FREERIDE: You now live in Hawaii. Not exactly ideal for freeriding, is it?
Cam Zinc: That was my wife's wish. She once lived on the Hawaiian island of Oahu for a while and wanted to move here. She hates the cold, and the winters in Reno, Nevada are long and cold. She also thought it would be great for the kids. Ten years ago, I promised her we would do it. And now we are. Obviously I'm true to my word. Because now we live in Hawaii. But on the island of Maui, because there are better trails here. The compromise had to be made.
Such a move is 'It's a big deal, you leave your friends and acquaintances. Do you know anyone on Maui?
I know a few people now. For example, one of the best pro surfers: Albee Layer. He's my riding buddy on Maui. Because he wants to learn to bike better, I'm a cucumber at surfing and want to learn to surf. So it's a pretty cool relationship. The only thing missing on Maui is a big trick jump. But I'm getting an airbag delivered in a few days, then that gap will be filled. I also still have my property in Reno where I can train and film. That's why I'm pretty happy with the situation.
Are the trails on Maui that good?
Yes, they are. These are the kind of trails I ride at home. I'm not constantly hitting fat jumps. The trails here in Makawao are really good. My wife even said she'd never had so much fun on a bike as on the Pineapple Express trail on Maui. And she's already been to Mammoth and Whistler.
Do you see it the same way?
Pineapple Express is definitely not the most fun trail I've ever ridden. But among the public trails that you have to pedal yourself, it's one of the best. The trail is superbly built, has a lot of flow and there's even a 2-metre ladder drop. I can flip down it or do a 360 and then take my kids for a spin. So it's pretty ideal. And from the volcano you can ride down the Skyline Trail, which is pretty cool. You come out on the property of star presenter Oprah Winfrey, but that's tolerated.
Where did you prepare for the Rampage, certainly not here on Maui?
I was in Oregon. There are big jumps there. First I was filming, then I took part in the Profing Grounds competition, and then I flew to Utah a week before the Rampage. But I don't really need to prepare because I'm not going to learn anything new. And you don't want to learn anything new for this competition. At the Rampage, you want to do what you can do.
No preparation for the Rampage?
Not really. The best preparation is when you sit on the bike a lot and feel good. I always joke that if you're always ready, you don't have to get ready at all. For the Rampage, your head and body have to fit and you should be firing on all cylinders. It's not like in slopestyle, where Emil Johansson learns a new trick before the competition and then does it there for the first time. That doesn't work in the Rampage.
And did you fire on all cylinders?
In fact, I think it took me longer to find the right set-up for my new bike than it did to get ready for the competition. I felt great, maybe even better than ever. But then unforeseen things happened: problems with my downhill line and the bad crash involving my friend Kyle Strait.
"The Red Bull Rampage is my competition. I love competing with others and will always compete again!" says Cam Zink.
Did you want to win last October?
Oh yes. I compete to win. Every time. I don't even take part if I don't think I can win. If only for the reason that I don't want to take the spot away from anyone. There are only three new riders who are allowed to take part in the Rampage. I feel like I'm one of the favourites every time. But winning is easier said than done. The Rampage is tough.
You were the oldest participant this year. Are you feeling your age?
Next year I'll be the oldest person ever to take part. Darren Berrecloth was 36 the last time he took part, the same age as me this year.
Crazy! When I watched the Rampage in Utah for the first time in 2004, you were one of the youngest. Back then you attempted the first 360 drop.
I was 17 at the time and first had to find my bearings. The sport of freeriding itself had to find its bearings. This year, I did a ride with my trail builders before the competition to have a bit of fun. And we came to the cliff where I attempted the 360 drop back then. Oh boy, I wouldn't do a spin down there even today. There wasn't even a landing. It was crazy how good we were back then, even in that era, and how sick some of the descents were. Crazy stunts will never go out of fashion. Sure, the sport is evolving, but some things will always be cool. Take the Bender transmitter, for example. That's a big step-down. Kyle did a suicide no hander down it and won the 2004 Rampage. Tyler McCaul failed the stunt two years ago, jumped too far and ruined his ankle - and Tyler is a super good rider. It shows how badass the stunts were back then. That's why I love the Rampage, somehow it's timeless.
Let's talk about age again. Can you feel it?
No. I don't feel old. Even if many of my competitors are over ten years younger. Carson Storch joked: I'm too old for this crap. That made me laugh, because Carson is also ten years younger than me. I have more responsibility now with my family and children, but I don't feel old.
If age doesn't slow you down, what about mental hurdles? After all, you've already had some really nasty crashes at the Rampage. Do such crashes traumatise you?
It's a funny thing with crashes. Take Tom van Steenbergen. At the last Rampage, his front flip drop was perhaps one of the sickest stunts ever performed on a bike. And then he crashed while doing a backflip, which he jumped several times in training. Or Jordie Lunn, one of the boldest freeriders in the world. He died on a trail ride. In that respect, if I wasn't allowed to mountain bike at all, I would be worried about the risk. Because it can always happen. Mountain biking is dangerous as hell. Even if you're cruising through the forest on a trail. You're travelling at 30 km/h. If you hit a tree, it's like a car accident. In contrast, the stunts at the Rampage are calculated. The riders are ready, mentally strong, they have visualised the stunts and change them so that they work. When they jump, they are 100 per cent focused. In that respect, the Rampage is even safer.
