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As promised, the 2006 Red Bull Elevation event is more intimidating than last year's event. © Karenjohanson.com

Red Bull and BMX Get Down and Dirty at Whistler

Jul 14 2006 / Los Angeles, CA

The 2nd annual Red Bull Elevation contest returned to its spot next to the Boneyard, Whistler’s famous mountain bike slopestyle course. The bike park itself looms large in the background, rife with its own intimidating, potentially-lethal jumps and stunts.
 
Hold on though - BMX honcho Jay Miron, Red Bull, and course designers and builders Nick Halsey, Josh Nendsa, Magilla, and Dave King didn’t come back to Whistler this summer to build anything less than the most formidable and exciting BMX jumping course seen by anyone, anywhere, before.  They succeeded.  Building on the success of Elevation 2005, the organizers, already having set a new standard for dirt contests around the world last year, were determined to top themselves for this year’s invite-only event.  Forget the $30,000 purse, the resort setting and the screaming fans.  For the riders and creators of Elevation, it’s about the jumps.  Specifically, this contest is about nothing less than re-defining what’s possible on a bike.  Riders had to be flight-certified for this course, due to the size of the jumps and the amplitude achieved on them.  “We wanted to give the riders something that they had to look at and respect, even scare them a little,” stated builder Nick Halsey. “We had to go to invite-only for this” explained Jay Miron. “The course is just too big for any but the best of riders”.  A roster that includes names like Nyquist, Bohan, Doyle, Lavin, Parslow, and others backs this up. 
 
Nestled at the base of the hill, the course snakes back and forth three times on its way to the bottom, like a sidewinder born of a stegosaurus, lips and landings looking like a dinosaur’s armored plates.  Jumps range from 12’ to over 40’ if you choose to attempt one of three serious transfer lines, sampled by some, sessioned by few. Among those, Doyle, Berrecloth, and ‘The Falcon’, Brian Foster, displayed command of huge-air assault moves like the biggest table three’s of the contest, plus one-handed, one-footed threes and stretched supermans.
 
Saturday’s final (featuring 20 of 40 invited riders) saw an undercurrent of anxiety in the form of the jumper’s nemesis - wind.  The wind was steady all day and wouldn’t go away.  Even a modest breeze can send a rider in an unpredictable direction or cause a crash. This ultimately proved to be no obstacle for these seasoned pros, that started out testing the waters and the breeze with a few tentative passes.  Within a few minutes, riders were banging out bigger tricks. Some of the qualifiers showed the crowd that wind was the last thing on their minds, as they quickly distanced themselves from the rest of the riders just trying to make it through the set in the blustery conditions. 
 
Here are a few of the tricks witnessed by all- backflip double tail whips, tire grab to tail whip, front flip no-handers, slow 360 to late barspin, and front flip tables - to name but a few.  Moves that when seen in person - or even processed here, spelled out on paper - seem borne straight out of a video game. Fans are boggled daily by moves thought impossible, or never conceived of, just a couple years ago. 
 
The top ten riders finished “in the money” as they say, with Corey Bohan earning a whopping $15 G’s for first place, Luke Parslow taking home second and last year’s winner, Ryan Nyquist, placing third for his performance. But it’s safe to say that every one of the top ten riders had a legitimate chance to win, with the diversity and skill displayed by all in this amazing contest.

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-Stephen Cominski