RedBull Hardline – Bigger In Real Life, But Is It Worth The Effort?

What’s it like to be at RedBull Hardline? Should you make the trip to Wales, or stay home and watch on TV? James finds out.

RedBull Hardline 2019

2.11pm, Saturday 14 September 2019.

A pack of four sparrowhawks circle ominously in the sky, while butterflies drift lazily between the Dirty Ferns down below. The muted hum of the A470 rumbles on in the distance, and grasshoppers chirp away merrily, the bucolic calm punctuated only by the occasional blast of an impatient trumpet or the clang of a battered rim. Qualifying officially started 11 minutes ago, and so far nothing much has happened. I reposition my camera and check my remote setup is working for the umpteenth time, and then we finally hear it. A single blast of a whistle followed by the crackle of a marshall’s radio; “rider on course”. 

It’s showtime.

From my vantage point, I follow Kade Edwards as he clears the huge step up after the Cannon Ball, to just past a TV camera platform, when unfortunately his front wheel washes out and he goes down hard. Picking himself up, he has barely moments to compose himself before dropping into the gnarliest, tree stump lined mess of a chute I’ve ever seen. Somehow he manages to pick his way through with incredible speed, gap into a berm just inches from my face, then scrub stylishly off a drop and momentarily disappear from view, before sending it out of sight over a hip jump so massive it needed planning permission.

I’m here in mid Wales, a valley over from Dan Atherton’s newly opened Dyfi Bike Park, at the 6th edition of RedBull Hardline, an event that many call the toughest downhill race in the world. But the racers love it – Bernard Kerr, eventual winner of this year’s race, said just after his run “Dude! Best downhill track in the world. Biggest jumps, hardest tech, and it’s in the UK”

Live Lounge or Living Room?

So the racers love it, but what’s it like for a spectator? What’s all the fuss is about, and more importantly, is it worth scrabbling around on a stupidly steep Welsh mountainside for a weekend, probably getting rained on, and hoping you’ve picked the right moment to stand by the Step Up to witness one of Brendan Fairclough or Kaos Seagrave’s many backflips. Or did you get your timing wrong and end up missing all the action whilst queuing for the loos, before deciding that next year you’ll just catch it all on RedBull TV and Instagram from the comfort of your own living room?

I reckon it’s kinda like Formula One, especially if we look back to the pre-hybrid era – sure, when you’re watching at home you get all the detailed analysis and coverage of the entire track including close ups of pit stops and other out of bounds areas, but it’s not the same. It’s not raw. It might still be exciting, but it’s a more measured version of exciting. And nothing can prepare you for that all encompassing visceral scream of a howling V10 reverberating around the grandstand. Even if you wanted to, you just can’t turn your TV up loud enough.

No, You Won’t Hit That

Hiking up from the finish arena, I pass a couple of jumps, that with no racers on for scale, just look like comically oversized sculptures rising from the ground. The track crossing goes between the take off and landing of one such jump, and as the take off towers above me, all notions of even thinking “yeah, I might be able to hit that one day if I practice hard enough” vanish. I’ve been watching downhill racing on the internet for years now, but nothing prepares you for seeing this in reality. It’s highly amusing overhearing other punters talk themselves up to their mates, claiming they’d be able to hit sections. Others take a much more realistic view of things and just gawp open mouthed. There’s a reason only 14 racers made it into the finals.

A New Perspective

The feeling of awe and insignificance grows as I climb higher. Peering down into the landing and berm after the Road Gap, with the take off way up in the distance behind me, I just can’t comprehend it when the racers say this is the easiest feature on the course – apparently, once they’re on the boardwalk they just let go of the brakes and fly. But it’s not just the oversized features the riders have to contend with – between them are some of the most technical and janky trails in the world, leaving the racers with little to no time to prepare for the next feature. Get one section wrong and your mistake can snowball out of control. 

Unfortunately, spectator access to these technical sections is limited. Not from any desire to keep things hidden, it’s more that the course clings to a cliff face in places and access on foot requires some serious rope work. This is a wild and remote mountain in Wales, not a relatively tame bike park in the Alps with lifts and access roads. 

