variety of mixed terrain. Unpredictability is exciting. Just think back to the picture I painted of Hill and Hart racing. This time, imagine them white knuckling a downhill flat grass turn side by side, foot out, dirt spraying everywhere, its raining. It doesn’t matter cause they’re both running Wet Screams. One of them slides out on the grass, the other gets wild, but goes on to take his 1.5 second advantage. They switch lanes, and continue.

Parallel Downhill. Giant Slalom. Whatever you want to call it, mountain bike racing deserves it (or something like it). In the meantime, US Nationals this year will feature Dual Slalom which is rad. I hope Canada takes note for next year.

Way to go Brandon – And good job by Pinkbike on probably the best contest winning run clip ever

So anybody who read my post from last weekend knows that I was skeptical about the Red Bull Joyride Slopestyle representing the evolution of freeride mountain biking. I said that “In 5 days I’ll either be eating my words, or I’ll be reassured of my judgment of the sport that I love”. Where do I sit post last nights contest? Somewhere right in the middle. From a viewing standpoint the contest was fucking awesome. The jumps up top ended up being fairly standard with lots of crashes, and the stepdown at the bottom was tricked similarly (albeit with more consistency) to the previous years. The satellite dishes were pretty cool to watch, but the progression seen there was fairly minimal if at all.

Those two hips in the middle were amazing to watch. I was surprised with how often the big spine hip was tricked, the landing looked super rough. The next “Ronnie Renner” style hip was even better to watch. Anthony hitting that hip might have been the highlight of the contest for me (as well as probably everyone else), as well as Zink’s 540 and Brandon’s invert in his winning run, they were all amazing. I fully expect every slopestyle course to have something similar to this hip after what everyone saw.

Anthony Messere MEGA BLASTING at Crankworx – More Mountain Bike Videos

Evolution?

That leads me to my next point; is that evolution?

No slopestyle course has really had a quarter pipe to dirt landing of that magnitude, there have been many with small wood to dirt quarters but those produced nothing similar to what we all witnessed last night. The steepness and tallness of the landing and lip led to what looked like 20 feet of airtime (from a 15-year-old). Everyone I was around went absolutely nuts, I haven’t seen that much crowd reaction (shock and awe) since Claw 3′d the roadgap way back when, I even watched a well-known world cup downhiller completely forget about the drink in his hand as Anthony aired that hip, (the drink landed well before Anthony did – fyi).

So where does the sport of freeride go from here? To the sport serious hips are nothing new, think back to Thomas Vanderham in Kranked 5, or Mike Hopkins hitting that huge hip in Lifecycles (why there was like one shot of that in the movie remains a mystery to me), but for it to be so important to a single contest is something new. I will go out and say that Big Mountain hips, once the staple of any super sick freeride video section, had been forgotten about. Hopefully Anthony and the Red Bull Joyride with this Hoffman-esque quarter pipe have reminded everyone about how sick they are. Speaking of Hoffman, to me there is no reason that a freeride mountain biker couldn’t break his (Hoffmans, sorry K Rob) air out record (yes I am aware of the advantage suspension should give). I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens soon, but back to freeride/slopestyle contests for a second, are we going to see Flairs and 540′s at the height Anthony went last night, I sure hope so.

Although the course lacked any serious drops, you could say that they are onto something with that big hip. I would hope that they take what they learned this year and keep building off that year in and year out. Keep the hips similar, change-up the jumps a bit, add a big drop, a boner log, while minimize the braking and maximizing the airtime and you’re going to have the most progressive contest out there. There is a reason that the Crankworx slopestyle is the biggest event of the year, it has everything from spectator attendance rivaling an NHL game, legitimate prize money, the coolest venue ever, and it was the first real dirt slopestyle event. Guys want to win it the most, and are willing to throw down harder than anywhere else.

Last night the best all around rider did win, which was awesome to see. Brandon rode brilliant, so did Cam, Anthony and Greg, they were the cream of the crop. The one brake hardtailers mostly blew off the course (literally) and a guy on a 7 inch freeride bike made the super finals. Was there a massive evolution that warranted the hype surrounding the contest? No, but the course ended up providing everyone watching with one heck of a show, while providing a glimmer of evolution. That glimmer was fucking awesome though.

Today is Monday the 17th of July, in five days the most hyped up Slopestyle contest of all time takes place at Kokanee Crankworx; the Red Bull Joyride. Ads for the contest are plastered all over downtown Vancouver on bus benches, billboards, telephone poles, the radio, as well as the Internet. The mainstream advertising of such an important showpiece (to mountain biking) contest is awesome to see, I couldn’t be happier, Thank you Red Bull and Crankworx.

