Red Bull Skylines. Paris, France. By BdJ

Nov 10, 2012

Written by Bart de Jong

Read 3200 times

Exactly a week ago the Red Bull Skylines event took place in the Grand Palais in Paris, France. When entering that building, you can only look at the glass roof and the size of it. It's huge. So building a BMX course in that building almost automatically meant that the ramps had to be on the large scale too. They were. In fact they were so big that riders started making calls for bigger sprockets so they could get more speed to clear the gaps and do the many lines that they had in mind. From one wall to the other was nearly 100 meters. Sprinting back and fourth 3 times meant that you had almost cleared a BMX track. It took some getting used to the size of the ramps and the new shapes of it, but the 25 invited riders were ready to take it on.

Paul and I drove up there on the Wednesday, just in time for the welcome dinner, IN the Eiffel tower. The entire restaurant there was rented to make the riders, and media feel like this was going to be a serious happening. Thursday was used for practice all day with the event happening on the Friday.

With some side events going on earlier in the day, everyone had to leave the building. The riders got an extra hour of practice before the final program started at night. It was dark outside so the roof turned black, but the lights that were pointed at the roof gave away its incredible shape. Over 5000 people paid to get in. The Grand Palais was sold out. For a BMX contest. Pretty insane if you ask me.

Darryl Nau and John Petit were the hosts for the night. They got the crowd going from the start. The riders made their entrance from the stairs, and were welcomed like gladiators. Matthias Dandois did a couple of flatland tricks for the people who had showed up but this wasn't about flatland, the Skylines event was about the opposite; going BIG.

From 25 riders, the best 12 would make it to the semi final round. Here's how the first qualifying heat results looked like.

Skylines results round one:
1 18 Enarson Dennis USA 90.00 3
2 11 Hennon Ben GBR 87.40 2
3 16 Dhers Daniel VEN 84.20 3
4 24 Nyquist Ryan USA 83.20 4
5 10 Beran Michael CZE 83.00 2
6 23 Sandoval Daniel USA 82.00 4
7 22 Casey Pat USA 80.60 4
8 4 Taylor Ryan GBR 79.00 1
9 12 Young Gary USA 78.00 2

10 8 Keep Bas GBR 77.00 2
11 17 Charveron Maxime FRA 74.80 3
12 14 Warden Zack USA 74.20 3

13 25 Bezanson Drew CAN 73.60 4
14 15 Coleborn Alex GBR 71.40 3
15 6 Darden Rob USA 68.80 1
16 5 Wedemeijer Daniel NED 68.00 1
17 20 Kalkoff Kevin FRA 67.60 4
18 3 Clark Jack GBR 67.00 1
19 2 Barbero Alessandro ITA 66.60 1

20 13 Napolitan Anthony USA 66.40 3
21 21 Kyle Kriss GBR 63.80 4
22 1 Stark Dylan USA 63.00 1
23 19 Jeanjean Anthony FRA 62.20 4
24 7 Lantschner Stefan ITA 59.80 2
25 9 Alcantara Ruben ESP 58.00 2

Riders in place 13 - 25 would be a good riders field in any contest and it's a shame they only got to ride in one jam session. With the ramps being so big and the heat of a 5000+ crowd, some of the riders gave it some extra and got hurt. The next rider on the list would take the transfer spot so a few of the guys were on stand-by for a bit. Maxime Charveron, Pat Casey and Alex Coleborn had to pull out of competition but they stayed around to watch the madness go on. After some side events to keep the crowd entertained the following riders made the final and this is how it ended up:

Final results Red Bull Skylines. 2 November 2012. Grand Palais, Paris, France.
1 24 Nyquist Ryan USA F 90.80 1988
2 18 Enarson Dennis USA F 89.40 1988

3 16 Dhers Daniel VEN F 89.00 1988
4 11 Hennon Ben GBR F 86.60 1988
5 23 Sandoval Daniel USA F 83.80 1988
6 4 Taylor Ryan GBR F 83.60 1988
7 10 Beran Michael CZE F 82.80 1988
8 12 Young Gary USA F 82.00 1988
9 8 Keep Bas GBR F 78.40 1988
10 6 Darden Rob USA F 75.20 1988
11 25 Bezanson Drew CAN F 70.40 1988
12 14 Warden Zack USA F 67.80

After being sidelined for a while with a messed up hand Ryan Nyquist was back. Just a week after winning the Dew Tour Dirt title, the HARO rider won the Red Bull Skylines event in Paris, AND the best trick award for doing a double barspin canonball. Second place went to Dennis Enarson who also rec

eived the Riders Choice award of the weekend. Red Bull's Daniel Dhers got third on his flashy new Specialized bike.

A big thank you goes out to Red Bull for putting on such an event for BMX. An amazing time was had by all. On to the next one.

BdJ