Red Bull Hardline B.C. – The Debrief

Dave Tolnai Jackson got the most cheers, but then Gracie, I would say, out of everybody was second. And there were so many like young little girls with like big tray Gracie cutouts and freaking out to see her.

Pete Roggeman Hello, welcome to the NSMB podcast. I'm your host, Pete Rogeman, and I'm here with AJ Barlus. Hello. We've got Dave Tolmai. Hello. Dennis Merdano.

Deniz Merdano Hello again.

Pete Roggeman And of course, Cam McCrae. Hi. Gentlemen, we've just watched Red Bull Hardline BC up here at Cypress Mountain. It wrapped up about an hour and a half ago. What a day. Let's chat. We had the last hour and a half ago. Right? Yeah. Um, look, Ace of Vermet took it. And I think from the time they all showed up, from the time we showed up a couple of days ago, he he looked superlative.

Pete Roggeman Um, obviously there were there were some others that that looked great too, but he put it all together when it counted. And I think maybe we're not surprised that he won, but we might be a little bit surprised by how it happened in the end. Yeah. Um, you know, I think with Jackson dropping in last like that, we probably were hoping um that we'd have at least three and a half minutes of excitement until that final moment.

Pete Roggeman Um, but anyway, good race today. What a what a day. I mean, the weather delivered, Cyprus delivered, and the people came. What stood out to you guys? What were you expecting?

Why's everyone looking at me? Uh, yeah, good day out there for sure. Uh it was kind of a shame that Jackson couldn't put down a run. And actually, in general, the amount of flats and stuff that were happening during race runs was a bit of a shame for sure. Uh Asa did not think that was a winning run.

And it would have been good to see a few more riders put down their best and see if he could be toppled, but he did look good on track all week.

Wasn't Asa's time slower than uh Jackson's qualifying time?

I didn't check that.

Pete Roggeman It was somebody mentioned that. I don't yeah, it was within a couple seconds in the 340s. Um apologies, we don't have it in front of us. We're moving quick here, so um yeah, maybe maybe it was Cam, but it was like off by a second or two if it was. Um yeah, we were just tallying up the number of flats.

Pete Roggeman Uh I've got at least three or four here. I feel like that's well, we did see some flats as the week went on, didn't we? Um more, it seems, than we're used to seeing at a race. So that was kind of interesting. Um, a little bit disappointing to have some runs that we were really looking forward to get foiled as usual.

Pete Roggeman But uh, you know, so it goes sometimes. Well I mean, you know, weather ended up being a story. Of course, it's Friday. It's supposed to be Saturday that we're talking about this. We raced a day early. Red Bull certainly didn't want to have to cancel two events in one week. You know, the course was already wet in places.

Pete Roggeman Obviously, there was a lot of sun and warmth, but anywhere you were in the forest canopy, I think the rest of the world got a taste of what the North Shore looks like under the trees. Not surprising to us, but I think people were maybe a little bit surprised by how soft it is and how the trail does not how greasy it is and how it does not dry out in there very quickly.

Deniz Merdano They probably got a taste of that in Whistler to begin with, but this really drives uh drives it in, right? And and just to go back to the uh the qualifying Ace's actually final time is about 14 seconds faster than Jackson's qualifying.

I was uh I heard a rumor that was not true, which happened many times over the radios, yeah, over the course of these few years.

Like Charlie Hatton having a broken colour bone yesterday. Yeah, I heard it was Jackson and then there was the Jackson rumor. So crazy.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, it's uh you know, the the broken telephone is alive and well when it comes to radios, track side. Um, okay, let's let's talk about the course a little bit. Um, and and maybe the reason why we went Friday, there's rain expected tonight. I think that forecast is held. Um, so that'll be rolling in in a couple of hours.

Pete Roggeman It's an amount of rain that we would all expect this time of year, but I think that course cannot tolerate a lot of rain before there are parts of it that you know would just make the race impossible. Um, just lots of flat spots, hey, you guys, and and places where you could see how hard it was to work a downhill bike along that and to try to race it.

Well, we saw it on Wednesday because it rained a little bit Tuesday night, I believe. And I don't I don't know how much, but it nothing really seemed wet aside from the low spots, but everywhere it was wet was really wet and and treacherous, and the the track was getting beaten quite quickly.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, that's right. Given that we have about 30 riders here only, so nothing compared to a race weekend. Uh, if there was a rut, you know, five riders go through, and that rut is just doubled in in depth and size, and they were super wet and slow. Um, and you know, I think the riders, you did hear a little bit of complaining about it, just that it was so physical, and I think that's a really long course.

Pete Roggeman Um, I I definitely sympathize to think about how hard you're working, and then you have to hit all these massive features in between. I mean, it is called hardline, but some of the riders were joking, like, is this too hard to be hardline? I was amazed.

I was in a couple of the slower spots today, and the riders coming by looked pedestrian because they were so beaten. And there's one spot where you go through a hole to another hole to another hole, and they just looked so bedraggled by that point, and it wasn't very deep into the course.

Yeah, I went through that spot yesterday too, and it just looked like it sucked. It was way too slow and too many. I guess if those transitions in the bottoms were firm and it was able to grip, then maybe and maybe there was some high lines through there that if they could be held, maybe it would have worked a bit better.

But with conditions and where it was going at this point, it just wasn't gonna work out well for everything.

Deniz Merdano It was interesting watching them because they ticked off the big scary features in the last couple of days, and today the practice it seemed like they were attacking the tech slow bits. They're like, Oh, let's actually have a look in here. It's like what's the faster line on the upper Lomi bits, which was kind of cool to see.

Deniz Merdano Like, I figured I thought you would have had this figured out by now. Like, no, it looks like big scary stuff is first. Get them out of the way.

