Go.
Two, three, four.
[LAUGHS]
Yeah, I don't know how he's doing it.
This is slope style mountain biking.
The Freestyle side of the sport that has pushed the creativity,
and the technicality of mountain bike tricks,
so far since the first competition, less than two decades ago.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
Trick variations and combinations have become ever more complex.
But perhaps the craziest progression has been in rotations,
where riders can now spin around not just once, not twice,
not even three times,
but as many as four full rotations as they fly through the air.
COMMENTATOR 1:
COMMENTATOR 2:
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
Okay, the first full rotation. The three sixty.
This trick is a classic and can pretty much be pulled anywhere,
wherever you want, flat ground, on a jump.
And, to be honest, it's one of my absolute personal favorite tricks.
So, to walk us through it
we're here with one of the biggest talents in slope style right now.
COMMENTATOR 1:
COMMENTATOR 3:
Emil Johannson.
The future is now.
Emil, how's it going, man?
-Pretty good. -Nice.
We need to give people the knowledge and the wisdom
of how to get all the way to a 1440.
So, I think they need to decide straightaway
before they do anything which way they are going to spin.
Yeah.
What's your advice for that?
I guess it all comes down to personal preference.
Like a lot of people before they start riding,
before they even thought about it,
I don't know if they ever like done a 360 into water or whatever.
They just spin. Can't even think about…
Either way they spin, but, usually, when it comes to mountain biking,
most people tend to spin towards their rear foot.
MATT: Yeah. You ride with your right foot forward, right?
-Yes. -Right, right, right?
Yeah, right.
MATT: So, it makes more sense like the orthodox way,
-if you're doing a 360 is left.
-Cause it's towards your back foot. -Yeah.
If I would spin this way,
it would mean that I would need to spin over my front foot,
which means that my chest is pointing in the wrong direction
towards my head, or compared to my head,
but if I spin this way, I have my whole chest open up,
and I could spot the landing earlier.
Yeah. I often tell people to look at their back wheel.
So, if you're gonna spin left,
you look over your shoulder at your rear.
If you're gonna spin right, look over your shoulder
and keep staring at your back wheel until you land pretty much.
To actually generate that rotation,
it's all about turning up the take-off,
or do you think it all happens once you leave the ramp,
and you're in the air.
The momentum in your body starts in the lip,
but you should not turn off the lip
because if you turn off the lip, you miss the landing.
We use the term "carve."
So, you actually carve up the takeoff,
it helps to come in at one angle, and then almost correct yourself.
So, you don't want to turn off the lip
and what Emil means by that is right off the corner of the jump
into the bush, river, whatever's next to you.
And then you try to land it.
Perfect. Right, you're spinning left.
-I'm spinning right. -Yes.
-Should we do a little train? -Yes.
Come on then. Let's do it.
[MATT LAUGHS]
MATT: I love that trick.
What did you think of that?
You can 360 something very small, can't you?
Yeah.
So, do you think you could do a 360
on that very small roller right there?
Basically, there's no takeoff, there's no ramp,
you're gonna have to generate this spin.
So you're gonna have to think about all the stuff we've talked about,
all of those key ingredients,
if you're going to land this trick right now.
Landing off the lip. Here we go. Let's see what I could do.
Which way should I go? From there?
I don't know that's your problem.
-Okay, I start over there. -All right.
It looks better, I think.
MATT: Come on, this is huge.
Yeah, I'm ready.
MATT: Let's see it.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
MATT: Wow.
Well done, mate. Thanks for the lesson and that was a 360.
We're thinking about two full rotations now,
which is the 720.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
So, you have now landed a 360. What's next?
Well, you have to double the rotations.
You need to go all the way up to a 720
and that has become a pretty popular trick in recent years
with riders adding in their own combinations
and their own variations like bar spins, tail whips, no handers,
and, of course, opposite rotations,
spinning the opposite way to which you normally, and naturally would.
So, how are we gonna get the 720 to work?
Well, you're going to need to be extremely confident with your 360.
Confident enough to hit a bigger jump with twice the airtime
and spin twice as fast, and that's no easy thing.