Formerly known as the Monster Energy slopestyle, the contest was seen to a few as getting almost stale. The casual fan and non fan would be inspired regardless, but for someone who has ridden in such contests, and follows the scene as a diehard fan, the Crankworx formula for slopestyle was getting surpassed by smaller, less prestigious events elsewhere. In steps Red Bull to take over from where Monster Energy left off, and in the spirit of the energy drink advertising world, bigger is better, and Red Bull executes this theory better then anyone by a mile.

Red Bull at the helm of the biggest slopestyle contest of the year would seem like a win-win to put together the best course, the best prize money, the best atmosphere in general. These three key ingredients ad up to create progression for the sport of freeride mountain biking (recently considered deceased). In a sport where you aren’t against the clock, visible progression of tricks, airtime and style are key in keeping interest (and funds) at their highest.

The past years of John Cowan and Richie Schley inspired Crankworx slopestyle courses have always been blanketed with a variety of opinions ranging from good to bad. I have always generally supported the former courses; they have always included fairly large jumps, drops and creative ramps that make the course unique. Most often, the last stunt has been a very large and visible drop or step down, the most memorable being the “Gap-o-tron” in 2006 with its triple set up gaps that led into a straight 20 foot drop.

As a side note most of these courses included a stunt or two, that was usually untrickable, awkward, sometimes unsafe, as well as being repetitive (boring to watch). Initially I criticized these features, but I came to realize that without a chance taken on such a stunt, the evolution of slopestyle courses could be slowed down, the realization that the feature wouldn’t work in a visually pleasing way usually resulted in it not returning the next year. Examples of these include the step up to teeter-totter (2005), curved wall up to trailer drop (2008), and the capsule dish on last years course.

When Red Bull started releasing their promotional videos that showed the top riders in the sport of slopestyle putting their input directly into the course, I was thrilled. Rider designed (and built) courses at Claymore and Claw-worx have always been consistently among the most exciting and progressive to watch. Listening to the athletes in the meetings in the video, the consensus was clear; a course that catered to an all around slopestyle athelete. How to get there? Create a course filled with features that ranged from big mountain style (large drops and gaps) dirt jump style (technical steep lipped jumps and wood dishes) to “North shore” style (direct translation = ladder bridges). By the end of the three part video series, the full course is revealed (on paper), and with 3 intertwining lines full of distinct of riding styles, the ideas behind the course design looked amazing. So why am I writing this?

The course doesn’t look anything like how it appeared on paper. It’s like when you see a delicious looking burger on a menu sign at a fast-food restaurant, and in actual fact you end up with a burger that is half the size and leaking grease.

The course that was billed as the “Evolution of Freeride Mountain Biking” appears to contain about half of what was originally planned by, as well as having a banger crowd pleaser that appears more as a marketing gimmick then a progressive feature with 3 options for varying style of riders. The entire riders left line appears to have been axed, a line that would have featured a “North Shore” style flat drop and a lippy step down into some technical berms. The technical looking berms of the two right lines have been replaced with a much more downhill dirt jump style approach where minimal cornering ability is needed.

the facial expression of all 3 when they saw the course that they helped design in person was probably similar to the one in the promotional video where they are sitting on the couch

I’ll be honest that the course that is present is sick looking for what there is; I can’t wait to watch the tombstone hip be shredded into the Ronnie Renner style hips, but to me, it just seems unwarranted of FMBA diamond status, 45k in prize money, and having the Red Bull named attached to it. Where the evolution of freeride mountain biking is going to happen on this course is beyond me. For example the course features one drop, a move that is so simple, yet where all the visually shocking progression of tricks in 2006 happened, anyone remember Ryd-Kas and Kyle Strait tailwhipping that drop, it was legendary. For a sport trying to distance itself from the idea that FMX and BMX guys were way gnarlier, it was huge. Remember when Claw 3’d the road-gap in 2004 or Zink spun the Monster Drop last year. Those moves are the most memorable in Crankworx slopestyle history, why, because they were big drops with big tricks, they were freeride mountain biking’s new identity, adding tricks to the always-present huck. Those moves were a way to quiet comparisons to other sports on two wheels. The 2011 Joyride course features a 10 foot drop at the top of the course, it’ll be super memorable when half the field tailwhips it.

