There was some controversy around the usage of that last year.

Is that taped off this year? Like, what's the approach? I've literally been up there this morning, parking that section. I've got a little photo for Bernard. This year, I think the focus for us was really on trying to increase technicality. And that's pretty much fresh out of the gate, right? Pretty much straight out of the gate. Like you're going to do like a half crank, maybe two pumps and then

like a choked up turn and then straight off it. So yeah, you won't really. Yeah, you'll be pretty fresh.

Hey everyone. I'm Chris Hall and this is the downtime podcast, the podcast for the true fans of gravity

mountain biking, taking you deeper into the sport than anywhere else. Thanks to tours in Tasmania, I'm on the ground in Medina this week to experience the incredible trail network and to bring you content from Red Bull Hardline. So following our World Cup style approach, you'll be getting a pre and a post-race show from the event. For today's pre-race show, we're joined by the man behind Medina Bike Park and Hardline Tasmania, Simon French, alongside racer, local legend and last year's rider of the week, Dan Booker. We'll be hearing about changes to the course, sneaky inside lines, and what it's really like to ride this beast. We talk about some of the riders we're excited to see on track, whether the World Cut races might be holding back a little to stay safe ahead of the season, and how this

track compares to the original hardline in Wales. It's the first big race of 2026, and there's

plenty to discuss. So, without further ado, here's Simon French and Dan Booker.

All right, thanks to tourism, Tasmania.

I'm here in Medina, which I still can't quite believe.

It feels kind of weird to be on the other side of the planet at an event that I've watched twice on the internet.

And I'm joined by the man behind Medina Bike Park, Simon French, and last year's rider of the week, Dan Booker.

How are you, boys? Good. Thank you. Yeah, going well. Thanks. Good stuff. Yeah, thanks for joining us for a little chat and find out a bit about what we got coming up this week and we'll jump straight in, Simon. You've made some changes to the course this year. Take us through what you've been up to. Yeah, look, we have made some changes. So obviously every year year we want to update the course provide something

fresh for the riders this year i think the focus for us was really on trying to increase technicality

create a little bit more speed differential through the course it's obviously quite a fast course

all the way through so we're trying to choke it up a little bit in a few areas create a few little

diversions we have like a whole new start section that was going to be a little bit longer. There's some broadcast logistical reasons. We're now not pushing that far up the hill. So we're in the original start, but it's a completely new start. So a new drop out of the start, a little bit slower, a little little bit more technical and then we're sort of

choked up a few sections of the course a few more turns just creating that sort of breaking points

and changing speed as riders are coming through nice and is there rider involvement in all of that

process like how do you ensure that that's yeah so i mean i i've been scoping out we're trying to get up to, we call it the towers where we drop the athletes at the top of the hill. The end goal is to get right up to there with the course. We were pretty close this year. There's some really challenging big rock and outcrops and features at the top, which meant we couldn't quite get there. But i'd sort of spent a few weeks scoping that

area out and then i work with predominantly darcy but dan's obviously got some input when he's local

just to kind of scope out the nuances of some of that stuff there's a new drop in there it's not

massive from a hardline point of view but it's still five and a half meters i think roughly like

...