Photo by Christian Pondella
For the first time ever, women compete at Red Bull Rampage—and show why they belong
VIRGIN, Utah | October 17, 2024 — Last week, women’s sports took a giant leap at Red Bull Rampage as seven of the world’s top female freeriders descended on the iconic, treacherous course in Virgin, Utah, for the first time. The inaugural women’s event didn’t just live up to expectations—it pushed the boundaries of what’s possible in big-mountain freeride. Leading the charge, New Zealand’s Robin Goomes, 27, claimed victory with an 85-point run that included two jaw-dropping backflips, while other riders delivered standout moments in a historic day for the sport.
Freeride mountain biking is a blend of downhill speed and air time, where riders don’t just conquer loose berms and rocky drops—they carve through negative space in a dance with gravity. Riders leap, fall, and soar between features, turning the canyon’s jagged landscape into their playground.
“It is all about creative expression on the bike,” says Katie Holden, a pioneering freeride mountain biker and co-founder of Red Bull Formation, the event that paved the way for a women’s Rampage. “Riders take a blank canvas—just a start gate and a finish gate—and figure out how to build a line that suits their style and has high-scoring potential. It’s like the ‘soul turns’ of snowboarding or surfing, working with the terrain to be creative.”
The focus of the discipline is on combining technical riding skills with large drops, jumps, and natural features, often pushing the limits of what’s possible on a mountain bike. Freeriding is less about choreographed tricks and more about fluidity, line choice, and overcoming challenging terrain.
Competitions like Red Bull Rampage epitomize freeride, where the course is shaped from the natural landscape, and riders must scout and build their own lines. There’s a greater emphasis on risk-taking, as the environment is less controlled than slope-style courses like Crankworx and Red Bull Joyride.
But this year’s Rampage was more than just another spectacle of skill and bravery. It marked a historic moment: the first-ever women’s edition. While women were never officially excluded from the event, none had qualified in its 18-year history, leaving it an all-but-men’s-only affair. That began to change when endurance mountain biking legend Rebecca Rusch, alongside Holden, noticed the absence of women at Rampage and took action. They asked the tough questions about why there wasn’t female representation and how to build a path forward. Holden envisioned a stepping stone, a place where women could develop the skills needed for Rampage. And thus in 2019, Red Bull Formation was born.
Red Bull Formation wasn’t a competition; it was a progression session—a space where the top female freeriders in the world could push their limits, hone their skills, and move the sport forward. For three years, Formation provided that space, until the 2023 edition was abruptly canceled. The backlash from the community was swift, with calls for accountability and action. Whether or not that led to the inaugural Women’s Rampage, we may never know. But what we do know is that it happened—and it was nothing short of extraordinary.
“In 2019, people couldn’t imagine that there could be women who could ride at this level. It felt very against the grain. But the women showed up in the biggest way, with power, grace, control, and precision, and that busted things wide open,” says Holden.
In the rugged, dusty mountains of Utah, the real work begins long before wheels hit the ground. This is because the magic of Rampage isn’t just in the riding—it’s in the transformation of a barren, crumbling mountain into a hand-built masterpiece of trails. That’s where the picks, rakes, shovels, and crews of diggers come into play.
Within the 424,000 square feet allotted to the riders, each woman is given three diggers and eight days to reshape the landscape into their vision. The last three of the eight days are spent practicing their runs, connecting lines, and making final adjustments. In fact, riders spend more time digging and sculpting the terrain than actually riding it.
A gap jump here, a drop there, a sheer cliff face transformed into a gravity-defying launch pad taking shape after days of shoveling and reinforcing with sandbags. A spray of water, a tamping down of dirt, and suddenly, a rideable line emerges. Here, the freedom to dream big comes alive. “If you want to dig ditches out there and get all dusty, you can,” says Casey Brown, 33, from Revelstoke, BC, Canada.
Brown, who previously competed in Rampage qualification events before there was a women’s field, has been dreaming of this moment since she was 17. Recognizable for her cowboy hat and rowdy riding style, she aptly named one of the features in her line “the Laundry Chute”—a highly exposed and incredibly steep rock roll drop.
Reflecting on her experience, Brown shares, “I’m most proud of guinea pigging the Laundry Chute. It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever done because you don’t know how your bike will react, but everything came together perfectly. After that, it was a little less scary, but still gnarly.”
During practice and raceday, there are no lifts or magic carpet that take riders up the mountain for each run. And the helicopters we hear flying over the course are only there for emergencies—every climb, every descent, and every drop must be hiked, bikes perched on the back of their necks, the red-orange dirt slipping beneath their feet and coating every inch of skin, nostril, and gear.
Risk, Precision, and Control: What It Takes to Score Big at Rampage
Big-mountain freeriding is inseparable from risk-taking, with the terrible consequences of failure always looming. While many sports involve risk, in freeriding, the greater the danger, the greater the reward—whether we like it or not.
