Yahoo News Inside Red Bull Hardline: 'The track is insane...the crowd is too' and the riders are 'something else'
Days before Red Bull Hardline returned to Wales the main event jump was scrapped after a rider was concussed testing it out. Shocking footage shows British rider Jim Monro lose grip of his bike halfway across the 70ft canyon river gap in the mountains of the Dyfi Valley. He somersaults in the air and crashes to the floor head first.
Remarkably Monro was later discharged from hospital having survived the accident with no broken bones. When searching for Hardline the story tends to overshadow the event this year and gives a clear insight into just how perilous the course is and Red Bull’s commitment to making it even more daring each time. Widely recognised as the most challenging and dangerous mountain biking course in the world, I’m here to find out why.
I’m inside the most rickety Land Rover you could imagine. Driving me up the unforgiving mountain is Jono Simpson, a farrier from Herefordshire who has taken the week off to be here. A biking fanatic himself, he tells me he woke up in the van at 5am and ran up and down the mountain before I arrived.
“What I’m earning in five days here I could earn four times as much back home,” he shouts over the roaring engine as we bounce over another bump in the road. “But I wouldn’t change it for the world. I just love being here. I’ve been down-hilling since 1998 and I’m in the oldest category for riders now. But I couldn’t do this event. The track is unbelievable. These riders are a different level. I like my adrenaline but these guys are just something else. There are elements of the track I’d do but not the whole thing - not by a long shot.”
Gee Atherton, who alongside his family built and developed the track, suffered a horrific crash himself in 2021 which left him with life-threatening injuries. As part of a new series he was set to take on a steep, rocky mountain ridgeline complete with huge jumps, sheer drops and zero room for error. But an error, albeit small, is exactly what he made. A moment's miscalculation saw him come off his bike and tumble hundreds of feet down the mountain ridge, bouncing off sharp rocks like a rag doll before finally coming to a stop, unconscious, at the bottom of a slate outcrop. It left him with multiple serious fractures and severe concussion. You can get more story updates straight to your inbox by subscribing to our newsletters here.
Gee's brother Dan Atherton, who founded Hardline, says: “Hardline was a track we had ridden since around 2003. It didn't have jumps and was nowhere near what it is today, but it followed roughly the same footprint. After it became an event in 2014 it went from somewhere we dug and rode with mates to an annual gathering of some of the best riders in the world, but it's still been quite a gradual progression so there was never really a point where we looked back and reflected on how much had changed until now."
'There's nothing like it'
I’m walking half the course from the peak, which takes around two hours, with Will Soffe of Mountain Biking UK - a national magazine and go-to for downhill biking boffins, to learn more. “One of the reasons Hardline is so scary is because of the demands it places on the bikes as well as the riders,” Soffe says as I try to avoid an embarrassing fall on the dodgy terrain. “If you have a mechanical it could be really dangerous in parts. Exposed bits of slate are ready to puncture a tyre. It’s the most exposed and technical course by far and it’s just so vast. There’s nothing like it.”
We pass trail builder Josh Williams, who is part of a team managed by Alf Raynor which tends to the course throughout the year. Shirt off in the searing heat, he is beating the dusty bronzed surface with the back of a shovel. “I’m just trying to make it a bit harder really,” he explains. “It gives it more of a grit and grip for the rider to have some control and be able to slow down. I love mountain biking myself and I’d love to ride the trail one day. I know, I’m mad. It’s just the adrenaline rush you get. You can’t replicate it with anything else.”
Earlier Jono told me he considered himself “lucky” having suffered so few injuries, before explaining he’s currently nursing a broken scapula he endured while riding a course in Australia. For an insight into the mindset of an untamed adrenaline junkie look no further than 12-year-old Evie Jefferis who I meet halfway down the track at the rocky Dirty Ferns point. “I can’t ride at the moment because I have a broken collarbone,” she laughs.
'The best event....by miles'
“I went over the bars and landed on my shoulder. I’ve fractured my wrist, broke my arm twice, and now my collarbone.” “Every time she breaks a bone from riding we have to buy her a jelly cat because that’s what we’ve always done,” 11-year-old Savannah Sykes giggles about her friend.
Evie’s father Rob Jefferis says he’ll never stop his daughter riding if it brings her joy. A downhill fan himself, he’s brought his camera to snap the riders in flight. “We’ve come from Milton Keynes but it’s nothing for this because it’s the best event in the UK by miles,” he says. “We do the Malverns every year but this is another thing altogether.”
Most of the riders descend the huge mountain in less than three minutes. Winner Ronan Dunne finishes the course with a time of two minutes and 23 seconds - a second ahead of second-placed Bernard Kerr.
“It’s the maximum isn’t it?” marshal Kieran Barry says. Marshals pick numbers out of a hat at the start of the day. Some draw the short straw, but he’s bagged one of the highest positions on the course more than 1,500ft high with the best view of the valley. “This is the craziest s*** going. Even marshalling it there’s just a huge bug you get for it. All the marshals here come back every year and we camp together. It’s brilliant. I’d actually never heard of Red Bull Hardline until a few years ago but I’m local to the area and it sounded like fun. It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. I’ve fallen in love with the valley doing this.”
Thousands of spectators attend Hardline here every year and this year’s event is expected to bring in its biggest turnout yet. At the finish line Dunne lauds fans and drinks champagne from his shoe on the podium. “It’s been great craic and a super fun time,” he says. “The crowd is so sick and the track is insane. It’s a better track than a world cup track. The crowd is insane too. Once you get down to the nineties (90ft drops) you hear them pretty well which is amazing."
The jewel in the crown for Hardline is the stunning scenery which surrounds the course. The Dyfi Valley is a hotbed of action for bikers of all abilities with Dyfi Bike Park and Dyfi ClimachX Trail within walking distance from here. Further down the course I meet Rachel Walker who has travelled from Scotland with her family. “We’ve come here to ride the trails and take in the course,” she says. “It’s just a great spot and the best thing about it is how green and well looked after it is. We’re quite brown in Scotland. To think years ago there was nothing here is just unbelievable. They’ve done a brilliant job. The mountain bikers have brought so much to this area.”
Rachel Coleman, here with Trash Free Trails aiming to make sure no trace is left when the crowds disperse, says Hardline is becoming one of the most forward-thinking eco events in the country. “We’re working with Hardline in lots of different ways to improve the relationship people have with their trails,” she explains.
“We’re working hard as an ecosystem of individuals to fill that knowledge gap about how much single use pollution is out there and the impact it’s having. The key aim is to leave these trails exactly how they were before and key to that isn’t just Red Bull but all of the spectators and stakeholders here today. Very few people visit here so it’s a pretty wild space and that means it’s even more important we put in the effort while using this space to be good stewards. The aim is to leave no trace and if possible a positive trace.”