I recently saw the YouTube clip from 2013 when you jumped over the Canyon Gap, flew over the handlebars at a height of ten metres and hit the flat. Horror. An absolute nightmare. How do you cope with that?
It's a nightmare that's been haunting me for a long time. Long before this happened. I know a lot of bike and motocross athletes who have nightmares like that - overshooting the landing, flying high through the air and knowing that it's about to really hurt. I didn't even break anything when I fell over the canyon gap. I don't want to build up any false self-confidence now. But if something like that can happen to me and I can take it, then I can take a lot more. But I agree with you, of course such crashes leave traces in the subconscious. Probably every bad experience, emotional, social. They're there somewhere. That's why people go on ayahuasca trips to get rid of them. For me it depends on the right perspective: 1. do I want to do it? 2. what are the risks? 3. what do I have to do to block out all the disruptive factors?
When people see you on the starting podium of the Rampage, you look cool, almost relaxed.
After I jumped the upper drop for the first time in training and it went well, I was also relaxed. The drop was dangerous and scary because it was so exposed. I had the rest of my run down, so I was relaxed. It was a substitute solution because the line I had originally planned didn't work. But normally I always have a stunt planned for the Rampage, which is absolutely nerve-wracking.
So no winning line this time?
Unfortunately, the alternative line was not a winning line. Top 5 if it went well and depending on what the other riders showed. But no victory. That would only have been possible with the original line, but Kyle's crash intervened and we lost too much time.
How did his fall and the uncertainty about how badly he had injured himself affect you?
That put me in a precarious, nasty position. Imagine that: Your best friend is leaning on your shared line and you don't know whether he's going to live or die. I didn't know that at first. He had definitely broken his back. How do you deal with a situation like that? And then you only have a few hours until it gets dark with the unfinished line. I was completely exhausted and didn't even know how to continue at first.
How could the fall happen to you veteran?
Only because we pushed it too hard. Normally we are very careful. But we didn't get any further with the jump combination and then Kyle wanted to go for it. That was headless. We should have realised that the stunts wouldn't work like that. He jumped too short and rolled over.
How badly did he hurt himself?
He has broken four vertebrae. You can hardly get any closer to paraplegia than that, because the nerve was already trapped. He flew 15 metres, skidded another 15 metres and came to rest in front of a 2-metre ledge. If he had fallen down there, it would have looked bad. He came to a halt a few centimetres away, a few centimetres away from paraplegia. Despite how bad it was, it was really good afterwards. The spine was stabilised, the vertebrae stiffened and shortly afterwards he was walking around without a back brace. I heard that he was operated on by the same doctor who had operated on Paul Basagoitia back in 2015 after his Rampage crash. I posted his crash on Insta. Within a very short time, the crash had 4 million views.
Apparently people like crashes. Kind of sick, isn't it? Maybe it's part of the human condition.
I also watched Brages Vestavik's crash at the 2021 Rampage on repeat. Is it sensationalism? Schadenfreude? No. More out of horror of what can happen.
Well, I also posted the clip to explain a bit about what happened. However, I'm surprised that something like this is watched so much more often than anything else. I wish people would watch landed stunts as often as a crash like Kyle Strait had.
Perhaps it's because people today can no longer be surprised by anything. Everything seems possible. It's only when it goes wrong that you realise just how blatant the stunt really was. Successful stunts look too smooth for people to be blown away. You've probably seen too much already.
The judges at the Rampage also have to deal with this. If you make your run look too smooth, it's no good. Thomas Genon is a good example of this. He is so smooth and is always underrated for it. On the other hand, if you make your run look too sketchy, it's not good either. Then they think you don't have it under control.
You do your run with music in your ear. What are you listening to?
I have a long playlist. I'm happy to share it with FREERIDE readers. It's not music to spur me on, more to calm me down. I use the music to get into the "zone", as I call it. It's a kind of autopilot that I switch on.
You can tell some drivers are tense, others not at all. Why is that?
Jaxson Riddle, for example, is pretty relaxed at the start. That's also because he's not out to win. He's doing his own thing. He wants to ride down the mountain as stylishly as possible instead of putting himself in a position where he should be really nervous. I think that's great. Every rider has their own unique approach.
Jaxson Riddle or Dylan Stark seem to be in a completely different mood than freeriders like you or Kurt Sorge. Dylan even had a railing built into his run.
Crazy, right? Dylan smuggled in a railing to do a railslide. (laughs). I think that's great about the Rampage. You don't have to let a course builder dictate your run, as is usually the case in slopestyle competitions. If you want to do the biggest drop - build it yourself. But if you want to do six scrubs in a row, that's also possible. You can do whatever you want.
Nevertheless, it looks like the competition judges tend to favour the big mountain slopestyle runs.
Yes, terrible. I hate judging.
This is surprising, because this time Darren Berrecloth was a real freerider on the jury.
