I've avoided commenting on anything about Rampage as I can't be bothered typing it out on a phone to become a little snippet on Instagram. I've hit a lot of big stuff in my time and taken a lot of risks on a bike, both while racing and just going out riding. But all of the decisions have been entirely my own. Of the few sponsors I bothered with having I was never reliant on a single big thing to keep those sponsors, and in any case I was never trying to make a career from it, it was only ever a hobby.
What's changed in recent years is that sponsors are all about clicks and likes, and lots of riders are making decisions based on those potential likes and views rather than a true risk judgement. Look at any high risk process in industry and pressured decisions are always minimised wherever possible so that a true sense of judgement can be exercised. No, none of these riders sat on the start line with a gun to their head as such but they did have a metaphorical gun from their sponsors. The world is all about bigger, bigger and bigger again and in the sponsored rider world you have minimal time in which to show your talents and get the attention your sponsors crave, thus you are under pressure to push ever harder and slim down the safety margin ever more in an attempt to stand out. Just look at one of the Forte's vids that was doing the rounds last week where he was gapping and hipping something on the edge of a cliff in Malaga. The cliff was 150m+ tall. And the disrespect shown to anyone saying 'this doesn't seem worth it' showed that there is at least minimal care given. Lewis Buchanan was doing similar stupid stuff in Squamish where the consequence of missing the gap would be death. In Lewis' case he is pushing his limits and attentions seeking in an attempt to stay relevant on social media so he can continue getting his onlyfans money. That's clouded judgement, and clouded judgement is flawed judgement. The same goes with Gee. Sure, he'd be doing big stuff but without the social media lens he wouldn't be doing stuff with so much objective risk around location because there'd simply be no need without the audience to say 'OMG, have you seen this?' while clicking 'share'.
I respect Brendan hugely last year for saying enough is enough when he was taking risks and not getting rewarded because he wasn't going down the slopestyle route. In these decisions you have likelihood, and you have consequence, and together they form the overall risk. The likelihood can be minimised with talent, but the closer you push to your limit that will always increase. Consequence is the same regardless of if you're good or not; fall off a cliff or land on your head from more than a few feet up and you will be in a world of trouble. I've definitely got a different view of risk to some people, even to myself ten years ago and so some of these changed views will come out in these comments but I know many good riders who have raced World Cups who are questioning the direction and the decisions being made. I'm absolutely not judging these people for making such decisions, I'm judging the world that's making people feel like these decisions even need contemplated.
In my own world, I have in the past done winter and alpine climbing routes where there has been serious risk involved but never have I had at the back of my mind 'I need to do this for the likes (or free kit, or whatever)'. And having watched one of my closest friends die while we were on a route in Italy that neither of us wanted to be on any more, I have much, much less tolerance for risk in myself and those I still choose to climb with. But in the decisions which led us to be in that place and on that day, it was entirely out of the love of being in the mountains and in a sensational place. Neither of us were attempting to get likes and our judegements were entirely unclouded by those outside pressures. Maybe wrong in assessment of the objective danger of the route and believing we could mitigate it sufficiently with our ability, but not clouded by outside pressures. But if you're a sponsored athlete you don't have that luxury, and a large portion of your income will come from social media streams, particularly if you're not A-tier.
So to those saying 'they chose to do it'. Yes, they did, but they did so under pressure from the modern sponsorship landscape, the modern world, and its infatuation with seeing ever bigger stuff in an ever more disconnected way, and to say otherwise is to grossly simplify and misunderstand what people are concerned about, and I for one want to have no part in that. I don't want to watch people have life changing accidents, or worse, life ending, and I will not support that particular avenue of the sport with the views it so craves.
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