Also, today was the first day I was dry enough to really.

Deniz Merdano That's right.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, that's cool. Yeah, they you know, they started building the course in May, and uh we knew it was gonna be they they they got it done well in time, and they've had time to refine it a little bit since they've had riders up here testing and that kind of thing. Um, Cam and Dennis and AJ, you've been up here several times in the couple of months really leading up to it.

Pete Roggeman Um how much have you seen that evolve since the first time? What was it in June you were first here? It was June.

It was June. It's it's uh we only saw the first third of the course in June when we were here in uh late August. Is that what it was? I think so. It it had moved on a lot, but we didn't see how much had been built on the upper section. The bottom section was quite close to finished, but even there you could see what a monumental effort it was in terms of moving dirt and uh clearing by hand some of these sections where the, for example, where the boner log was when we were here later on, they were partway through and they were moving massive stumps and cutting through duff.

It was just looked like the worst kind of labor.

It was prison prison labor in that section for sure. Um it's don't you think it's impressive too, though? Like I'm pretty sure they said to us that last visit that it wasn't gonna be a road gap at the top across between the two chairs and a few bits like that. And we get here on Wednesday and they're all there.

So what was originally planned was a step down over the road, so a huge platform out, and that I think they're planning for next year now. They hoped to get it done this year, but because everything took so long and they had to bring in so much dirt that it just got cut off the list.

Pete Roggeman Cool. I mean, we I I think we can expect a couple of minor route changes. They probably have a few thoughts about drainage, all these things that we know that a you know a good trail has to evolve, and it takes time for for any builder to figure out how that goes. Obviously, this trail crew did a phenomenal job with it.

Pete Roggeman Um, quite a bit of pressure to, in a short amount of time, to build that many uh uh features of that kind of magnitude. And while over the last couple of days, they've been out here very actively repairing and maintaining as the course got uh smacked around a little bit by the riders. Very impressive to see.

Pete Roggeman This is a highly organized and professional trail crew. Um hugely good job they did. And you you know, you heard that reflected in the riders um saying things a lot, you know, thanking them and going out of their way to show their appreciation. So really phenomenal effort by all of them, and I think it'll be really interesting to see actually how much this course evolves between this year and next year and where they're able to make make some changes and things.

Pete Roggeman Um, maybe we go from there to talking about the the spectator experience a little bit because I think that still falls under course design. We knew going in this maybe in the first year wasn't going to be the greatest for spectators just because they probably didn't have as much time as they would have liked to build in some viewing zones and some trails and that kind of infrastructure.

Pete Roggeman Some of those things we did see up at Whistler World Cup where they've been able to tweak that course over years, pretty phenomenal up there. Despite that, obviously, some of the some of the peak spots you couldn't still, you know, there was limited viewing. But uh, you know, what do you guys think? Had you not had a media bib on today, if you'd come as a spectator, would you have been stoked anyway?

Pete Roggeman I mean, there were there were thousands of people stoked at the bottom of the course, that's for sure.

Dave Tolnai I was surprised by how close people could get and how much you could see. And I mean, there was lots of great sections you could have just hiked up and seen from below. I mean, we we didn't gain a lot with our bibs, really, just that one one area above where they were stopping everybody below the that big drop.

Pete Roggeman I think sorry, Cam, I think that um I don't know if it'll ever be feasible, but to get some fans to the top of the course, like near the Canuck drop, would obviously be massive to have a few hundred people or more up there cheering on the riders. I mean, that is you all spent time there, that is a dramatic place to watch the riders come down.

Pete Roggeman It is it is frightening and it is big.

It's I I think hopefully they'll open that area up because there's no limitation in terms of the park. Whereas I learned today the reason sector B was no spectators at all was because it's actually a section of old growth and they uh are very protective of it. So it's um amazing they were even allowed to build a line through it, but I don't think we'll see any change to access there as a result.

Pete Roggeman Good to know. We had not I had not heard that either.

I was on the course and three of the rangers walked down and we were we were chatting a little bit, and that that is the case.

Pete Roggeman That's it. It stands to reason it is an absolutely beautiful piece of forest up there.

Um Yeah, that section's a weird one. There's I I walked around it coming down this morning because I didn't want to go through it. It's it's harder to walk because of the moisture and there's nothing in there really all that interesting. Um, but it was really upsetting the fans that they couldn't go and look in there.

And I was telling the marshals at the bottom of the section who are directing fans to get out of that area because they were still going up. Um, there's nothing in there to see anyway. Like it's probably the worst section of track for a spectator.

Deniz Merdano So like, yeah, I was trying to I was trying to get some photos there yesterday and it was tough. It was so dark, dark woods, they go on, very kind of monochromatic, and and you just kind of don't want to disturb that much other than whatever tire track kind of chooses.

Dave Tolnai So like above the boner, yeah, below the boner, below the boner, above it, too.

Below the boner is a section actually that mortals could ride, and it would be really fun from there on until the lily pad.

Deniz Merdano That's right.

And there's there's a chute that when we first saw it looked quite ridable, and then it was just now it was just anaconda roots. That they made it look completely pedestrian, but uh it would it would be a good challenge for a good North Shore rider.

Pete Roggeman Do you mean the one beside the huge rock, or are you talking about below not beside the the huge rock? Okay, okay. Yeah, now that one the shoot by the rock, uh I can't imagine ever looked pedestrian, except if you saw Jackson's POV course preview from yesterday, which uh AJ and I were at that spot when he came by, they cleared the course, and uh I mentioned this in an article, but we could hear Jackson talking while riding for easily 30 or 40 seconds up above, which you know, testament to how slowly he was moving relative to a regular downhill race course, maybe also testament to Jackson's ability to project his voice.

