Darren ‘Claw’ Berrecloth gives us a quick two minute rundown of Rampage’s history and what 2016’s ‘return to natural lines’ actually means.

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Yep, for 2016 Red Bull Rampage is going retro. They’re ditching all the wooden ramps and other super-built ‘slopstyle’ structures and returning to sculpting the raw dirt and riding the hill as it is. Pretty much anyway.

Rampage started ten years with a handful of pioneering freeriders teetering their way off precipitous lips and then dust-busting their way down sketchy run-outs with maybe a small no-tricks jump stuffed in there hurriedly at the end.

This video features three of the original freeride fellows: Darren Berrecloth, Kurt Sorge and the legendary Josh Bender.

Berrecloth is the main speaker in the vid and he explains really well how Rampage evolved into the slopestyle event it’s been for the past few years.

It essentially started when riders began being confident enough to thrown in tricks into the jumps – one footers, seat grabs etc – and this sort of started a move towards trick-based riding rather than the ‘holy s**t WTF’ death-defying plummets that Rampage actually began with.

This trick-based vibe ended up resulting in some pretty dubious judging and scores from the jury at Red Bull Rampage. How these jury is going to judge this year’s runs without tricks being at the forefront is going to be interesting to see.

2016 sees a return to the plummeting and a seeming abandonment of showy tricks. We shall see if this is actually the case. We suspect a lot of riders will find it irresistible to bung a couple of tricks in there as well!

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A whole new venue certainly means that a fresh start is on the cards in some form or other.