Freeride

Key facts

Bike types

MTB

Typical travel

170–200 mm

Terrain

big natural lines, drops, jumps and built features

Protection

Full

Racing

Red Bull Rampage (since 2001), FMB World Tour

Where it began

In the 1990s on the North Shore of Vancouver, riders built wooden ladders, bridges and drops through the rainforest. In the desert of Utah others rode lines down bare ridges. Both became freeride — and Red Bull Rampage, first held in 2001, became its biggest stage.

Styles

• Big mountain — natural lines down steep faces, as at Rampage.
• Slopestyle — a built course of jumps and drops, ridden with tricks and judged.
• Park freeride — the big lines and drops of a bike park.

Protection

A full-face helmet and pads always. The features are big, so build up slowly: every drop and jump you ride should be one step bigger than the last, not three.

Related articles

• Downhill (DH) — Racing one steep, rough track from top to bottom, against the clock, on bikes with around 200 mm of travel. A World Cup run lasts three to four minutes and is decided by fractions of a second.
• Dirt jump (DJ) — Riding a line of hand-built dirt jumps on a small, stiff hardtail — for height, flow and tricks. Close to BMX in spirit, and where many riders learn to fly.
• Full-face helmet — A helmet with a chin bar that protects the face and jaw as well as the head. Standard for downhill, bike parks and big jumps, and more and more common in enduro.
• Jumping — Leaving the ground off a take-off and landing smoothly on the far side. Good jumping is less about launching yourself than about letting the lip do the work and staying relaxed in the air.
• Bike park — A resort of graded trails served by a lift or shuttle, so the whole day goes into riding down. Usually a mountain ski resort in summer, with flow, jump and downhill lines.
• Drop — A vertical step down on the trail — a ledge, a rock or a built platform — where the ground falls away under the wheels. Small drops can be rolled; bigger ones need speed and a clean take-off.