Pete Roggeman Um, but then you know, finally he makes his way down. We can hear him talking and exclaiming and everything, and he makes his way down, and uh we're sort of wondering, you know, we'd seen some of the other really fast riders come through, and he just leapt off the very top of it and landed at the very bottom, yeah, like it was nothing.

Pete Roggeman And on the POV, it looks like it's maybe a little five-foot thing, you know, like the kind of thing that that maybe we would do. And then you go up there and you're like, yeah, no, that's about 18 feet, top to bottom. There's a huge rock to your left that the riders that were nosing in were thumping off of and bottoming their forks.

Pete Roggeman I mean, it was super nasty. And he's just well, it's a little easier if you just jump over the whole thing there, folks, and just you know, just exit left.

Deniz Merdano Um, and it was really cool kind of listening to the Marshalls Radio when he was about to drop for his course preview, how they clear the course. There was no taking chances. He is doing top to bottom, maybe the first top to bottom ever, too, or the second at most. Um, and yeah, like while talking and going incredible speeds, it's quite amazing.

Pete Roggeman It's super impressive, like, no matter how good a rider he is, to be able to talk his way through at what looked like 90-ish percent of race pace. That is, I don't I don't think there's a lot of riders with that skin.

And and they're working hard, their heart rates are high, and it it was literally like he was going for a stroll.

Pete Roggeman Yeah. Yesterday, AJ and I were perched um on the on the Riddler for quite a while, right? In between practice and seating. And you know, we had lunch up there, it was a really good spot. It was sunny and warm, and there were some. Some entertaining marshals. Yeah, the marshals were all congregating there and a few medics and stuff.

Pete Roggeman But we we watched quite a few riders come through, and it's a natural break spot if you're on a practice run. And quite a few riders did stop there and chat, and they were asking us, you know, where's everyone else going? What are they doing? They were still trying to figure it out yesterday at the end of practice, but they all came in breathing like they had just played the first half of a soccer match or something.

Pete Roggeman I mean, and it's different than when you hear a downhill or enduro athlete come by and they're working on their breathing. You know, you can hear them like consciously exhaling. This was different. They were completely winded, and it was almost like, okay, I need 30 seconds to regather. Um, yeah. So just to see that in here that he could just keep talking the whole way down was was wild.

One thing I was struck by was particularly having seen the course evolve over a couple of different sessions. When we first looked at it, there were things we didn't know if they'd even ride. They looked so ridiculous. And the what they were calling the the Riddler, it has evolved since then. I think there was some concrete involved and they smoothed some things out.

But when we first saw it, it didn't really look rideable. And same thing with the Canuck drop. It's not really a World Cup thing because it drops so much, it's so blind, the landing is sniper, and these guys in a couple of days and girls and Gracie as well, they just conquered it. Just they are so incredibly talented, even when you see it, it's hard to believe.

Dave Tolnai I think that's kind of the key to the spectator experience, right? To get up, to see the feature, to have it in front of you, and like the thing you've seen a hundred photos of already, and it's just like, oh, like, oh, it's that big, it's that steep. But then, you know, we were struggling to find a spot to watch the race and kind of get a you know, feel the race experience in, right?

Dave Tolnai Because it's everything's so fleeting, how quick their pass, it's just like one tiny little little spot. So hanging out in the finish seemed to be the best spot to take things in.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, I think so. There's a screen there so you can see the rest of their run. You know, if otherwise, when you're mid-course, it's like being at any other sporting event, any other racing event, let's say, where you really don't know what's happening. I mean, you're there for the energy of being beside the track, but you don't know what's happening overall.

Pete Roggeman Uh, and you get the energy of the bottom, and that was awesome. And there were thousands of people, kids, so many kids, screaming for Gracie, for Jackson, for the other Canadians too, and for Asa. I mean, Asa is already a big star with everybody, but with the young kids, they you know, they love them.

Dave Tolnai I saw Asa do like three or four autograph laps of that finish. Like he'd just hang out, he'd go, and not quickly either, like 10 minutes to make it through 50 kids kind of thing. It was pretty cool.

Pete Roggeman It was really, it was really neat to see that how the riders all were genuinely enjoying it. They probably, you know, don't get an overdose of the autograph experience through the course of their of their sporting year. So it's it's probably really nice for them.

Deniz Merdano It's less of a thing at um the World Cup, right? Like the finish is a more of a VIP experience. Here I have a photo of Jackson covering his ears because like this is the loudest thing I've ever heard. He's like, I'm gonna go deaf. And uh, I don't think kids can get that close to it, other than crankworks uh of the past and um where the crowd has access to the athletes as openly as this is.

Deniz Merdano So that's kind of neat to see.

Pete Roggeman All right, that's a really good point, Dennis. I think for all the parents listening, if you're trying to choose next year which one to bring your kids to, I mean, do both, but if it's between World Cup and and Hardline, your kids may enjoy may enjoy that that part about this event. Yeah.

You guys were I missed unfortunately the Whistle World Cup and you guys were all there. What what are your feelings about the difference between the two? Which I mean, obviously they were both intense and excellent experiences, but tell me about the dividers.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, World Cup it's more serious for more days, right? They're all they're all there to win, and they're very single-minded. But the the vibe here among the athletes was it it didn't get serious until maybe seating run, because before then they were gladly stopping, checking things out, chatting with each other.

Pete Roggeman You could feel they were more relaxed. It was also really interesting watching them work on features, whereas when you see them at a at a World Cup, they're working on lines, right, AJ? And it's it's a different thing because there's sort of like an intensity like, okay, here's where I'm gonna go, file that away, go to the next.

Pete Roggeman It's not uh how fast do I go here, or I'm gonna make a huge mistake and you know, and have a big a big crash. So some bits of watching them figure out what they were doing with features felt like the professional, super talented version of how we ride sometimes when we come up to something and like, okay, who's gonna do it first?