At Red Bull Rampage, judging is aided by thirteen camera angles that capture every detail of the riders’ runs. Points are awarded based on five key criteria: line difficulty, tricks and style, fluidity and control, and amplitude (how big the jumps are). Riders earn more points by pushing the limits—pulling off tricks in technical sections, tackling massive jumps, and maintaining speed and control on the most challenging features. Conversely, points are deducted for slowing down, stumbling, landing badly, or crashing. In the end, the cleanest, boldest runs score the highest.
“If a rider is gonna put their life in danger, you need to reward them,” says Darren Berrecloth, a legendary Canadian freerider and one of the six judges at the event. “Some riders risk more than others, and you have to make sure you’re rewarding that risk. It sounds weird to say it, but that’s the reality of this sport.”
The stakes are equally high for both men and women and crashing is a big part of the sport, yet women in freeriding often face an additional barrier—public perception. “When folks see a woman crash, it evokes a different emotion and reaction compared to when a man crashes,” adds Holden. “That has been a huge barrier, not just for this event but for women’s sports in general. There’s a 100 percent double standard.”
Despite this, Berrecloth emphasizes that the judges make no distinction between the men’s and women’s categories. “We judge the women the same way we judge the men. There’s no difference. Women can get hurt just as much as men. In fact, the majority of women take fewer chances—so in a lot of ways, they’re smarter than the boys.”
Riding the Edge: How Freeriders Tame Fear
When it comes to managing emotions, to say that Red Bull Rampage riders are fearless isn’t just an exaggeration—it’s a misunderstanding. Every rider, male or female, knows fear intimately. It’s the blinding white light, the noise in their head, and intrusive thoughts that they push through, ride with, and sometimes, succumb to. Freeriders don’t lack fear; they’ve learned to live with it, to harness it, and when they can’t, they are painfully aware of the consequences.
Unfortunately, Argentina’s Cami Noguiera, a pre-race favorite, experienced those consequences firsthand. During a practice session just days before the event, Noguiera crashed hard shortly after landing the steepest drop of her line. The fall left her unable to compete in the historic first women’s Rampage, a heart-wrenching blow for the 30-year-old who had spent months preparing. But even after the injury, Noguiera remained in the canyon throughout the week, supporting her fellow riders with visible pride mixed with frustration.
“Fear, for me, is like TV static—blurred and overwhelming,” says Georgia Astle, 27, from Whistler, Canada, who took second place at the event. “It shuts down your brain’s logic, but I focus on positive visualization instead, picturing how I’d take off and land. I’m proud that I avoided the negative thoughts this time and just had fun.”
For freeriders, fear is not a one-time battle, but a constant companion. “Fear is something I have to tame every time,” says Brown, who placed third in the event. “It comes in differently with every feature, and you have to figure out how to push through and get to the other side of it.”
Rampage is not about conquering fear; it’s about riding alongside it—finding that delicate balance between risk and control in a sport where hesitation can be as dangerous as overconfidence.
When race day finally arrived at Rampage, the atmosphere in the canyon was both electric and eerie. Excitement buzzed through the crowd, with countless fans donning those now-famous black t-shirts emblazoned with “Everyone Watches Women’s Sports.” Red Bull cans were as plentiful as the nerves hanging in the air, passed around by promo reps and spectators alike.
Wind gusts delayed the event by about an hour, a crucial safety precaution that momentarily made me think these athletes weren’t entirely crazy after all. “When your wheels are spinning, they act like two sails in the wind. A side wind can throw off your jump, a headwind can cause you to case it, and a tailwind can make you overshoot. Riding in the wind out here is really scary,” said Brown.
Once the windsocks finally calmed down, Goomes, in her striking pink and blue kit that perfectly matched her bike, decided it was time. In just over a breathtaking minute and a half, the New Zealander dropped down the wooden ramp and rode a nerve-wracking line, nailing not one but two backflips—moves that would inspire dreams for a lifetime. The commentators quickly pointed out that this could be the winning run. Afterward, a beaming Goomes signed autographs for kids and embraced friends and fellow riders at the corral.
Next up was Brown, who, like Goomes and most of the riders, opted for a bare-handed run—no gloves. Mic’d up and sporting a GoPro, we could hear her muttering words of encouragement to herself from the moment she started. Approaching the infamous Laundry Chute, she whispered, “Okay, I got this,” and she certainly did. After sixteen years of practice and waiting, Brown finally conquered her dreams. In less than ninety seconds, her run was over.
Third in line was another New Zealander, Vinny Armstrong, 25, a mountain biking prodigy who’s been riding since the age of 4. Her outfit—a baggy pair of jeans and an oversized Scream t-shirt with the iconic masked ghost on the back—brought a smile to my face. After all, when your run is less than two minutes long, who cares what you’re wearing? Armstrong’s flair was unmatched, riding with a style that only a fashion-forward extreme athlete could pull off.
