Friday morning saw the twenty’ish riders who actually had to qualify arrive at the bottom of the hill. Sunday’s finals may well have been the big show, but some of the lines that were ridden just to get there were insane. Rampage first–timer Mick Hannah (another World Cup racer) was having fun riding on the unusual terrain, and had no intention of killing himself to reach the finals. Two solid runs on well established lines were nowhere near enough to put him through, and showed the crazy level needed to succeed in this competition. How about Brendog? Things didn’t quite go to plan. Third rider out of the gate, first drop and it was all over in a huge cloud of dust. Missing the landing on the tricky opening obstacle by literally a few inches was enough to suck all of his speed in an instant, and Brendan found himself lying in a pile of powder with a badly tweaked knee. The pain wasn’t enough to stop him sneaking into the finals with an average second run, but by that night it was pretty obvious that his second run hadn’t exactly improved things. Brendan was out and his final’s line remains unridden, maybe next time.

Kenny Smith and Mike Hopkins also joined the ever increasing group of riders hobbling around on crutches instead of riding, both with absolutely enormous crashes. Chatting over breakfast the next day, Hopkins expressed his surprise at being able to get up after overshooting his landing by a solid 20 feet. Watching slow motion footage of yourself crashing and seeing your head hitting the spokes in your front wheel is not something even the pros are used too. For every horror story there were tales of epic heroics, and Cam McCaul was the only rider to hit the vast canyon gap, and with it he took first place. A straight air this time, but there was talk of a trick in his finals run over the 50 foot chasm.

So after weeks of suffering in the desert, lines were nearing completion and the vastness of what they had created was beginning to set in for plenty of the riders. Spending weeks building a line with your friends and colleagues doesn’t really leave you much room to decide last minute that it is all a bit big. While qualifying was crazy enough, there were few lines that had really pushed the boundaries of what had been done before on bicycles. On Sunday that was all set to change, with Brandon Semenuk, Kyle Strait and Gee Atherton all the proud owners of insane lines that few others at the event would even attempt. Unfortunately for Gee, Saturday morning didn’t exactly go to plan, as a massive crash put him completely out of action. Overcompensating on the exit of a turn, Gee pulled way too far right on a huge step–down and cased a rocky outcrop about as badly as you could imagine. His bike came to a complete stop but he certainly didn’t, and he nailed himself into the landing some 15 feet below. According to the man himself it was the biggest crash he has had yet, and coming from Gee that really means something. The disappointment was clear on his face, but above all he was happy to have made it through such a terrifying crash still able to walk. At dinner that night, as he apologised to his dig team for all their hard work going to waste, it was made clear to him that as long as he was able to walk away from the event everyone was happy. Again, the feeling that surviving the event was probably much more important than winning it came to the fore.>>