Pete Roggeman How fast do you think you gotta go? What are you, you know, where are you gonna go? Okay, that feels pretty good to me, you know. I'll follow you in, whatever. Um obviously the the spec the numbers at Whisser were ludicrous, and we don't really know what tomorrow would have been Saturday, uh the scheduled finals day, but they also were a little bit limited here by parking, so you can't compare.

Pete Roggeman There was probably as much desire to be at this, or almost. But I don't know what it what did you guys think?

It felt like there are a lot of people on the track, even when final riders were coming down, like the bottom filled in for sure, but it it felt like when I was walking down the track, the numbers on my way down didn't accumulate at the bottom by the final rider. Um which is interesting. I mean, I I think Dave has a good point in that you generally hang around the bottom, it was a good experience, but it's also you're sharing that experience with all these other people, so it becomes a bit more of a thing than sitting somewhere random with 20 people around and not knowing what else is happening.

Um but it seemed, yeah, to me like there were people in groups elsewhere, perhaps just hanging out. I don't know if people were aware at the World Cup that maybe they should go to the bottom for it all or why. I mean obviously there's still people in the Rock Garden and things like that, but and there were more people there overall, but I just don't think the bottom filled in as much as the numbers that were up there.

Like so we have like a bit of a skewed look at how many people were here together.

Dave Tolnai Would be pretty great if they could have like a mid-mountain, have a screen up there, have another section rather than just the one. I mean, same with the Whistler World Cup, that would be kind of cool to try to spread people out a little bit more.

That's something they did in Lake Placid, and it was awesome. They had a screen higher up, they came out of the first tech sections onto the ski run, and there was a lodge there that was selling food, they had a screen, they had music, it was another party zone, and there was a chair servicing that. So you could go up that chair, down that chair to finish.

Spectators only. Um so yeah, that gives you more opportunity to see different parts and still have that energy around rather than just at the bottom.

Pete Roggeman They could maybe build out the zone here near where there was a the highest spectator point, had a view of the kitchen sink section. And maybe they could make a larger platform there, and it might even justify having a screen somewhere in that area, which is for people listening near the top of the first chair and the bottom of the of the second.

Pete Roggeman Um that would be pretty good because you'd you'd be able to watch the riders hit the kitchen sink and then and then if you had a screen, but it looked like maybe there was room for one or two thousand people there if you if you were able to flatten out some space.

Yeah, when I came down from the kitchen sink to start coming down, there were quite a few people on that little section of hill between the two chairs, and they were all looking up at the at the kitchen sink area, and I I thought there was a screen. I kept looking around trying to see if they were watching the screen.

I was like, Oh, that's kind of silly, they don't have a screen there.

Dave Tolnai Well, we came through there right at the end of training, right? And it was boatloads of people hiking up there.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, a lot. Partly because it was the high point. Yeah, but I think you if you're walking up because you haven't been able to see most of the course until then, or you've taken the chair and then you get to the top and you see the kitchen sink, and it's it just draws people in, right? Because it's massive.

Dave Tolnai And that's it's like you know, a race with eight second time gaps between whatever first and and like it's not it's not that exciting a race. So it's it's about seeing it develop in person and seeing just how ludicrous the terrain is. So to combine that with like get people close, see the sections and be able to take in the race, I mean that would be that would be pretty fantastic.

One thing I think that m might be lost and kind of building on Dave's point is that a lot of the really difficult stuff was between all of the signature moves and probably where the race was won and lost as well. And there were so many tricky little spots that you could make a big mistake on or just get on a slow line that it it's easy to see why the time gaps were so big.

There were so many opportunities to make mistakes.

Deniz Merdano But hats off to the uh the POV drone guys, like for the TV experience and even for the Finnish corral experience, being able to get that footage is unreal. Um and it's definitely fills in the gaps as with the viewing experience. I think arguably the best place to watch the whole thing is at the kitchen sink area.

Deniz Merdano It's a clear cut and it's a ski run, and you get to see them for a good 45 seconds. Um, I think it would make sense to improve that viewing experience, and it would be logistically so easy because you can upload people, download people, lifts our equipped for that. Um hopefully there'll be some yeah improvements there next year.

Deniz Merdano Um but it is it is interesting to see like, hey, why not why wasn't the Jombatron turned uphill a little bit at the bottom so the half the people up on the hill above the big jumps could see him? But I can see also the concern as to wanting to kind of concentrate people where the village is, right? And where the entertainment is, where the um the announcers are and where the pits are.

Deniz Merdano Um but I it does kind of because there were people watching it on the live uh live stream as well with a bit of a delay, I think it's a bit of a disjoint between being able to see or hear the drumbatron and not being able to see it is is is a bit of a weird thing. Uh, but I can I can see that logistically it being a bit difficult for Red Bull.

Yeah, I wonder if they had that's a good point. I I thought of that when I was up, I was above the track for a while looking down, and I was like, why isn't there another screen on the backside of the one that's already there? Because there were so many people around me with their phones in their hand watching the live stream.

I'm like, if that was on, I'm sure they'd be off their phones and actually taking it in with everyone else around them rather than that little device in their hand.

Yeah.

Pete Roggeman I expect they will they will have paid a lot of attention to how people were watching and where traffic was going and what they need to to tweak for next year. Um and it'll be it'll be interesting to see how that how that evolves too. To Cam's point about the spots between features, uh maybe one of those things that could be difficult if you had just watched the broadcast.

Pete Roggeman But we all saw these places, and absolutely true. You know, if you watch 20 riders do the kitchen sink or the Canuck drop, you might pick up small differences in timing on some of those, but generally speaking, there's a sweet spot speed range, and you know, you're within that, you can't go too fast or you're in trouble, and obviously slower, not great.

