Last week, Mt. Bachelor, a resort renowned for grooming some of the best all-mountain riders in the world hosted Red Bull Landing Gear. Landing Gear is new concept in which nine teams of two riders apiece were given three days on-hill at Bachelor to film each other and edit a 90-second part, with the winning team taking home $10,000. The roster was stacked with eighteen riders with differentiating styles of riding. The teams were:
Brock Crouch & Sean FitzSimons: The Bush Pigs
Nora Beck & Kai Huggins: Team Gonzo
Arthur Longo & Olivier Gittler: The Charcuterie Boarders
Max Reger & Alissa Bricourt: The Freshmen
Cannon Cummins & Jadyn Chomlack: The Sick Dawgz
Craig McMorris & Mikey Ciccarelli: Team Golf Canada
Ben Ferguson & Gabe Ferguson: The Fried Fergs
Valentino Guseli & Dane Menzies: Prestige Worldwide
Jared Elston & Dru Brownrigg: Sloth
For three days straight, the teams either sent off on their own or grouped up and sessioned together on a multitude of hits all around Bachelor. From tree taps to field-goal-threading booters to traditional wedges and of course Mt. Bachelor’s infamous cornice, there were nearly half-a-dozen sessions going off at any given moment and when the snow settled, the teams took to editing, giving the judges just as hard of a time picking a winner as the riders had with the task at hand.
The judging panel was comprised of three first ballot Hall of Famers in Bend, Oregon local Annie Fast, one of our culture’s most legendary and trusted voices, Scott Stevens, one of the best to ever strap in (and then unstrap one of those feet), and media mogul, The Bombhole podcast host and professional snowboarder Chris Grenier. The three judges have amassed decades worth of snowboard knowledge in the video part landscape and with the riders submitting all of their edits by noon on Saturday, they began their deliberations behind closed doors.
The after party was at The River Pig in downtown Bend as hundreds of people packed in to watch the edits and the winner would be revealed. The single best part of this event was watching how each team creatively approached their edits. Teams like Ben and Gabe, Jared and Dru, Max and Alissa, Brock and Sean and Nora And Kai went the traditional video part route with hammer ater hammer, while other teams like Craig and Mikey, Valentino and Dane, Arthur and Oli and Cannon and Jadyn went with a less traditional route in their themes and editing style, giving the audience nine different ways to look at Mt. Bachelor and the possibilities that lie inbounds.
In the end, the team that took home the win and $10k in cash was none other than Bend local boys “Sloth,” Jared Elston and Dru Brownrigg. From Jared ripping his back binding out of the inserts of his pro model to rebating it with a gigantic back seven off the cornice and Dru flying around Bachelor and sending it off of everything with effortless style, Sloth put together an edit that forced the judges to connect with it and they handed them the win. All in all, it was a wonderful week at one of my favorite mountains in the world and the people involved are what really made it. From the Red Bull crew to the Mt. Bachelor squad and all the riders involved, it was a special week and quite frankly, I hope this event is here to stay for the long haul.