Then came Astel, a last-minute addition from Canada after a preselected rider had to withdraw due to an ankle injury. Her approach was calculated, methodical, and composed. On the final jump of her ride, she pulled off a “suicide no-hander,” letting go of the handlebars mid-air. The flawless execution earned her a well-deserved second place.
Following Astel was UK-based Kiwi Vero Sandler, 31, a professional trail builder, and 33-year-old Canadian Vaea Verbeeck, both former downhill racers. Verbeeck’s kit stood out with colorful doodles made by “little rippers”—kids of friends and family. She tackled the terrain with precision, pausing for trackstands at key features to steady herself before launching into the next section.
The final run of the first set belonged to the U.S.’s Chelsea Kimball, 33, a desert specialist known for tackling the steepest drop in the event. Unfortunately, by the time Kimball dropped in, the wind had picked up again, causing her to crash before reaching the notorious descent. But she handled the situation like a seasoned pro. As she lost control and gravity pulled her down, her bouldering background kicked in—she grabbed the rocks, stopped her fall, picked up her bike, and powered through to land that steep drop. The crowd went wild.
“The wind was howling at the top—really strong and consistent—but I trusted my diggers when they gave me the go-ahead. I went for it, but the wind took me out on that drop. That’s how it goes sometimes,” Kimball reflected.
And just like that, the first round—and nearly the entire inaugural event—was over. All of the riders had the option to take a second run to improve their scores, but the wind gusts continued to whip through the canyon, shaking the conesocks along the course. The only rider to take on the wind again was Kimball, whose score could benefit from a cleaner run. She stood at the top, mentally gearing herself up to face the conditions once more, with Goomes watching closely in case Kimball managed to up her score, forcing the Kiwi to take another run. But shortly after Kimball dropped in, she crashed at the same spot as before. And just like the first time, she saved herself with quick thinking and skill. It was then decided: Goomes had won the event. With the victory sealed, she and her team of diggers could finally celebrate.
You might expect Kimball to have been disappointed after not completing her second run, but she emerged from the competition feeling—and being treated like—a freeride hero. After all, she had taken the most risk out of anyone that day. The camaraderie on the podium was palpable, with all the women celebrating together as Goomes toasted her victory by drinking champagne out of her sand-covered shoe. The points, prizes, and podium spots almost felt secondary. What truly mattered was that these women had finally been given the chance to ride at Rampage with the same stakes and adrenaline that the men have enjoyed for nearly two decades.
The tough conditions weren’t unique to the women’s event either. The men’s competition, held two days later, saw similar challenges with wind gusts wreaking havoc on runs, nerves running high, and several crashes. One rider even had to be airlifted to the hospital after a particularly brutal fall, a reminder that freeride—whether men’s or women’s—is a high-stakes, high-risk endeavor for all.
Robin Goomes, reflecting on her historic victory at the inaugural Women’s Red Bull Rampage, described the experience as surreal: “It hasn’t yet sunk in,” she admitted. For Goomes, the win was about more than just her performance—it was a testament to her team and the sport’s progression. “I’m so stoked for my crew; they’ve gone so hard. If anything, I’ve done it for them, the sport, and all the other riders.” Winning the Utah Sports Commission Best Trick Award was a cherry on top, but what truly thrilled her was seeing how the entire field of women pushed the boundaries of what’s possible. Goomes believes this event will inspire the next generation and help move the sport forward.
Women have now broken down the barriers that once stood in their way, shaping the future of freeride—one shovel of dirt at a time. As Katie Holden remarked, “Now that Rampage is on the map as a tangible goal for women, we’re going to see more women and girls aiming for it because they now have something concrete to strive for.” This marks a massive step forward, not just for the sport, but for the entire freeride community.
This moment isn’t just a singular competition; it’s the solidification of women’s rightful place in one of the most extreme sports in the world. As Holden emphasizes, the key to long-term success lies in creating more space and opportunities for female athletes. Darren Berrecloth echoed this sentiment, stating, “What needs to happen for the women to have a long, successful place in Red Bull Rampage? It’s done. The women have cemented their place in Red Bull Rampage. It won’t be taken away.”
Even with history being made, Robin Goomes stayed focused on the task at hand. “You can’t think about making history because there’s so much more to do,” she reflected. “Focusing on what’s in front of you at the moment is enough.”
For the next generation of freeriders, Chelsea Kimball offered words of encouragement: “To all the little girls watching this: Pick up your bike and ride it. Even if you’re riding with the boys, it’s still fun. Just go ride.”
In today’s world, where fear has become our daily bread, there is a lot we can learn from freeride athletes. Their ability to face overwhelming challenges and push through fear reminds us that risk and reward go hand in hand—not just in sport, but in life. The courage it takes to ride down a steep cliffside is the same courage we call on in everyday moments of uncertainty, and that’s where true growth happens—where progression takes place.