Pete Roggeman Jackson's Jackson's run, Jackson's derailment happened in one of those places, right? Somewhat innocuous, at least on camera. But we all walked it at one point. Dave, we went there this morning to see. You know, I had noticed, oh, it's still wet there. And for anyone that was watching, um, you would come across across the road gap, right?

Pete Roggeman And then hip in, and you and you're going down and up this ramp that was easily 30 feet up and very, very steep. You know, no pedaling up that. You either have the speed to top out or you don't, and then you're between two trees and down a really steep chute.

Deniz Merdano And I don't know if we can embed it, but this is yesterday them trying to fill it with rocks, that very rut. Uh so that uh yeah, that's pretty much where Jackson had his bobble, right? So it was a good axle deep rut that was forming going up into that hill.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, and and for context, it was so the track there was so steep that even in in good boots, you could not walk straight up it. You had to go up on the side or around around it. You couldn't go up where they were riding on foot. Um, and Jackson went off the side of it, and that was that was it. And he looked amazing until that point.

Deniz Merdano So, to that point, I I thought about this yesterday, and um, like who's attending hardline? Um, and there are not a whole lot of trade teams here, right? Like you have the giant guys, they are a factory team. You have Norco with Gracie and Lena, and that's about it. Everybody else is pretty much uh Lucas and Lucas as well.

Deniz Merdano That's right. Everybody else is a bit of a privateer, like there's no syndicate here, there's no um other teams. So it was interesting, the pits where they had their mechanics, everybody's together in this one room. What I noticed this morning was Nico up top was gonna go take photos of I'm gonna go take photos of the ruts.

Deniz Merdano I'm gonna walk down the uh hill. Asa had a core spotter.

Dave Tolnai Asa had a core spotter. There were a few out there today. I I heard you heard some. Yeah, yeah, yeah. On their phones and stuff, like talking to riders. I yeah, for sure.

Deniz Merdano Okay, there's media goes. That's a huge thing, right? Like you have your spotters game telling you how the course is changing.

Pete Roggeman Um well, remind us how extensive it was from what you learned from being with the Canyon team.

Deniz Merdano I mean, there's course spotters that live on the course for four or five days, they just document changes.

Pete Roggeman How many?

Deniz Merdano I mean, Canyon team has four of them out on the course multiple days in a row, just taking photos and relaying information.

Pete Roggeman They might have had a different job earlier in the week, right? But then they transition over to that, and that's their full-time job for the last few days.

Deniz Merdano It's incredible. So I will I it would be yeah, like I didn't know. I just heard Nico saying, I'm gonna go take photos of Rutz this morning. I'm like, okay, like he he has that power. Does Narco team have this power as giant guys have this tower? Yeah, so it's it's interesting to see.

Dave Tolnai Well, we wrote up the chair with Lockheed first thing, and he was on the phone with somebody that was kind of giving them a couple of watch out here, watch out for this, it's faster here.

He was talking about particularly the bottom of the course, how it was faster. And Lena, I think, crashed as a result.

Deniz Merdano Yeah, that was relaying up to the top for sure. Like as they were dropping in, they're saying the bottom of the course is running super fast, you're gonna overshoot the jump. So tone it down. You're like, okay.

Dave Tolnai Huh. How difficult is it to get an invite to Hardline? Like if you're uh if you're a World Cup guy and you want to come, can you can you finagle your way in, or is it no idea what that looks like.

Pete Roggeman I think um obviously a lot of Canadians were there this year that probably don't get the invite to Hardline Wales, right? Where you might see more more British riders, but no idea what the um what the cross section there is of World Cup results slash um online clout, I think, because there's a little bit of that going on.

Pete Roggeman And I I also have heard, I feel like over the years, that there are some World Cup racers that are not interested in doing this for whatever reason. You know, my season's over, I don't want to bother, it's a distraction, or I don't want to take the risk, etc.

I don't know. Well, there are a couple people who were invited who were not World Cup racers. Well, actually, I'm I only know Steve Vanderhoek, unfortunately crashed in practice, but he was going to do a race run that would have been his first ever race on a mountain bike, which is just too hard to imagine.

That the hardest race in the world is your first race. Uh it's too bad that he wasn't able to compete. But then also, I I don't know Jack Menzies' background, but he was building the course. He joined as a builder right at the end for the last seven days, and he got a spot, unfortunately.

Uh he was given a spot because they were looking for someone to guinea pig some stuff and ride some bits, and he was uh and someone said to him suit up. So he suited up and then got given an alternate position because of that.

Pete Roggeman He handled himself well all week.

He'll be bummed about the flat today for sure.

He I heard how bummed he was. Oh, yeah. He's very vocal about it today. Oh yeah.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, we'll have to chat with him about it for sure. So, Dave, that's a good question. Maybe maybe we can dig into that a little bit in the future.

Dave Tolnai Because it I wonder if you could make it. I don't know. It seems like a fine line between the exclusivity and I don't know, if there were a few more riders, maybe the racing would be better. I feel like they don't want more riders though.

I think the number is the number they want, and they try and fill that. Yeah. So I think I don't know. My impression is that some of the Canadian riders were invited because they needed to fill positions because other riders were saying no, thank you. But it'd be good to find out.

Pete Roggeman Depending on where you're from, you've finished the season. Lake Placid was two weeks ago. Yeah. Rampage was just last week, and there was overlap there, and riders that were tentatively listed for hard land. You're not gonna do both, obviously. By this time of year, I think a lot of riders on the World Cup circuit, they're back in Europe, right?

Pete Roggeman We didn't see the French brigade here. Some of the Hugo was holding it down for him.