It's not as simple as just carving harder or spinning harder,
even though, that's necessary.
In fact, there's really key body positions
that are going to help you spin faster,
like you see with gymnasts and high divers.
They straighten out their body and that allows you to spin quicker.
Straight lines spin a lot quicker than big loose objects.
So, where at 360, the comfortable position
might be to be nicely tucked up, arms and legs bent,
a 720 is completely different.
You need to have your hips on the handlebars
with your arms and legs as straight as you can make them,
and twist your body all the way around.
I could talk to you like this in the 720 position.
So, a 720, you need to spin extra hard,
but I think it's extremely important in where you look.
So, I look at the ground,
and then I actually look up to the sky
for the second half of the rotation, the second 360
and for some reason that just keeps me upright,
so that when I come around to land, I feel like I know where I am,
I've spotted the landing, and it just works.
And that's about it. If you can do a 720,
you're halfway there to breaking World Records of rotations.
And then we're looking forward to a 1080.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
The 1080, nicknamed the "twister."
Now, this is where it starts getting really difficult.
On the Crankworx World Tour,
the top-tier event in slopestyle mountain biking,
only three people have ever landed the 1080 in competition.
COMMENTATOR 1:
Dawid Godziek. Insane!
So, the latest addition to that elite group is Dawid Godziek,
who took the 1080 to the next level in competition.
He took his hands off the handlebars.
[COMMENTATOR 1 LAUGHS]
COMMENTATOR 1:
Dawid, are you crazy?
Uh...
-No. -You must be crazy.
I'm just spinning like crazy, but I'm not.
Yeah, a 1080 is a big trick.
Like how did you get that leap, that extra rotation?
Uh, actually, I've seen Nicholi doing 1080 like the twister.
So, I ask him how to do it and he told me.
He told you?
I was riding BMX, so he told me.
You weren't a competitor at that time.
And now we're here at Crankworx
and you're head to head, twisters everywhere.
COMMENTATOR 1:
winds up, gets the twister right there.
And the twister right way afterwards.
COMMENTATOR 2:
So, when you're spinning around that fast,
the obvious thing in my head
is how'd you know where you are in the air?
How do you spot your landing?
DAWID GODZIEK:
I think I can see the landing right here.
-Under your armpit? -Yeah, yeah.
So, I am looking at the landing all the time.
So, I know if I need to spin faster or not.
Yeah. It's amazing.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
What do you think it is about mountain bikes
that makes these crazy rotations harder than on BMX?
-They're bigger, they're heavier. -Yeah.
And the big wheels, the big wheel spinning.
They don't want to rotate like a BMX does, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you need the bigger jump and like harder muscles.
-Just the full core package. -Yeah.
So, yeah, it's exciting.
You got twisters, you got 1080s,
you got the twister no hander
and it sounds like you're pretty close to the 1440.
-Yeah. Maybe one day. -I am excited to see it.
You're going to be the second rider to ever land one on a mountain bike.
[SOMBRE MUSIC PLAYING]
COMMENTATOR 1:
Can he do it for the first time in a slopestyle run?
[CROWD CHEERING]
So, Nicholi, the 1440.
You landed it for the first time ever
at Red Bull District Ride in 2017. How did that feel?
Man, that felt absolutely insane.
I had the twister, like pretty dialed in
and then they just gave us that absolutely, ridiculously,
massive step-up jump at District Ride.
With the crowd there, I just had to send it, and somehow it worked.
Put the extra rotation in there and incredible feeling. So stoked.
COMMENTATOR 1:
All the speed he can muster out of that run
in the 1440 and he lands it.
[CROWD CHEERING]
That was even smoother than last night.
For the first time in mountain bike competition
at the end of an absolutely banger run,
Nicholi Rogatkin drops the first ever front cork 1440.
It's like four full rotations.
How do you even begin to know where you are in the air?
Man, if I'm honest with you,
I carved so hard and spinned so hard off the lip
that I actually don't see really where I am,
until I come out into that last bit.
So, when I go off, I actually count, one, two, three,
-and then I open up.
NICHOLI:
I can't see anything, everything's just a big blur,
but, if you count, you've got the feeling.
