Shut up and Dribble: Women absent from Red Bull Rampage yet again
The decision stops women from competing in mountain biking on an international stage
Red Bull Rampage, the biggest spectacle in mountain biking, is back for another year to showcase the best in the freeride world, but not a single woman is in the line-up of 18 riders.
Red Bull Rampage could be considered the Superbowl of mountain biking. For the past 22 years, Red Bull has pitted the best male freeride mountain bikers against the most famous freeride course in Virgin, Utah.
Riders start at the top of a near vertical cliff and drop into jump lines with over 20-metre gaps and hit speeds of 70 km/h while doing flips and tricks to score points with the judges. Rampage is what every young mountain biker dreams of reaching. However, women will have to keep dreaming.
The news shocked the freeriding community, considering Red Bull has also decided this year to cancel Formation, a smaller non-competitive mountain biking event for women. Formation was hosted from 2019 to 2022 in Virgin and followed the same concept as Rampage.
“When Red Bull announced earlier this spring that they would not be continuing with Formation, a lot of the athletes were pretty excited since that would have meant that Red Bull was going to add women to the [Rampage] roster,” said Vaea Verbeeck in an interview with PinkBike. However, that wasn’t the case.
Women have taken up cycling in huge numbers—and it should reflect their inclusion on the competition side of the sport—but sadly, it isn’t the case. The National Bicycle Dealers Association has stated that 55.4 per cent of female cyclists started or returned during the pandemic.
For the past few years, women have proven again and again that they belong at Rampage — Marin Lowe
When Formation was first founded, it was a way of getting all the female freeriders who wanted a place at Rampage together to showcase what they could do on two wheels, but it was not perfect. Unlike Rampage, there were no winners and no large-scale sponsorships—outside of Red Bull—willing to put down the big dollars for an athlete on the podium.
Lack of sponsorships greatly affects a professional athlete’s potential to practice their sport sustainably. Professional mountain bikers rely on high-profile events to showcase their marketability. Without external sponsor presence, they lack the financial resources to fund their training and events that make it worth it to huck themselves off cliffs. When the women involved with Formation entered into talks with Red Bull, it was to continue the event, but also make space for women in Rampage.
At the 2023 World Cross Country Mountain Bike Championships, Canadian biker Marin Lowe came in second. Lowe—an outspoken advocate for women’s mountain biking who works with groups like Ride Like a Girl—was disappointed with Red Bull's decision to exclude women from the competition.
“On the recreational side of mountain biking I have seen a drastic increase in female participation in the past few years,” said Lowe. “When riding my home trails in Squamish, B.C. it is evident that there is a lively community of female rippers. There are days where I see more women out on the trails than men.”
Lowe said she’s hoping that growth in recreational mountain biking will translate into growth on the competitive end. “I believe having more female coaches, mentors and decision-makers in the cycling community/industry will encourage more girls and women to race bikes,” she added.
Lowe said the new generation of women’s freeride has raised the bar in terms of performance.
“For the past few years, women have proven again and again that they belong at Rampage,” said Lowe. “The majority of ‘haters’ debate that women can’t handle the features and physical impacts.”
However, the sport has seen an astronomical rise in the number of women performing extremely difficult tricks that would belong in a competition like Rampage.
“I am aware that being a girl makes me biased, but these freeride chicks are hardcore and they deserve a competitive platform just as much as the men,” Lowe said.
Lowe added that Rampage allows riders to design their own features and lines according to their abilities, so that no run is the same. Female riders would therefore not have to hit the same lines as the male competitors.
For some reason, in 2023, women in mountain biking are still not being given the same opportunities. Red Bull must stop making choices that set the sport back decades.
