Talking Rampage and Judging with Caleb Holonko

Like many of you, I have been having a tough time making sense of this year's Redbull Rampage on the men's side.* And yet, it was one of the best ever. Maybe even the best. Having so many top to bottom runs completed was incredible viewing. Virtually very rider was mesmerizing to watch and the progression year over year was hard to fathom. It wasn’t long ago that a flat drop 360 or backflip was something monumental. This year the price of admission was front flips, combos, double backs (one with a stall!) and flip whips. Does that sound a little like slopestyle? Not so much when Tom Van Steenbergen’s front flip is on one of the biggest drops on the course, or with Brandon Semenuk landing an opposite tailwhip, 26’ down to a lilypad.

*It's great to have to make that distinction

Despite all of that goodness, many viewers, myself included, are left feeling a little confused. There are so many questions about how the final order was determined by the judges. Should Semenuk have won? Should Rampage be judged more like a slopestyle event or like a big mountain contest? Does it make any sense to have Brendan Fairclough finish in 11th place? Should Tom Van Steenbergen have at least made the podium after nailing what Caleb Holonko calls the " the gnarliest move ever on a mountain bike?"

Finding a sensible and educated voice to make sense of Rampage is a difficult task. Obviously talking to someone who has ridden at Rampage makes a lot of sense but anyone who was in the competition this year would admit to their biases. Or at least they should. The viewing public, who feel invested in the competition and hold Rampage sacred, know what they saw and think that information, despite it generally being digested on screens thousands of miles from Utah, is all they need. (psst - it's not)

I have been to Rampage several times, so I have some idea about what's going on, but that was years ago. The judges spend a lot of time scoping lines beforehand to get a real sense of the scale and challenges of each rider's line, and what it takes to link moves together. They know what they are doing but, like all humans, they have biases; their views are altered by everything from their own experiences to their relationships with the riders, their sponsors and even their nationalities. That doesn't invalidate their decisions, but without more transparency, the perception of bias grows. I don't blame them for not wanting to explain themselves either; nobody in their right mind would wade into the cauldron of vitriol I've seen from Rampage fans on virtually every platform. This may explain why this year the judges' visibility has been at an all time low. I wanted some coherent answers but I was at a loss about who to talk to.

A recent stroke of luck landed me at a dinner with Caleb Holonko, who was been a Rampage digger four times, ending in 2023. It quickly became clear that Caleb had valuable insight into how the judges came to their conclusions, this year and last, and about how the rest of us often (but not always) miss the mark in our criticism of their decisions. He was thoughtful and articulate and it was clear he'd already given this a lot of thought. I was particularly impressed by his explanation of the less noticeable factors and nuances that might separate a podium run from one that was judged to be mid pack. I talked him into sitting down with me and picked his brain.

Below are some excerpts from our 45-minute conversation separated into categories. I had to leave a lot out but there's a fair bit to chew on and I learned a lot.

Tom's Front Flip in 2024 Vs. Zink's Back Flip in 2023

Caleb Holonko - When you break Cam's flip down from his winning run of 2023, there is a series of moves before that which need to be linked together, making it mandatory to jump off that feature, which was the rebuilt Icon Sender. The fluidity and active linking of three enormous features really outweighs one big feature in a Rampage run. It’s judged on difficulty, and while many people may see it as just Cam doing one big drop, a skipper, and a big backflip off the Icon Sender, there’s much more to it.

When we look at this year's Best Trick winner, Tom Van Steenbergen, who has done the gnarliest move ever on a mountain bike, he breaks his run up with a big drop at the start. There’s a nice break where he cruises into a step-down, does the step-down, a casual hip landing, and then has about 150 feet to prepare for the front flip with a well-manicured run-in and turn that sets him up perfectly. By comparison, Cam Zink’s feature had an offset lip that wasn’t centred in the landing, and a much skinnier landing target with zero practice - he maybe hit it four times before the event.

Tom and other riders had years to work up to flipping the drop on the Price is Right. I don’t want to take away from how big Tom’s drop was, but having a feature with 250 feet of run-out is definitely gnarly. In contrast, Cam was jumping onto a raised earth bridge, and if he missed, he wouldn't just hit dirt or rocks—he would fall numerous feet. The consequences are enormous on both sides, but the landing situation for Cam was much riskier.

The setup for Cam’s backflip required him to link three things perfectly just to have the chance to flip the Icon. After Kyle Strait broke his back in 2022, they gave up on that project. In 2023, they rebuilt it so they could hit it. Meanwhile "Price is Right" had been in use since 2018. What the general public saw was a huge backflip and a perfect landing, but the difficulty lay in stringing together three consecutive gnarly moves at exactly the right speed.

Tom’s front flip required precision, but he had more time to prepare compared to Cam, who had to hit his drop at full speed coming out of a corner. Both were insanely committing, but Cam’s commitment to link three features before the flip added another layer of difficulty.

Brendan Fairclough's Final Placing

Caleb Holonko - It's very hard to have Brendog's skill translate in big and open terrain like that because he makes it look so easy and he's so calculated with the way he dissects and goes through enormous exposure and maintains control of speed through really rough terrain, which other riders never go through. They ride through...

