Freestyle MTX

photo: Garth Milan - Red Bull Photofiles

Everything is bigger in Texas! Dane Herron's course was huge, but the tricks were even bigger. Red Bull and 775 Productions never do anything small, and they weren't going to start in Texas. From Ricky Johnson in his trophy truck, to bull riders and the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, nothing was held back for this years Red Bull X Fighters in Fort Worth, TX.

The course had many different line choices from small transfers to a 120' ramp and dirt double. Not riding there made it easy for me to say that I would have went for the big dirt double that no one attempted, but if I was riding, I might not have even looked at it twice. The course also had a Texas flag painted 1/4 pipe that Rebeaud was hitting so big that he almost jumped past the landing more than once. There was also a 60' super kicker set up for Pages' frontflip and a 47' super kicker for Sinclair's double backflip. I was really impressed with Nate Adam's cordova flip off the 60' kicker. If the landing wasn't a table top, you would have been able to understand more about just how high he was going.

Cam Sinclair has been doing his double backflip at some shows, but to see him do it in his qualifying run with no crowd watching and no music to help set the mood was awesome. The next day he did it 2 more times. The super kickers in his home country, Australia, have more "pop" to them with their constant radius. He kept jumping a little far down the landing and hitting very abruptly. On his first landing he hurt his right ankle and on his next run he hurt his left. After the event he could barely stand up, but wasn't in the mood to go wait at a hospital so he was hoping they were only sprained.

Filmed with my iPhone.

Just about everyone in the sport has seen the youtube video of the Pages brother's going for the frontflip at home, so they were hoping to see it in Texas. Thomas said before the event that he was going for it, but that he was worried because he has not been able to be consistent with it at home. I could see him before his run started trying to get himself pumped up, and it made me even more nervous. He obviously had one thing on his mind, and when he messed up a trick early in his run, he decided to cut the track and go for it. He under-rotated and let go when he was upside down. He fell a long ways, landing directly on his hip with the bike barely missing him. After laying for a minute, he stood up and walked away with a pretty big limp. He went to the hospital before I had a chance to talk to him and I have not heard if he is ok or not.

Adam Jones was there with some big tricks as well. While they might not have had the wow factor to the average fan, I sure was wowed! On one of the double-double sections, he would start off with a No-Handed Shaolin to McMetz. I don't know how he found the time to hold his hands off for so long while floating in a Shaolin before grabbing back on and then McMetz'ing out. He would then follow that up on the next double with a dead body so big it looked like he was going for Willy Watts' new body varial.

I was there as the "Style" judge, and it had it's tough moments. This was my first time judging and I am glad I got to see what it was like in the judges booth. I always thought there was more communicating between judges and that they might have influenced each others votes. It was good to see that no one said anything until after there votes were in.

One more thing I wanted write about was how so many riders were there riding hurt, or just really sore. It seemed like everyone in the athlete lounge had a bag of ice in their hand at one time. This sport is intense!

Final Results:
1. Nate Adams (USA) 100 points
2. Mat Rebeaud (SUI) 80 points
3. Cameron Sinclair (AUS) 65 points
4. Eigo Sato (JPN) 55 points
5. Robbie Maddison (AUS) 45 points
6. Jeremy Stenberg (USA) 35 points
7. Dany Torres (SPA) 30 points
8. Adam Jones (USA) 25 points
9. Andre Villa (NOR) 20 points
10. Thomas Pages (FRA) 15 points
11. Jeff Kargola (USA) 10 points

Talk about it here!