Hugo held it down. But he's not a world helper anymore, so yeah.

Pete Roggeman Right. So, you know, part of that's gotta be just the timing of the thing. Um, but yeah, maybe it'd be kind of interesting to know how many of the riders do you guys think were here to race versus here to ride?

I think these guys all want to win. I mean, okay, Steve Anderhoek was very vocal about the fact that he wasn't racing, he was just going to ride. But you don't get to be on the World Cup without a lust for victory. And I I think they've all got it.

Yeah. So yet Tao and Steve.

Pete Roggeman Tao and Steve, yeah. And and I think Tao got the, I forget what they called it, but he got an award that was voted on by the riders, right?

They're all cracking out.

Pete Roggeman Yeah. He's such a good character, and I think they all loved having him around. Um, I think you're right, Cam. On the other hand, that uh I if you asked like Brendog, he he still rode really well and rode fast, but was he taking it as seriously as say Asa and Jackson and some of the others?

Well, as as he said in his POV video when they're standing on top of the the Riddler, he he said, Well, I'm 38 and I'm a father of two. I'm not guinea pigging this thing. You guys go.

Pete Roggeman Yeah. That is such a good video, by the way. Uh, I encourage anyone listening to go watch that. That was really entertaining. Um, it was it was Brendog on day one, right? But Tuesday, doing first hits and chatting with other riders and they're heckling each other and stopping and talking. It was really entertaining.

Pete Roggeman I I would love to see more of those videos from the riders from the first day or two.

You'd never see that from a World Cup, obviously. Right, yeah. They don't they don't share lines. No, exactly. Craig Minar famously wouldn't share lines with his teammates.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, and I don't think that's rare anymore either. I I think there are I think there's there's a lot of that, but yeah. Um okay, we talked about Jack Jack's flat. Um Finn unfortunately had a flat, which he also did in his seating run yesterday. So a bit of a bummer because Finn rode really well when we saw him putting sections together.

Pete Roggeman Not surprisingly, Finn obviously had a great year and was still sort of coming off injury and then got sick for World Cup. But he is someone that would have been interesting to see in this context at full flight and and really laying one down. Tuhoto got a flat today and he had looked good all week. Um kind of a bummer.

Pete Roggeman It it really is a bummer, especially when there are only 30 riders or whatever coming down. What about Bernard Kerr? He he was absolutely ripping. And for those of you that were, well, I guess most of us were down in the finish area, looked like he was going to put down a really competitive run and just lost it off the off that step-down ramp.

Pete Roggeman Um, I didn't get a good enough look at it, but did did you guys see? Was he trying to put power down and slid off of it?

Deniz Merdano I was just turning away, setting up for the photo for him on the big booter. Um, and it seemed like he came a little wide and tried turning on it, and it just lost the bike, so he kind of fell off of it and slammed on the back of the landing and slid off. Yeah, it was quite unfortunate. I think fatigue is probably part of it.

Deniz Merdano Um, and just like pushing it a little bit hard, seeing the finish line. Uh just like just a couple of more pedal strokes. And it just, yeah. And the course down there is super dry and it was loose and it was probably a lot slipper than it was in a lot of different places.

Pete Roggeman Yeah, fair. It's really too bad to not not see him get to get to make it time. Okay, let's let's talk about the women because that is one of the great stories of the week, I think. Fascinating to watch them out on course at the same time as the men. Really cool watching watching them all interact. Um it's it's cool watching all of the riders work with each other.

Pete Roggeman But we were there on Wednesday when we saw uh take Kruroids drop the kitchen sink for the first time after she was up there. I don't know if it was five or five minutes or so sussing it out and watching, right, and trying to line it up. And then uh and then all of a sudden she's like, Okay, let's do it, and off they went, and you know, she greased it.

Pete Roggeman Super cool moment. Same day, we're up at the Canuck drop, and the the guys earlier in the day, quite a few of them had not unlocked it yet, and we watched that happen. And then the three women were up there sizing it up, working on it, sort of figuring it. And Lena Frener was the first one to go and just boosted it, went bigger than anyone else we'd seen.

Pete Roggeman Probably not surprising that if you're a little unsure on that, you're gonna go a little faster rather than a little slow after a couple of cases that we saw. And she had a huge stack, but popped up and you know sounded pretty undeterred. Obviously, eventually got it. Um, but yeah, what what were what were some of your impressions of of what you saw with the women this week?

Deniz Merdano I think there was it was quite cool that there was none of them were underestimated by any of the other riders. Um the camaraderie and um encouragement between them was really cool, and their internal kind of battering and chatter are really, really cool to hear. Um, Lena definitely seems like a bit of a firecracker, um, and she seems to compliment really well with Gracie.

Deniz Merdano Um, I ran into them at the uh Riddler yesterday. I was shooting there, and they were trying to figure out what the good line was. And Lena obviously a little bit hurt from her crash from the day before. She said her knee was a little bit bummed, so she didn't want to do a pivot move onto the um onto the slab there.

Deniz Merdano So like she wanted to walk down, and she got some help from one of the marshals to um kind of put her bike down and she's turned back with Gracie and was like, I'm just a freaking junior, I can walk whatever I want. You're the elite, you gotta ride this. Go, little red. So it was really cool to see um and hear him just kind of talk to each other and take the stress levels down.

Deniz Merdano Um, they were out for a ride, they were not necessarily competing with one another, they were just trying to get each other to get to new milestones, which was really, really cool to see. Um, and same, same with Tate, like watching her do the kitchen sink and the whole crowd there, mostly Marshalls and media, just erupting in um, you know, cheers was really, really, really cool.

It was sick to see how genuinely stoked the guys down below that, the writers down below that were for her when she did it. It's just so cool to see a young 17 year old sending her life off something like that, and all her peers, probably guys she's looked up to. to as well as other women races, but just like giving a pat on the back and stoked and it's just I don't know.