CM - Manicured lines?

Caleb Holonko - Manicured, but it's still... That's another thing that Rampage on video doesn't translate is the explosions of landings and dirt and stuff. It's not just like nice and easy concrete. It may look like that, but it's really unpredictable.

Brendog's line unfortunately doesn't translate as crazy because he stops, dissects and picks his way down nicely. The exposures on his line are severe, unbelievable. That doesn't translate at all to the broadcast and then the judges make the call that it looks easy because Brendog makes it look too easy.

If somebody went through there like screaming down like an average rider, that would make it look unbelievably scary. But since Brendog is so composed and rides it so naturally, it's hard for the judges to see the wow factor. And that's what Rampage is too, it's a show.

Brendog brings a lot of eyes to the show, but the viral clicks don't come from slow motion, exposed, goat paths. You're rewarded at Rampage for having huge moments but you can't see exposure on video. It doesn't translate, unfortunately. Unless it's POV. If any mortal soul stood on any of Brendog's or any Rampage line you'd almost puke. 

Even his line up onto the rock, the way, again, he makes it look so easy, but he lands back wheel, front wheel, and then glides forward. It's so perfect. The execution of everything that he does makes it so hard for people to have any kind of relation to the size of stuff that's going on. Like that lip that he built is like, it's gotta be like eight, 10 feet tall to get on the rock. And for him to be able to control his speed, to have the perfect amount of speed to get onto that rock is phenomenal after what he came out of.

Then his rock plop, the run out is gnarlier than the drop and he makes the run out look like nothing. And unfortunately, it's so hard for judges to reward that and they did in the past, but him going back and just cleaning his old run, not his old run, but cleaning parts and segments of the old run that he's ridden in years past don't get as heavily rewarded as if he was to do like a new run out or something like that, unfortunately.

He back flipped the same Canyon gap but a lot of stuff was different. Obviously his Jordie chute was... It's an insane line, but I don't think it was an upgrade to the triple drop right hand corner chute that he had previously that Tommy G front flipped out of after he rode the chute. Like that's an incredible, incredible call.

It did not necessarily make a wow factor and a big reward for his line. So his other chute arguably was one of the best parts to me on his previous years at that site because of the uniqueness of it. Whereas Jordy's chute is amazing, but it's straight. You go straight and you go slow and you plop.

I don't think it's the most difficult thing in the world, but it's still insane to do that on a mountain bike. And he just does it like nothing and it makes it look so easy. And it doesn't make it any easier for the judges when it looks easy.

Caleb's Take on the Standings

It's fun for me to think about this because it's a good debate in my own head. There's no perfect answer. I believe that Brendan Fairclough was severely underscored and potentially should have been ranked above a seventh place finish, above Carson Storch's 85 or above eighth place above Adolf because Adolf's line was great but Brendan's line, like Adolf and Ethan and Carson they all were doing like the textbook line down the hill. So did Tom and so did Szymon Godziek.

To me the only super unique lines were Brandon, Tyler, Sorge, Fairclough, for what I really care about. McCaul's is crazy. Linking all those big features together is super rewarding, but when you're not throwing multiple combos on them, it's hard for you to move up in rank, I believe, and score more points than the next person that's doing it.

I'd love to see Brendan finish around like a fifth or a sixth where he fits in with Kurt and Tommy G and Carson. Like those guys are throwing big moves off really big consequential features. And Brendog is throwing big moves off big features, but he's not spinning and flipping drops like they want to see at Rampage. Which is a big part of Rampage in the scoring is you being able to spin and flip off drops and step downs. Brendan does back flips and rides crazy tech and gnar, but his goat ridge or goat paths into like big open swath corners. You have to ask yourself, who do those beat out? Carson starts spinning a 35 foot drop and over rotating and holding on. And Carson also flips into a huge open natural chute, crazy. His top part wasn't the best, but when you break it down like that, does he beat like Carson's run? And then Tommy G's run, which was fantastic. Huge, huge moves that you have to link together? Like the really big drop into the really big jump. Those have to go together perfectly.

T-Mac's Fourth Place

CM - So tell me about T-Mac's line because he was scored, obviously he was on the podium and I think for a lot of people wonder if there were some stronger runs below him.

Caleb - I believe Tyler had the biggest drop on the course vertically.

CM - Which he straight aired.

Caleb - Which he straight airs, but it's an enormous drop. His new canyon gap is crazy. And that is a mandatory link with another huge new drop that he built for this year.

He suicide no-handered it, gets on the bike and then skips across into a must make shark fin, hip thing, then he has to hit a corner going perfect speed and then jump a 75-foot canyon gap. It's that link. That's why that link is rewarded higher than the Tom Van Steenbergen's single move front flip and that's why they gave Tyler McCaul the edge over Tom in my honest opinion.

More on the Judges

They talk all the time. They sit in a booth, watch the broadcast and talk and come up with the best score together. But I don't know if anybody sees each other's scores for each run, but it would be great to get those publicly available or broadcasted and those guys or those people that are willing to judge other people can be judged themselves.

