2025 Red Bull Rampage

Final rider list for the women's event today - healing vibes to Casey Brown, Vaea Verbeeck, and CJ Selig who are all out injured.

2025 Red Bull Rampage Start List - Women
Kirsten Van Horne – Canada
Hannah Bergemann - United States
Vinny Armstrong – New Zealand
Cami Nogueira – Argentina
Harriet Burbidge-Smith – Australia
Janelle Soukup – United States
Chelsea Kimball – United States
Georgia Astle – Canada
Robin Goomes – New Zealand

Gotta be resilient to play this game...

This got me wondering, how many of the guys are running single crowns? All the ladies are riding DC forks. 

I mean, I don't think any of the women are doing tailwhips or barspins at Rampage. Not a knock against them, but I'm not sure I'd be running a single crown if I wasn't throwing those tricks. 

Today and Sunday.

Today:

Rampage is so gnarly. Too gnarly. 

the slopestyle argument is still going on and it always cracks me up: as if slopestyle isn’t itself super gnarly??? 

 

Canadian MTB magazine: "This weekend’s Rampage is set to be the biggest progression show yet: Here’s when to watch and who to cheer for"

https://cyclingmagazine.ca/mtb/where-and-how-to-watch-red-bull-rampage-2025-the-women-are-getting-sendy-and-the-the-rookies-are-rising/

We can play "Find the error" in that article...that's some poor "research" done right there before publishing that one LOL.

Hints: there's a rookie missing, and one too many. And the "seasoned names" list includes someone who is not there this year. 

FACEPALM

Okay so you’re definitely a bot, linking a thing that not only says “who to root for” (I’ll decide that, thanks…and it’s always Tommy G), but says Stark is a rookie and Sorge is there. 

Beep borp bzzzzzzzzrt error

Haha humans win this round!!!

please no AI articles lol... or even lazy journos using googles AI to answer questions and HAPPILY copy pasting whatever comes up when a sub-5 minute search would reveal what is wrong with the answers.

ya i get the concept of the slopestyle argument but to me the funniest thing is watching the ACTUAL slopestyle events where dudes are riding dirt jumper bikes and getting GRENADED when they don't land things perfectly is almost just as gnarly. sure there's no cliffs but the ground is HARD PACK at slope events and you don't have all the comforts of a long travel full sus bike to erase your errors or at least soften the blow if ur goin down anyway

I'd love a new, separate event that was about freeriding lines like what the guys get up to in Chile but I don't know how practical that is. Trying to steal snow/ski formats directly, it's usually easier for them to have a fully raw line and find a natural lip or maybe do a touch up on something to make a lip... Not necessarily as practical for bikes, among a few other things like crashes being a touch more forgiving in the snow. Can't be said of the dirt and rocks of MTB

Yeah, I'm a bot. So what?

What gave it away? The fact that I pretend to be from the US, posted a link to a Canadian web site, or didn't try to persuade anyone about anything?

I can't get anything past you, Sherlock. You're too alert.

Who’s Sherlock? Is he like Thomas Magnum? 

Flip whip > scree skidding 
 

downvoting Iceman for pointing out how bad the article you linked is a bad look... cmon brotha

I called Robin Goomes for the win on pink site... Lookin good so far. Seems like the only one tricking features up top. I still love Cami's lines better than anyone's. She's the Brage of the womens cat.

Wouldn’t be Rampage without confusing judging. #1 blew everyone else out of the water and barely won. 

I've seen this a lot in almost every action sport I've followed. There is this crippling sense of "LEAVE ROOM FOR GOING HIGHER".

And it's one of the reasons I quite like surfing judging, not that it's "GREAT" but... Because you score top 2 rides, there was never a fear of giving a perfect score. The odds of getting one are already low, so the odds of getting BOTH scores perfect, making it impossible for the other rider to win are VERY low.

That said, it's happened more than once! Ten times actually (ironically)! Hell, even back in 96 when it was 3 wave total instead of 2, Beschen scored a perfect 30. So if it has been possible for 60+ years... But has only happened 10 times (9 of them being when the wave total was reduced)... It's clearly a non-issue.

Sadly it's not a format that fits Rampage for obvious reasons. Most riders don't even want to do a second run so long as their first one is solid, even if it's not a win.

But it does seem to cause judging paralysis.

I was bummed to see the little 'judging criteria' concept they added this year did not include a base score determined by the judges for perfect execution of their presumed run. Which I thought was a hot topic after Brendog completed his run, as planned, and got a laughably low score. I feel like riders NEED to know if their run is going to go like sub-80 even if they do the whole run perfectly as intended.

WOOO so stoked for Robin making it 2 in a row!! 

After a dramatic week of building and practicing, competition day rolled around for the women of Rampage. The original field of 12 riders had been reduced to 9 as the start list was published, but unfortunately Harriet Burbidge-Smith and Chelsea Kimball also went down late in the game with injuries so we were left with 7. The weather had been a challenge in the lead-up to the event, but conditions were picture perfect on competition day (and looking back on it, the rain sure helped the dig teams carve out some good looking lines).