That's really cool to see. Like it's one thing for the guys to get stoked for each other, but when you've got women pushing the sport as hard as they are right now, and those three like Tate and Tate and Lena are the next generation, Gracie's only just out of there. She's sort of bringing it forward hard and then the the juniors were as Tate said on day two the juniors are holding it down right now because all the others had had injuries or whatever and had to step aside.

Wasn't sure if Gracie was even going to ride that day. She was so sick.

And there were no junior men. True. The men were I mean that some of them were quite young but there were there were no juniors and of the three women two were juniors and Gracie's very young.

Dave Tolnai I'm kind of surprised there weren't any of the junior Canadian men because there's like that crop of five or six right now.

Pete Roggeman Yeah Harrison boys yeah interesting maybe that's because there are more elite Canadians men to choose from that can come represent and on on the women's side clearly not as long a list.

There could be fewer women in general who want anything to do with it as well.

Dave Tolnai But you know in the finish I would say Jackson got the most cheers but then Gracie I would say out of everybody was second. And there were so many like young little girls with like big tray Gracie cutouts and freaking out to see her I kind of I got a few shots of her signing you know tiny little girls' shirts and stuff.

Dave Tolnai Everybody was pretty stoked it was it was cool to see.

Chicken skin I'm surprised that none of the sorry or none of the rampage women were here because obviously a lot of them would have ridden this course and ridden it very well.

Pete Roggeman You think that I'd really like it yeah yeah maybe just too tight a turnaround maybe too much stress.

Yeah fresh out of adrenaline Rampage has got to be the most the most stressful event in the world in terms of you might die so to back that up with something that's also very gnarly would might be too much for just too exhaust for me.

I spoke to a couple of photographers that were at Rampage and they said it was probably the most tiring week that they'd done they could remember and a few of them were working alongside riders and they were just like one guy this morning told me that they were getting IVs like the riders were getting checked for their hydration levels at the end of each day in the build phase and were getting IVs because all of them were dehydrated.

They just could not stay up is that different than other years is it I'm not sure yeah Cam, you've been to a couple have you heard of that before I there certainly wasn't anybody monitoring anybody and uh I didn't hear anything about any IVs that they're probably learning that yeah you don't you don't want to have your builders expire.

Pete Roggeman Crazy it's obvious a lot of pressure for Gracie at a week like this but I think she seems to be doing a good job dealing with that. Yeah Whistler too we talked about that at Whistler and and how Finn and Jackson didn't have a great weekend at Whistler unfortunately that story in a different way has played out again and and Gracie held it down um but we also now know it's it's I guess it's confirmed or whatever that that she was fighting something um this week she had flu or something we don't know but um that obviously would just add another layer of of difficulty in terms of dealing with the the stresses of what this is but when when she needed to she was able to to put a run down and and ride

Pete Roggeman clean. Another layer of what a badass she is yeah yeah the baddest ass um anyway super impressive what a cool story not her first rodeo as far as hardline goes but she came and unlocked uh this one and and that was rad let's um let's make sure we cover both Tate and Lena because we were certainly hoping to see them race today as well Lena was trying to make the big jump at the end of the day yesterday no this morning this morning this morning and crashed and had to get some stitches and I think ultimately she she was hoping to line up this afternoon but sounds like maybe that injury didn't didn't make it seem like like she was ready to to go again.

Deniz Merdano Which is so without passing that um I had a couple of people ask me what does it take to qualify um for a finals day and there is no actual qualifications uh Rye there's seeding but I believe they have to tick every feature off um at least once yeah to be able to have a have a run at it. So I think that was the only thing that left for her was to hit the last jump.

Deniz Merdano Same with Tate I believe.

Pete Roggeman Yes and I also think if I've got this right that you need to have ticked everything off before your seating run. Usually they just changed that because it was windy yesterday afternoon. So she could still try and do it this morning and and had that crash and that didn't work out. Um and then uh and then Tate did uh you know had ticked all the boxes and and was and uploaded today as if to drop in and race and we heard she had a flat when she got to the top didn't have a mechanic with her this isn't a World Cup it's not the same they're not all they're not all up there with support and extra wheels and all that stuff and and uh I I guess she didn't drop in right she didn't break the beam due to

Pete Roggeman a flat so really un really unfortunate I don't know if that's something that that maybe people learn from and in the future maybe there will be some mechanics up top or neutral support but anyway that would be the put a neutral support mechanic up there right put a tube in it yeah yeah yeah but no you would think you could have you could have a setup up there and right so maybe that's something that changes in future I don't know but a little bit of a little bit of a bummer there.

Pete Roggeman Obviously Gracie did uh ultimately drop in and because she completed a seating run she went later than quite a few of the men who did not complete their seating runs yesterday um so we saw her did we see her just before or after Asa right yeah I can't remember what side of him but yeah which was pretty awesome and the crowd was getting amped up by then we should get you embedded as a mechanic for one of the riders next year I think happy to help yeah track side yeah fastest wheel change wrench in one hand a camera in the other just what do you need photos tech support I gotcha okay that's what I I I I think I want to talk about the Riddler um for a minute just because it confounded everybody and

Pete Roggeman I think it's because the the thought of trying to race through that section is pretty terrifying. It was really interesting though seeing after all the other things that these writers had unlocked standing up there and watching Bernard Kerr trying to figure out how am I getting down and asking what other writers were doing uh you know of course by the time he did it he made it look easy but it it seemed disproportionately in their in their minds now they had one less day to figure it out so that's that's one thing and I wonder if that was a bigger disadvantage for the women overall not having that extra day of practice because it did seem like on the Wednesday all of the riders were unlocking

Pete Roggeman the features understandably and then if you were if if you were making your plan you think okay on on Thursday I'll do the the Riddler and I'll do all these other sections that are tricky and figure that out but what were all of your impressions of that section when you stood on top I mean Cam you were talking about how when you saw it a while ago it looked worse than it does now but I don't know if you went and saw it today or or yesterday but I stood on it and thought that looks gross but that looks closer and there's still a birth here so don't misunderstand me.