Totally. In the past, he was the one who complained the most about the judging and moaned that the slopestyle faction was so heavily favoured. I don't think the judgements really make sense. Either you put the emphasis on tricks or on the steep, gnarly freeride lines. But constantly switching back and forth is rubbish.
Have you spoken to Darren?
Yes, Darren said that Brett Rheeder's run was awesome. But I wonder how you can categorise Brandon Semenuk worse when he chose the steepest descent, going all the way down the ridge. Has Darren forgotten just how gnarly the terrain is up there? I don't get it. The best example: Rampage 2017: Kurt Sorge took the easiest line down over the ridge, I took the hardest, almost vertically down the wall - but he beat me. WTF! So why the hell should I even take this killer couloir? The fact is, judging will always be difficult. But there has to be a better solution. I suggest that 60-70 per cent of the points should be awarded in the first half of the descent, where the terrain is steepest.
Andreu Lacondeguy also seemed very disappointed with his rating this year. How do you see that? I heard that he no longer wants to come to the Rampage.
Andreu is an emotional dude. You can't take that statement too seriously. I wouldn't be surprised if he doesn't come back or if he starts again. (laughs) One thing was obvious: he had a lot of fun at the Rampage. It's also his competition format. He doesn't have that many opportunities to show what he can do. I love the competition. And I love the Rampage. That's why I'll be back next year. Going to the desert with two friends who help you build a good line is a great adventure. Then you build a line you can be proud of, you have to jump the stunts for the first time and so on. There's a lot of emotion in the game. And a lot of hard work. But that's exactly what I want. That's rare in life.
What do you think of Andreus' departure?
His line was gnarly at the top and met all the criteria, but he lacked the highlights in the second part. The fact is, the assessment has to be consistent and mustn't swing one way or the other. We will ride the way we want to anyway. We don't just ride for the competition judges. Nevertheless, I always check the criteria. But if it turns out that the judges don't like steep, gnarly passages, I won't do it any more. Why should I take the risk if there are no points for it?
Nicholi Rogatkin addressed another point of criticism. He said that the first runs are judged worse per se because the judges want to leave themselves room for improvement.
Yes, that's right. But what a load of bollocks! I think the first runs should be rated even higher, because that's when the pressure is particularly high. In my eyes, a first run should also be able to win. There's no reason why not.
In 2019, you tried to incorporate a cash roll into your run. But you failed. Can you imagine incorporating it into one of your next Rampage runs?
Oh yes, that was my mission. Unfortunately, it only worked out for my video edit for the X Games. You need a very special jump for the cashroll. But I also think the cashroll is a great trick.
Which stunts have impressed you this year?
The ninja drop or caveman from Brandon Semenuk was pretty sick. I thought the barspin over the step-down was even sicker. I don't like barspins, so I couldn't care less. But I also know how hard they are. Especially on a big bike with downhill tyres and over a jump like that. It's hard for me to understand how that's possible.
Do you agree with the top 3 ranking?
No. I don't agree with that. If I focussed more on slopestyle, I would see Godziek's run in front. Because his run was perfect. The 360 drop right before the canyon gap was so awesome. The combination of spin drop and canyon flip was awesome. If I favoured big mountain, I'd put Brandon Semenuk in front.
You've celebrated triumphs and suffered defeats at the Rampage. How do you cope with that?
I had big plans this year, which unfortunately didn't materialise. That's why I was able to digest 10th place much better than 2nd place behind Kurt Sorge in 2017. I just couldn't understand that at the time. I was really angry for a long time. In 2014, I finished second behind Andreu Lacondeguy and I was just disappointed because I had seen it differently. But okay. In 2017, however, I was devastated and thought to myself: This isn't Rampage. One guy throws himself down the steep slope - me. And then the other one wins by rolling along the ridge - Kurt Sorge.
In other words, a love & hate relationship with Rampage.
Yes, the triumphs wouldn't taste so sweet if it were easy. The fight and the struggle are important.
Will the Rampage have some competition from the Red Bull Hardline?
No, I don't see it that way. Both events are great. One is judged by competition judges, the other is a race. I wouldn't want to ride the Hardline right now. Although.... maybe I would like to try it out.
And Proving Grounds?
This is a super event.
Critics say Proving Grounds is a step backwards. A kind of Adidas Slopestyle from 2006.
I think it's a step forwards. The Adidas slopestyle competitions, monster park slopestyles and even the first Crankworx events were heading in exactly the right direction: fat stunts, long jumps like in snowboarding or motocross. But then the sport moved closer to BMX. Proving Grounds, on the other hand, is a mixture of rampage and slopestyle. I think it's great and want to ride the whole series next year. The guys behind it are also great: snowboarder Travis Rice and surfer Kelly Slater. A lot can come out of it.
What are you doing this winter?
I would love to shoot a video here in Hawaii that mixes everything together. Big bike action like in my X-Games edit, street, trails. A bit like Fabio Wibmer did in Monaco. Along the lines of: Welcome to Maui with spearfishing and tow-in surfing.
We are excited. Especially your tow-in in big waves.
Dimitri Lehner
Editor