This was the second running of Rampage for the women, and the increase in ambition and riding level was significant compared to last year. Some of the features the women are hitting now were big parts of the men's Rampage last time it was held at this venue. We also had a full field of competitors take their 2nd runs which stood in contrast to last year. Hats off to the riders and their teams!

The competition for the podium was intense, even more so because of the "Princess Killer" drama. The drop that took out Nico Vink a couple of years ago put an end to Casey Brown's Rampage this week as well, which prompted Hannah and Robin to abandon the feature and go shopping for a new top section to their lines. Thanks to the camaraderie of the other competitors, they were able to inherit a couple of suitable options and thanks to the hard work of their dig crews they were able to piece together a top-to-bottom practice run in the morning before the finals.

When the broadcast got underway, we discovered a new addition to the production features: a "prejudged" scoring matrix was presented to the viewers, representing a scoring matrix that set the expectations that the judges had of each rider after analyzing their lines and their riding styles. Of course, the final scores were then awarded based on the riders' actual performances, but this system provided a bit of a framework for how the judges view the different lines, and maybe it can help with some of the judging controversies that always pop up in an event like this.

As the action unfolded, we were treated to some exciting riding and some sizable sends. The top spots were occupied by Robin and Hannah after the first runs, with two different approaches netting scores only separated by a few tenths of a point. Hannah went big while Robin had a line that combined a natural top section with a very exposed goat trail along a ridgeline - and ultimately Robin made the differences by tricking far more features than any of the other riders on the day.

Hannah's second run saw her get the exact same score as her first run, which left Robin as the last person standing at the top of the mountain in the winning position without needing to take a second run. She cruised down her line to the finish corral to celebrate her second Rampage win in as many events. A worthy winner, that exposed ridge line run is no joke and Robin charged it with authority and big tricks.

How about that judging controversy then? Well, by and large the scores seemed pretty fair, but we do think that Cami Nogueira's VERY rowdy chute deserved a spot on the podium. At any rate, we're stoked with the progression shown by these women, and for next year, they all know what they need to do to reach the next level: spend some time filling up their bags of tricks, they're going to need it at the rate things are progressing now.

2025 Red Bull Rampage Results - Women

I gotta say, those ladies were sure killing it.  Robin's run was incredible (and she did it again on her victory lap!), Cami's chute was crazy (and to do that twice!).  Great runs by everyone, they all looked calculated and controlled.  

El Presidente drop is still insane.  

That is why I have long contended that they shouldn't use "scores", but use "rank" instead.

The scores don't mean anything other than rank anyway.  They are not based on meaningful metrics, but a "feeling" based on where the riders sit between each other.

If the sport had fixed, measurable metrics like gymnastics (for instance), I might support scores.  But even with gymnastics, we regularly see things go... suspiciously awry.

Anyway: rank > score.

Really impressive riding from these athletes. Very smooth riding, massive air, sketchy steeps and deadly exposure. Pure Rampage! 

POV with Cami, impressive!

Top 3 runs from the women's competition:

A few shots from the women's competition, courtesy of Red Bull:

Robin Goomes went upside down not once but TWICE in her winning run.

Hannah Bergemann has added backflips to her arsenal of tricks, and it paid off for her with a strong second place run.

We LOVED seeing Kirsten Van Horne take her hands off on a sizable drop in her line...next year you can be sure somebody will do it on the 50-footers too!

Georgia Astle on El Presidente...a sui here would likely have seen her move up the rankings to top the podium, what do you think? Something to aim for, just ask Kyle Strait.

Podium!

Women's mountain biking is so lit right now. I hope the ladies are stoked with their riding and the show they put on because it was excellent. I was a little lost in the who is riding whose line storylines in the broadcast, which was a big story in this years event. Feels like the women got 10 years of progression in a single year. I feel like the judging and finishing order was pretty on point, or damn near close to it. Stoked to rewatch all of the runs with my wife again today, she was loving it. 

I definitely noticed the increase in the rate of progression too, it's awesome. 

The only thing more nerve-wracking than riding Rampage is riding Rampage for the first time.

Yesterday was awesome! The start of Cami's line was a standout for me too. Also really liking the vibe and sense of camraderie I've been seeing in various Vlogs (HB, Robin and others) from the women.

One thing I've been wondering about when it comes to Rampage: does anybody have reliable numbers how many training runs the athletes do? Is it more like "alright, I've done this huge drop twice, time to spin it!" or can they go like 10, 15 times before attempting the riskier tricks? It seems to me that in this particular kind of venue, the effort - both logistically but also mentally - of getting back up and practiciing a feature is so high, that the they might not be doing it as often as in other disciplines (DH, Slopestyle etc.).

Also, interviews with riders kinda create the impression that they ride their lines a handful of times and call it good, which prompted my question.

On that note, in the latest PB vid (Youtube), Godziek states that he's gonna do his biggest drop for the first time in his competition run?! On some level, I can follow this train of thought, but it seems kinda insane at the same time.

Casey's big crash and finals day VLOG...some heavy shit went down, but Casey took it like a champ.