Pete Roggeman That looks closer to what we maybe can contemplate than a lot of the other stuff on this course. You know we've all stood on top of these janky rock sections that lead into some other really horrible janky rock section and of course we would do it very slowly but it was interesting to me.

There was dirt on it though they put dirt on it when we first saw it it was practically glinting it was it was so smooth and and actually it was smooth but there were also holes in it that have since been filled so but world cup riders don't ride rock i mean unless they're from squamish you you you why would you ride rock it's there's no rock in world cup races I think it was the second visit was the first time we realized that wide line even the first time it was just like where the heck are they going down because it wasn't cleared to get even down to it.

Right. Yeah we had to scramble down probably what had a rope on it today to get down it it was weird um I don't know I didn't expect pretty much everyone to do that line like when we see it early on it's like someone's gonna go off here and do something crazy down here but yeah it's just odd that it threw them off as much as it did.

Pete Roggeman The berm wasn't built either though the first time yeah but the second time it was the first time the first time it wasn't right so it it wasn't even clear how you would get negotiate a turn at the bottom because you'd come flying into that that and that berm is big and AJ and I were beneath it yesterday and I thought three or four times that the rider was going to come over the berm and hit us.

Someone did one of the Jewets did yeah I think yeah Jai crashed right in front of us.

Pete Roggeman Yeah he he he did he he made the berm and crash kind of but I thought they were not going to make the berm when you got to the bottom of that section after they made that really awkward left it it it was really steep and there was not a lot of time to gather after making your way through but I just but I just thought standing on top of it like oh it felt like one of those familiar oh this is like pretty steep and terrifying but eventually that's gonna have to happen because walking down it looks awful too you can probably come up next week and you can yeah we can give it a go.

Pete Roggeman Sure.

Deniz Merdano Yeah I think the placement of the berm is the one of the biggest problems with that rock. If that berm is five to ten feet further out then you could take a straighter line down the gut of that rock because you have to start leaning your bike in to make that berm and the only way you can do it is on the very far right that they were doing it.

Deniz Merdano True you have to punch across and if you were coming in with more speed into that berm you're just gonna buckle into it especially that far down the racetrack I imagine that'll be um a change that gets made next year.

There's nothing to put a berm on behind that I laid on the backside of that berm in the net there's nothing also I don't think they want to make it easier.

Deniz Merdano Fair enough yeah exactly but it'd be cool to open up more lines on it.

I guess if it was drier from the beginning maybe there would session different lines on it was a thousand dollars on uh between Ronan and Tao to do the the main line off the knoll at the top and Ronan looked at it when we were there having lunch the other day do you think he was looking at it seriously though I don't know off the top of the knob like up in the sort of like I mean it's it's not an impossible line.

Pete Roggeman It's just terrifying absolutely terrifying yeah that is a whole other story from the far right where they were all going yeah okay so do you guys think a section like that makes for good racing would you have liked to have seen one or two other spots like that that are just classic short jank or do you think we got enough of that on on a BC hardline course?

There was a good one above the Canuck drop where there was an inside line and an outside line before you came into not not really a wooden berm but a wooden uh you know kind of savior to stop you from going into the woods. And that was really interesting I I I spent quite a bit of time there and some riders seem to be faster on the outside and some managed to do it really well on the inside but everyone had trouble with it.

And I think that's ideal for hardline you want you want those separators.

Yeah I mean the the Welsh one right before they popped into the trees is that rock that looks like nothing and it's taken out so many races over the years. So it's good to have a little something to make them think a bit I mean in their minds it'd be hard they're probably thinking about the big features and certain key points where they might be able to gain some pace.

But those bits maybe aren't that I think the obviously there are some things about the course that could be cleaned up a little bit in in the event of it getting wet again, but I think they nailed the difficulty factor I think really well. And that's a tribute to Patty Kaye for overseeing everything and Justin Wiper for building up an amazing team of riders.

I I we managed to spend quite a bit of time with them and they were incredibly enthusiastic and diligent and obviously really skilled riders to be able to see these lines and some of them we we know can ride at that level and everybody just came together. Well one of the things Justin said is that his job isn't to build the whole course it's to assemble a team and part of that team was to bring in riders like Steve Vanderhoek and Matt McDuff and other riders who ride at that level to be able to say okay here's how we're gonna make this work.

Matt McDuff knows how fast you need to go to make a hundred foot gap and what the angle of the takeoff needs to be. And all of that stuff seemed to be really dialed and I think they did a fabulous job. It's incredible what they accomplished in such a short period of time and how actually they put out fires when needed later on in in the week they found the flat spots and managed to get rid of some quite a bit of liquid and they managed to make the course much more rideable in a very short period of time.

Pete Roggeman Yeah 100% okay did we miss anything probably but we covered pretty well good answer good answer.

Deniz Merdano All right I think uh I think we'll wrap it up there uh thanks all you guys what an awesome week I can't wait for next year yeah and uh I also can't wait to go home and watch this crazy event we just watched yeah I'd like to see it I want to see it I'd like to see it it's one of those weeks where you're just gonna go man I can't wait to go to work it was it was pretty sweet.

Pete Roggeman Yeah yeah absolutely right uh thanks again thanks for listening and uh we'll catch you on the backside cheers

Red Bull Hardline B.C. – The Debrief

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