Red Bull Hardline Pro Insights And Track Changes

What's up guys? We are here at Red Bull Hardline Tasmania. Today is track walk day, so we're going to catch up with some of the athletes, see how their off-seasons will be going, also check out all the new lines that have been put in, and get some of the riders' feedback on what they think of the new track. Right then, time for track walk. Pretty crazy entry for the drop-in. Looks so chill from the start here, but I can imagine when you get here as an athlete, your heart's going to be going pretty crazy. Looking forward to seeing what the guys think. So this is a brand new feature for this year. It's crazy, it's straight out of the start gate, and this drop already just looks incredible. It's so blind, and riders are really going to have to manage their speed and also pick their line early, and it just goes into an incredibly steep landing. So yeah, I'm trying to keep calm so people don't stress out, but yeah, it's definitely a pretty scary first drop, and within maybe 30 metres of dropping in off the first line of the track. So for perspective, it doesn't look like too much from here, but this is super steep, and also there's loads of rocks underneath the dirt, so once a few riders have been down that, that's definitely going to get pretty spicy under braking, and it's going to be hard for riders to slow down, and it goes straight off another drop just down below, so yeah, this is going to be a highlight feature, and definitely has added something extra into the mix for 2026. So you're not getting one, but two fresh features this year. You've got that first drop within 30 metres, and then you have to come down this chute and straight off another drop into a corner as well, and Dan Booker's already tested it. He says it goes well, but he did say, yeah, as it chews up, it's going to get pretty spicy as we get down below, but it's added a lot of speed to the track already. Dude, last year I went from here literally all the way to that hole. I went so far. Bounced, and then I almost didn't make it through. You guys are mad. Pre-hopping from there. Just so much of it's blind. I think that's what's making this track so difficult, is every single one of the drops, you just can't see where you're going to want to be landing. You're just kind of having to judge it as you go, and these guys are going so fast, they're having to pre-hop, which is crazy. So Asa, obviously you won the last hard line that happened. How are you feeling for this one? I mean, I'm stoked. Yeah, this one's a lot different than Wales, for sure. I was here last year and they changed the top a little bit, which is sick. It's looking good, more like a downhill track, more kind of like north, but all the bottom I've heard is pretty similar, so yeah, I'm stoked to ride it. This condition and dirt is more of what I'm used to. So you come off that drop, and it's not super technical, but already you can see there's line choice, but there's just loads of these hidden rocks, and I think this is what caught out Jackson a few years back. Just super fast section, and yeah, you just wouldn't see that. It'd be so easy to catch a crank on one of the rocks, or a pedal on the rocks, and yeah, come a cropper. So we're coming into the Burm of Doom. This is where the annual unofficial Shralpoff World Champs happens every year. Riders come off this rock, and then just absolutely rip the freighter of a berm, which I have to say looks insane, but I'm not sure the pace they're coming in. I'm not surprised that it takes a few prisoners. That would rip more than a few tyres off. Come off the hard-packed berms, and then you have to do a gap over a bomb hole straight into here, but what's crazy is I think when I've watched before, riders actually hold this highline all the way through, and hopefully it shows on camera how off-camber this is, but there are holes everywhere through it. I'll walk to the edge. Yeah, alright, okay. I'll give you some space if you want. I'm here with Tare, and he's going to... Just walk. Leg tight, look. Stay back. That's scary. I've hit this many a times, and it's still horrible. Now talk me through it. Why don't I just be the interviewer? Talk me through it. Tell me how you feel. You're the resident bad boy, Tare, come on. Tell me how you feel. I mean, scary. I'm very glad I don't have my bike with me. I have a reasonable excuse not to have to hit it. So what do you do? This is one of the most iconic features on this track. Yeah, great news is it's super blind coming in. The lip is very down-flanted, which makes it really horrible. If you go short, really bad news. If you go long, kind of also bad news. Because there's an immediate right-hand corner where your neck likes to go into your pelvis. And then you've got to manage your brakes for the next jump. So it's all pretty bad news. No, I'm joking, it's actually sick because from up there, you brake into there, as long as you're rolling by there, you can kind of, like, if you just work the bike naturally, your speed is pretty much governed and pretty good for this. And then, like, you've just got to make sure you get your, like, little pull to get your front up. But it's quite a gnarly section because, like, you land there and go, I mean, you're naturally going quite fast by the bottom of that. And then you've got to, like, really hook. And then there's obviously another big jump, which is kind of hectic. But it's a good job you're alright at jumps, aren't you? Yeah, but I'm quite big, so when I land, there's quite a lot of inertia. So, Roger Vieira, how's it going, mate? How's your off-season been? Yeah, man, amazing. Been, yeah, super good. Pretty much living the dream, like, riding in California, Queenstown for the first time. Yeah, it's been amazing. It's insane. Yeah, first official year under the Pivot Factory Racing? Yeah, man, like, couldn't ask for a better team to land on. And super stoked to be with those guys. And, yeah, super happy for them, like, to see my potential. And, like, yeah, carry me on on the team. And, yeah, excited for this season ahead. Yeah, I am very excited to see what you get up to. How are you finding the course so far? They've made a few changes to the top section, like, loads of new stuff. Yeah, yeah, it's just, like, a bit tighter, a bit more technical. Less drops, but, yeah, it looks cool. It'll be interesting to see how it rides. At the minute, it looks quite tight and a bit awkward. But I'm sure, like, once we start riding new formal line, it'll be quite good. But, yeah, keen, keen to ride. And I have no doubt you don't get