This is the outside podcast with Paddyo.

Howdy pals, have we got a treat for you?

Today, we're going to talk about a sport I love very much and also happen to be not so great at,

mountain biking. There are a few things in the outdoors as fun as zipping through the woods,

done a tacky dirt trail with soft bank turns and mellow little whoopty-whoop jumps,

especially right now in the fall when warm autumn light makes the golden aspen leaves all sorts of a blaze.

Ah, I love it.

But I hate biking uphill for that downhill.

Nothing.

Not even the slog of a miles long backcountry ski exhaust me like chugging upward on two wheels. And don't even get me

started on those bike trails with terrifying giant airs and unreasonably steep lines. I keep things

pretty mellow when I bike, but I find the folks who fly down trails and launch themselves off

jumps to be some of the most impressive athletes in the

outdoors, perhaps nowhere more jaw-droppingly displayed than the aptly named Rampage.

Rampage is an annual invite-only free-ride mountain biking event put on by Red Bull in Utah.

It is wild. Days before the competition starts,

riders and their teams dig and sculpt their own lines in the dirt and rock of the desert. Competitors

are judged on how smoothly they navigate their complex trail, as well as things like style, control,

and amplitude. Rampage is one of the most

objectively impressive, intense, and terrifying events in all of action and outdoor sports.

These mountain bikers are in the conversation with big wave surfers, big mountain skiers, and

snowboarders, base jumpers, wingsuit pilots, speed flyers, and the like as people who are pushing the limits of what's possible in human performance.

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