Risk and Reward

That there’s any course here at all is a testament to the builders – Dan Atherton, Oli Davey and their crew have slaved away over this course, making sure the features are challenging, but according to Dan, on a dry day, easy (if you know what you’re doing)! It’s the inevitable addition of water that takes the challenge to a whole other level. While practice and qualifying this year took place in glorious sunshine, race day brought mist, drizzle and copious quantities of atmosphere hanging in the trees. This leaves a slick coating of mud on the already treacherous rocks – watch the finals replay and you’ll see Gee Atherton’s rear wheel slide out as he makes his way onto the starting platform.

It’s that risk that means the UCI World Cup events will always remain a much tamer prospect – you simply can’t run an event with this extreme level of tech and exposure, and expect a full men’s, women’s and juniors’ field to turn up and race. As it was, the 24 racers who started the week were whittled down to 20 who took part in qualifying. Of those, there was 1 DNF, a few racers didn’t make the cut, and a voluntary withdrawal from Mexican Johny Salido. Johny is off to compete at RedBull Rampage for the first time later this year, and he’s still nursing a heel injury so decided to sit the main event out.

Showboating

What this means, is that you have even fewer racers to put on a show – over the weekend, most racers did only 3 runs each day – 2 full practice runs in the morning, then their qualifying and race runs in the afternoon. And quite frankly, who can blame them – even though racers may be backflipping all over the place, it’s still the gnarliest race track of the season and the consequences of crashing are severe. It’s a constant battle between the audience’s demand for spectacle, and the racer’s interest in self preservation. Fortunately, downhill racers aren’t shy retiring types, and there’s a crowd pleasing midday train on the lower jumps, with all the racers pushing up through the throng beforehand, hi-fiving fans as they go. After the tech of the top sections of the course, these jumps are second nature to the racers, even though they’re still bloody ridiculous – 65ft is one hell of a long way to travel in the air on a push bike.

Thanks to the bigger time gaps between racers and only having one racer on course at any one time, it does mean that you get to see the entirety of each qualifying and race run on TV. Conversely, when at the event, these large time gaps mean there are chunks of time spent just waiting for something to happen or scrambling to the next viewpoint, hoping you haven’t missed the next racer – with only 14 racers in the final, the pressure is on to catch at least part of everyone’s run.

Race to Survive

Being a small, one off event means that Hardline is on a totally different scale to a World Cup round, but that doesn’t mean it’s a ramshackle affair. Being a RedBull production brings a slick level of professionalism to proceedings, alongside a definite end of season party atmosphere amongst the racers and pit crew. All chucked into one small area, the pits are a great communal space, with mechanics sharing tools and working closely together. 

Yes, it’s a race, but you get the feeling that racing each other is secondary to just surviving the course, so everyone is working together to battle the mountain.

RedBull Hardline: Go if…

• You’ve never been before and love all things downhill – the finish line atmosphere is electric and it’s on a smaller scale to Fort William so you can get that much closer to the action.
• You have bike mad kids – they’ll spend the entire weekend wandering round with their eyes on stalks as they get to meet their heros and watch them send huge jumps like they do on TV. But bring plenty of snacks for them – the on site catering is good, but it’s all down in the finish arena and the last thing you want is a hangry child half way up the hill just as finals get going.
• You want to make a weekend of it – take Friday off work and head to Dyfi Bike Park for a few laps, before heading over the valley to watch the pros.
• You’ve got a sense of adventure – bring walking poles and full waterproofs – the hike up is super steep, and in the wet will be treacherous, but come prepared and get stuck in.

RedBull Hardline: Stay at home if…

• You’re a stats freak and absolutely need to know exactly what’s going on, all the time. Having said that, there is 3G in most places on the hill so there’s nothing stopping you from streaming the live feed as well. But information outside of these times is fairly limited, with no PA away from the finish arena.
• You get bored easily. Unfortunately, due to the smaller number of racers, the action is spread out throughout the day with large gaps of not very much.
• Backflips and one foot turn downs on large jumps do nothing for you. Might we suggest indoor bowls?