So, you count the first 1080,
you don't see anything, you're blind, you're just counting.
Fully blind, fully blur, fully, like a rollercoaster blurry ride.
[CROWD CHEERING]
COMMENTATOR 1:
NICHOLI: Yes! Yes!
So, you've tried it once before at a Crankworx event, Rotorua 2018.
What sort of jump do you think it takes?
Because, obviously, you came up a little bit short there,
but what sort of Crankworx feature,
what jump you're actually gonna need to land that in an event?
Man, I think that jump at Rotorua is almost perfect.
I just needed a bit more step up because, you know,
when you have a lot of time going up on that trick,
then you can come down and control the landing at the end.
But when it's more of a double,
there's so much rotational force coming out of it
that it's really hard to control that last bit,
and put the wheels down after four full rotations so...
I can't even imagine.
Basically, a last big-money booter, mellow lip,
but tall, and step up, there's the dream for the 1440.
Huge airtime.
Huge airtime that's what's necessary.
But, do you know how long you actually need in the air
to do a 1440?
Man, no idea. It feels like ages.
Feels like ten seconds in the air.
Feels like everything... I mean it's so fast.
MATT:
NICHOLI:
and such a big airtime when it does happen
that it just feels like... It feels like forever in the air.
What if I told you that at District Ride in 2017
you had only two seconds of air time to do four full rotations.
-That's all you had. -Dude, that's...
Like can you imagine trying to do that on the ground now?
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
All right, are you ready? Three, two, one. Go.
One, two, three, four.
Two point six five.
Go! Two, three, four.
How do you think you did?
|FABIO WIBMER| I think it was like a two point one.
-Two point five. -Oh, two point five.
Oh, damn it, I don't know how he's doing it.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]
There's no way you can go faster than that?
Oh, my God! I feel sick.
Why would anyone ever want to do that though?
I'm putting my helmet and goggles on for this one.
FABIO: One, go.
[FABIO LAUGHS]
How did I do?
You were like a three point eight.
Three point eight?
You would probably need the biggest jump in this whole world.
I almost had it.
But you actually spin faster than that on your bike
than you could even do in a car park.
That's crazy. I guess it's the rotational force off the lip,
the heinous car that gives me that extra point six that I need.
So, yeah, it's not even possible without a bike,
and, yet, on a bike you're the only guy in the world that could do that.
But, man, I'm dizzy after that one. And after a real one, I'm not dizzy.
My brain, literally, can't process how fast it happens.
Like right there I was like processing four rotations
but in the air this kinda happens so you don't feel the dizziness.
Obviously, you were at Red Bull Joyride,
this is Crankworx, Whistler.
Are we gonna see the 1440 right here at this slopestyle contest?
Oh, man. I can't give that away.
It's, obviously, the ultimate crowd-pleaser.
The ultimate big move.
So, I'm, obviously, hoping to bring it out, but--
Could you do it?
I think it's possible, but I also thought it was possible in Rotorua
and that was a big slam.
So, I'm, obviously, trying to bring it out.
If I feel the confidence, and if I need it to win on the day,
then it's gonna be sent. So, hopefully, soon.
-Thanks. -Cheers, dawg.
COMMENTATOR 1:
This is what Red Bull Joyride is all about.
We called it the Super Bowl of slopestyle for a good reason.
Without further ado, let's get this on.
What?
COMMENTATOR 3:
changing in the air with a 360 tailwhip.
This is a huge cork 720.
COMMENTATOR 1:
COMMENTATOR 3:
COMMENTATOR 1:
1080 twist. Oh, my gosh.
COMMENTATOR 2:
Emil Johannson has won Red Bull Joyride 2019.
Well, there you have it. We didn't see the 1440
at this year's Red Bull Joyride but the trick is still out there.
And I'm sure we're going to see it soon.
In fact, we might even see it from one of you watchers at home,
spinning four full rotations.
If you are keen to check out more cool bike content
then you can check out Red Bull Bikes YouTube channel,
and my personal YouTube channel, Matt Jones,
for way more awesome mountain bike videos.
Thank you, everyone. Legends.
[UPBEAT MUSIC PLAYING]