We catch up with Knolly Bikes and O’Neal team rider James Doerfling after one of the most exciting and controversial Rampages ever.

James didn’t quite make the cut for the final runs but Rampage is as much about the build-up, preparation and digging, with all the associated speculation and media excitement around who is going to hit what, as it is about the final runs. And James certainly didn’t disappoint on the anticipation and big lines front by working on and hitting what Pinkbike described as possibly the biggest drop Rampage has ever seen over the 10 years of riders pushing our sport to the very limits of sanity and what is possible on 2 wheels:

Building ‘THE DROP’:

“Finding this Drop on the first day we showed up to scout the coarse was a blessing and made me pretty excited to have a big technical drop mid-run on the mountain! As my team started tackling this drop it became to be a little more of build than we expected…

The run-in and lip of the drop was a pure slab of rock so we had to chip away at it for what seemed like days. After the second day I was starting to think it might not work…but my team didn’t want to give up. Then on the morning of the next day we finished it and I hit it for the first time and it work flawlessly! The transition was so smooth I hardly used any of the suspension on my Knolly! All I can say is if it wasn’t for the sheer determination of Mitch Cheek, Jeremy Stoward and Julie Palmantier (my Dig team) this drop would have never happened!” Stay tuned for more Doerfling big mountain riding as we catch-up with him and Scott Secco (the filmmaker behind the recent Builder movie) as James carves it up down the chutes in Williams Lake, making the most of the great conditions before the winter closes in…  

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