They have the power to change people's lives with the numbers that they put up and the opinions that they share onto the riders should be able to be translated and given back to the judges in the same manner that they get to dish it out. Like if you can dish it out, you should be able to take it as well. And it feels very protective and very elementary of the event to hold the judges scores privately and behind closed doors when these riders have everything on the line and they just get this number and don't get a fucking reason why. 

And the judges are paid the same no matter what they do. They collect their paycheck, but they decide who gets paid more at the end of the day. And they really need to be comfortable and proud of the work that they're doing and willing to put it up for debate publicly if they want to have any credibility after the fact of saying yes or no to this run or this trick. You need to be able to defend it if you're going to make that judgement. Especially after so many years of different dramas and stuff like that, it's really becoming old to sit here and speculate and talk about it like we are right now. There hasn't been a year where there hasn't been a rob. There was a couple of good years where like the top three were like pretty damn good. And I was stoked on that. And then there was, you know, like five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10, 11, 12 and on. Like you can debate on that a lot. But... Norbz forever. Poor guy. 

Kyle Strait's Incredible Save

Kyle Strait's line was fantastic, but he should have been deducted. If he tail-whipped that and landed it clean, would he have had 10 more points and been at 88 and beaten Kurt Sorge's run and been one point behind Tom van Steenbergen? Cause that's what it looks like to me. And that's a crazy, crazy score.

A 78 when ball riding a tail whip, and yes, muscling it out and that's crazy, but that's not a make. There's huge deductions for people not tricking and not doing stuff and not making pedals on a tail whip is basically like you did a straight air and missed your trick entirely.

That's what it is on the judge's scorecard. Missing a huge feature in your run and attempting to do it should not put you above the masterfully-crafted, beautiful display of free ride mountain biking that Brendan put on.

Should the Judging Format be Tweaked?

I think there should be an opportunity to change up the way the Rampage is run by giving each rider the opportunity to complete one or two runs and the best of their two runs they get to submit and judge.

Maybe after one run you get a score and Rampage is still on for the rest of the day and you get the rest of the day to have the opportunity to drop in and re-run order after you're judged on your first runs. In that way, they don't end up juggling all these scores and setting baseline scores on first runs.

Fairclough dropped in 14th. They set scores of earlier riders as templates, hoping that everybody does a second run and tries to improve on their run. Then they try to fill in these gaps.

The people that do a second run have to get slotted in and fit into these weird places. I mean it's terrible to go first, but Brandon went first and almost landed the run of his life. He could have been the first to drop and won the entire thing. Would that have played a difference in scores for people like Tom Van Steenberg and Simon Godziak if he landed the first run? Because he might've been scored a little bit lower so they had space. And they believe Brandon has more in the tank. And the first run, he doesn't have to go to that next level and you know, start tail-whipping other features and whatever he was going to do.

But it's an absolute spider web to navigate this whole thing and I really wish that people would understand that.

Is it Time to for Fresh Blood in the Judges' Chairs?

Would it dishonour Rampage to change the judges that have been doing it for so long? Would it be part of the Rampage evolution to change the judging panel and the structure? It's Red Bull Rampage and it changes every year. So much. And it changes riding wise, it changes venues, it changes sport and it changes culture. The judges should be open to criticism and critique and change. I would like to see a change up just to see where it goes and see some reform in judging structure obviously. I really love the guys that do it now and they're great individuals but I believe it's time for a change of some of the guard in there.

Rampage has never been perfect and why should it be? So if they change it, what's the worst that can happen? Somebody's gonna get fucking robbed? Well, it happens every year. /Caleb Holonko

My Thoughts About Judging Changes

I appreciate the challenge the judges face and I realize that what they are doing is incredibly difficult. I believe they take the task seriously and are conscientious, hard working and thoughtful about the task. I also know I couldn't do what they do and that their years of experience gives them the credibility to do the job. Or at least it did in the past, before so many fans' cynicism reached a boiling point. And now it seems trust needs to be re-established.

There are a lot of things that could be done with judging to moderate bias and end block scoring. An obvious one is to have two more judges and then knock off the high and low scores for each rider. Beyond that, each judge's scores could be kept confidential so they make their own decisions rather than having one or more judges sway the proceedings.

Some clarity about how the judges are voting would help us understand as well. Are they breaking their scores into categories like amplitude, flow, style line choice, or simply picking a score based on overall impression? I remember this being stated more clearly in the past but not recently. And is anyone clear whether this is still a big mountain contest or simply a slopestyle on a big mountain?

And finally, if they have nothing to hide, the voting should be made public. The furor over the standings this year was louder than ever, with several riders' placings being hotly debated. I don't agree with all of the naysayers, and Caleb's insight has moderated my views, but there is obviously some reason why people are so damned angry.

There's nothing like Rampage and part of allowing it to to thrive and continue for years to come should involve helping viewers understand how the voting process works and making it less secretive. And doing whatever it takes to restore public trust in the process.

Let's hope Red Bull takes this seriously.