I am sure that Red Bull is disappointed, they hired top-notch people (albeit not slopestyle athletes themselves) to build the course, and they provided input from their own riders, as well as Monsters top two slopestyle riders. The construction quality got a solid boost from year previous, the grass looks awesome, and the ramps and landings all look very clean. It just looks to me as if they lost their way and were hindered with time or money constraints and they ended up with a dirt jump course that isn’t going to evolve the sport further then it already is.

The quality of the contest this year will determine where the course goes next year, if it is obviously lacking, then I am sure you will see the gnarliest most progressive course ever built for 2012. The all around rider probably wont win this year, it will be who ever is the best dirt jumper, which is disappointing, but that is the nature of the course for this year. In 5 days I’ll either be eating my words, or I’ll be reassured of my judgment of the sport that I love.

Agree or disagree? Add your opinion below!

P.S. One of the best/most varied slope style courses ever was from 2005. Many of the features on this course are similar to the ones found in the original schematic for 2011. 2005 was super memorable, as well progressive. Check the vid.

It is 4:45 Am and I have no idea where the fuck I am. Holzkirchen reads the sign above my head, but the town is sleepy at this hour. If I had some wi-fi I would have already educated myself with the wikipedia version of this small town’s history. I have now been sitting on this platform for the last 3 hours, patiently waiting the 5:05 train to Rosenheim. Butt on hard concrete, eyes on a shitty heist movie on top of some bike boxes (note: “Takers” – fucking terrible). A sleepy looking conductor finally rolls past, I am sure he thinks that we’ve just arrived, and within 10 minutes, we are on our way.

It’s hour 22 of our journey that started in the haze of a hangover, our last night in the party village known as Chatel. I was smart enough to slow down my personal celebration of the weekends events. My travel mates are not so lucky, they are both in rough shape but one is feeling relaxed from a midnight dip in a cold jacuzzi and the other is feeling good about his pool game. They are both going to feel sour after the twisty drive that our french shuttle driver speeds through with little regard to the separation between the left and right lane.

We arrive at Geneva International Aeroporte and say our goodbyes to those that are flying home, my travel mates and I head to the rental car area fully intent on hiring a car at the last possible minute. Of course we have 4 bike boxes and and 3 large bags, plus backpacks, so we need something rather north american in size. Nothing available. A quick decision is made, we’ll travel by train to Linz, our original destination when we awoke at 7 am. Train travel seems like a novel idea, quick, cheap and very european in nature. Tickets are purchased, and overpriced food is eaten. I get a bad feeling about our tickets and the ability to take the amount of luggage that we have, on any train. I quickly check with a travel agent, who spoke perfect english, but appreciated my attempt to converse with my limited french. She informs me that we would have been fucked had we actually tried to board the train due to it having very limited baggage restrictions – not much more then a purse or backpack.

I blamed it on an inadequate ticket agent, and not our own stupidity in failing to mention that we had more bikes than people, after an hour of refunding our tickets, she informed us that all Trains in the next two days that connected to Linz, would have the same baggage requirements. We decide to just wing it and head to Munich, which is cheap(ish) and is bike friendly. We’ll decided along the way whether we want to head to Linz in the end, or just go straight to Saalbach. 7 Hours later we’re in Munich with hardly a game plan, nor any idea of what to do, the amazing race would eat us alive. I quickly check a electronic ticket agent and discover that we can take a route to Leogang (around the corner from Saalbach) with 4 or 5 transfers. It leaves immediately, so we hurry to buy tickets. The machine, not liking Mark at all, decides to slow us down, but we make it. 1:42 AM rolls around and we end up taking a subway style commuter train all the way to edge of the Munich suburbs where we find ourselves sitting on a train platform for the majority of the evening.

The commuter train to Rosenheim finally arrives and it’s a short 42 minute trip, we all doze off and nearly miss our stop, luckily it is the terminus. Up next is 32 minute journey to Kufstein, then the 10 minute Journey to Wörgl, we change and finally get on our last train to Leogang. It is the longest train ride, and an hour and a half, but it’ll get us “around the corner” from our destination in Saalbach. It is finally time to exit the last train, we hop off and find ourselves on the hill high above Leogang at a deserted train station. Awesome. Eventually a postman rolls by and Geoff flags him down, we ask if he can call for a van taxi and he comes through. A large Volkswagen van rolls up a short time later, our non english speaking driver is whisking us away to our final destination in Saalbach. Originally thought, by our most experienced traveler, to be around the corner, it slowly reveals that it is actually 25 kilometres way, a 70 euro cab ride. We get dropped off in Saalbach, only to realize once again we are idiots and that we want to be in Hinterglemm, almost 4 km up the road.