2026 Red Bull Hardline Tasmania

Luke was properly over the front, not sure how he managed to hold it upright till the trees. 

A lot of folk in here chatting shit knowing zero about how events like this work and the effort involved. Contingency plans are incredibly tough to manage especially when it comes to the weather. 

Well done to the organisers and RB for everything they did. It’s a real shame it didn’t work out.

That said the could do more to make this track rideable in conditions that are not dry. Come to the UK and learn to build all weather tracks so you don’t have to cancel for some rain.

Don’t shit on organizers…. Proceeds to shit on organizers. 

Didn’t shit on them at all, just pointed out they could do more… thats called constructive criticism. Adults actually can take positives from that 😉

I wonder (and I'm just thinking out loud) if there is a chance that two wildly different places in the world might have different soil conditions that are affected by weather differently? 

Does anyone know why they can't just run it the next day or day after that? Sorry you have to figure out lodging for another few nights and move flights around....

Just thinking out loud here but you don’t just have to rely on what you have in your back garden. You can transport materials in… they do for everything else so why not. A good few trucks of gravels would go a long way to helping drainage in this case.

It’s a pretty big event so the justification is there.

Because it is wildly expensive, it‘s not just „lodging and some flights“. Such an event is a massive undertaking in itself.
 

If it would be that easy why not extend every world cup over a week so everyone can just wait a couple days and race whenever?

Just build the whole track from concrete then. Drainage solved.

Seriously can you image covering a whole 3km or whatever length bike trail in a few trucks of gravel? Why hasn‘t it been done anywhere by now?

It was only the very lower section where they had issues (see Troy Brosnon’s last practice run) and that’s where they’ve clearly had some big machines and earth moving equipment in already.

So getting some gravels shipped in to there is purely an argument of cost. It’s only the very top layer that has to be good quality the rest can be low grade/recycled from demolitions.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/downtime-the-mountain-bike-podcast/id1202593158?i=1000748752811

Listen to the first part of this and maybe rethink your stance bud

It's a bummer that Hardline had to cancel, but given the nature of the event it seems like the right call.

My though on bad weather cancellations is that there needs to be some B lines made that avoid the big jumps. Big jumps are always going to be more effected by wind or rain.  Make them technical but rideable in bad conditions so that if wether closes the jumps, the race can still run.

Perhaps you could summarise what you’re quoting 

Ready for way more dislikes

I’m fairly sure that Red Bull has a goal with each Hardline event.  To put on a competition that showcases the talent of the best on the planet and broadcast that to the world. End goal? Sell more Red Bull. Sure, true fans like me are engaged throughout the week leading up. But the culmination is the broadcast race. That didn’t happen. For a very good reason. Nobody wants to see anyone hurt. It’s not truly Hardline Tasmania without the big jumps at the bottom. If you are depending on the weather to be a certain thing at a certain time on a certain day then that becomes a crapshoot. 

I’m saying all this because I’ve seen what happens when huge events are laid to chance. 
Mid-Ohio Sports Car course hosted their first AMA motorcycle roadrace National in 1983. By the late ‘80s it had become a big deal as far as spectator attendance. The early 90s saw it grow to a place where it was only second to Daytona for crowd size. Numbers between forty to fifty thousand fans on a weekend. It was Mid-Ohio’s biggest money maker for years. But the foundation it stood on had cracks. 
The track surface had always been somewhat treacherous in the wet. Some of the guardrails were close to the track edge. By the early 2000s the bike speeds had grown, especially after the transition from 750cc to 1000cc max displacement. 

All this came to a head in the fall of 2006 when after planning the biggest two wheel event ever at the track, Mother Nature took control. It started raining Saturday morning and never stopped. Consensus was that the track was not safe to race in the rain. 

No racing happened. 10s of thousands of people had spent hundreds of dollars to attend the event and got nothing. The next year the crowds were gone. Mid-Ohio had failed to make the investment needed to make sure the fans got what they paid for. Just a short few years later Mid-Ohio was removed from the schedule. 

Mid-Ohio made improvements to the track and in 2024 a Roadrace National was held for the first time in years. Guess what? It rained. The improvements led to a track safe to race in the rain and the huge crowd came back again last year. 

This rant, LOL, is because I want Hardline to be successful. Parks like Jarrod’s Place and Wildside armor their clay surface for longevity in the wet. There are likely affordable solutions for Red Bull to examine to insure event success. 

I am not shitting on Red Bull. The money the energy drink companies pour into gravity MTB sport is staggering. I just want to see the event continue with the Safety/Quality/Productivity hierarchy maintained. 

Come at me bro

😁 

Nothing in that says anything about anyone thinking about a different track surface/makeup.

There have been plenty of events with massive jumps that are hit in the rain.

Troy had plenty in of speed for them and no one was talking about wind being an issue. It was the rain that affected the clay. For this event to be sustainable they could do with having a lower section that can run in conditions other than dry and dusty.

Dude:  maybe that's just not practical?  Every video I've seen from Dyfi shows a fuck-ton of shale.  Which is great for rain.  Maydena looked like all clay.  During the early practice, the upper, tree-covered surfaces stayed dry, but by the time Troy came down, even much of that was slippy.  After a short period of rain, the berms and jumps at the bottom were already slippery and clogging-up tires.  Then there was several hours of rain.  

How exactly are you going to fix that?  Gravel under every single surface?  Even if you did that, it takes hours / a day for the clay surface to drain down through the gravel.

Other than cutting practice-time, and moving everything forward a day, I don't see any other way of preparing for this or dealing with it on the day.

The main thing I've learned from this cancellation is that whether it's your local organiser, the UCI, WBD or Red Bull who cancel a race. Some fans will lose their sh"t no matter what. And the most entitled will be the most vocal. 

Lucky you guys ain't alpine ski fans. Cos weather cancels those races almost weekly sometimes 🤣😂

The seeding is showing on Red Bull YouTube now!

Maybe with an event like this or Rampage, especially Rampage, they should have a two day window for the main event. 

Am I right in the assumption that this race in particular, that the riders knew the threat of cancellation-so most would have done a race run simulation...it's not the first time an elite athlete would be told there's a good chance the event wont happen, so "give er' in the quali, because that might stick"....that being said, I think we at least got legit results.

Congrats Asa and Gracey!

I don’t think riders were told that.

Being UCI riders, they all knew that the seeding results could become the final results if the final event was cancelled for whatever reason. The seeding run allows the rider to perform at full speed if desired as course is cleared for an uninterrupted run from top to bottom. 

That quali replay was some good viewin’. I could have done without the ‘Everyone tried their best but it rained so here’s quali’ weather apologist stuff at the beginning and end, but I understand why it’s there. 

Crazy race. Top five runs were bananas, Gracie is a queen and her nails are hot fyah, Jacky’s whip-to-table is the sickest thing ever, and Asa… is the future. +2 on Ronan and Troy, and they were way ahead of everyone else. 🤯

that's a qualification rule where you are racing for a spot in finals. seeding you are in the finals as long as you break the beam and it isn't clear what the rule is for seeding in regards to a cancelled final. It's a different intensity for the riders when they know they are in.

If your job is looking to be weather dependant, maybe you should read the weather reports.....

Offtopic, just to answer this guy, it was done in Austria... Flow Country Trail Bikepark Petzen Austria 🇦🇹 Full Run POV RAW
Built in 2014 it was rumored to cost 700k€ (10km of trail), nowadays it would probably cost double