scared of big jumps, being the street king specialist. I don't know. I still get really scared. Especially here. The street is, yeah, a bit more comfortable on the streets than here. But, yeah, I think it's a bit better because I did it last year here. So I'm not that scared. But it'll still be a bust when I hit it for the first time. Bit of first run nerves, no doubt. Wicked. Well, I'll let you get on with track walk. And, yeah, I'll catch you on the course. Cheers, man. Thank you. Appreciate it. Nice one, mate. Cheers, guys. Luke, coming in off a really successful 2025 season. How are you feeling coming into 2026? Yeah, really good. Off-season's been good so far. And, yeah, just really excited to give this race a go, really. Yeah, firstly, just try and conquer the track. And go from there. Not really chasing a result, I guess. Just, like, yeah, trying to ride the track. And, yeah, if I'm riding well, we'll do well. But, yeah, a few daunting features. Just trying to take my time and figure it all out. But, yeah, I think I should be able to follow some of the Aussie boys or some of the other crew. And, yeah, hopefully it's not too bad. Bit of a semi-locals advantage with this one? Yeah, I mean, I haven't put wheels on this track. So, not really in that sense. But I do spend quite a lot of time here training. So, yeah, I guess I know the dirt pretty well and stuff like that. But, otherwise, yeah, first time on the track. So, yeah, it's exciting and I'm looking forward to it. Wicked. Cheers. Thank you. So, how fast are we going down through this? I don't know what the actual speed trap is, but I'm sure it's between 60 and 70 k's an hour. And when you start the week, riding it is very fun and flowy and amazing. And then, by the end of the week, when you're doing 70, it's really tight. And you're really scared of the trees on the left and right. There's a lot of trees. And if you hit one of them at 60 or 70, I think they win. So, I think it will suck. You're a big boy. I back myself. So, EZE, Eddie, retired man, what are you doing here? I'm just here, you know, same as you guys, doing a bit of documentation. And, yeah, I came to Hardline two years ago. I had a great time, so I had the opportunity to come back. Kind of tick the box now and don't want to do it again? Nah, and, yeah, it's just cool. It's a sick event to be at. Cameras don't do it justice, but, yeah. Also, just hanging out with all the riders and stuff. It's a good vibe. What do you reckon to the new features? Man, the top, the start's pretty tech, eh? Yeah, crazy. Like, yeah, definitely a lot more technical than it was in previous years. Quite narrow, quite chunky. A bit more enduro. Yeah. R.I.P. enduro. But, yeah, that should be good. Keep you right on their toes. I reckon people like Taro and stuff will probably struggle a bit. But once he gets on the motorway, he'll be fine. Yeah. Fooled. We're getting to the end of the motorway now, and I can see why riders get scared of that. It's, I mean, I feel like I've been walking for 20 minutes, and those guys do it in what feels like 30 seconds. And, yeah, then right at the end of the motorway, you have this massive just launcher of doom with zero ability to see where you want to land. I think that's probably the takeaway from the whole of Medina or Tasmania hardline is blind takeoffs and zero concept of speed. I think just you're flat out, and you're trying to work out where you want to land. But, yeah, insane. It's not very often that you're the rookie in the team. We've got Acer over there with two years' experience under his belt. Yeah, I feel like I'm a little off the back already. Everybody's like, oh, yeah, looks sick. And there's like the biggest drop I've ever hit, five feet out of the start gate. I was like, okay. Yeah, this is the real deal, eh? Yeah, it's legit. And it's like pretty, everything is hard. Like every section, there's not a lot of rest. Even the rest section in the middle, there's like 100 miles an hour, like big jumps. Hey, well, everyone's stoked to see you on the start list, eh? Yeah, stoked, bro. Yeah. Looking forward to watching you throw down. Thanks, man. Fresh whoop section. I think these guys are going to be wishing for a throttle on this one. Rich would like this. Rich loves a bit of throttle action. But yeah, I think on a mountain bike, that would be crazy. Can't imagine hitting a whoop section like that. They're massive as well. After you've negotiated the whoops, you then have to come around the corner, off this step down, and then off this scrub wall, which is just heinous. It's blind. And then you can just go as far as you want. Just every feature on this track is blind, fast, and just waiting to sort of eat your bike. And I think bike setup's going to be really interesting here. Riders obviously want their setup real firm, but then you need to be able to absorb some of those compressions as well. So, yeah, definitely going to be a bit of a puzzle. We're just above the shipping container now, so about three quarters of the way down the track. By now, my arms would have more than blown up. I think my arms would have blown up about a quarter of the way down the track. What's surprising me is just how rough all of the sections away from the features are. And they're the sections where all the times we made. Seeing Ronan's rock, I don't know how he's still walking after that. I mean, to gap from a berm into that rock, the pace he must have been carrying is insane. So I'm pretty excited to see how he goes, how he holds himself through this race run. If he can hold it all together, what the result might be. So I'm pretty excited for that. A lot of the riders seem really excited about the event, less nervous, which is good to see. And everyone's been really helpful to some of the new guys like Sasha and things like that. A lot of the riders are giving him some pointers. And even Aaron Gwin is being dragged along by Asa. So that's pretty cool. And yeah, we'll hopefully catch up with him a bit later on. So here with Ryan Gilchrist, obviously enduro specialist, but wild card entry for this one. How are you feeling? Yeah, I'm excited. It's a little bit different, but I guess that's kind of my brand. It's just like do everything and try everything. So yeah, I mean, I'm definitely not immune to the nerves. It's definitely nerve wracking standing on top of these big lips, but I guess surrounded by support and everybody's in it together. And yeah, it's a good vibe out here. I think your experience in the pump track is definitely going to help. Yeah, I feel like that top section will have a bit of me on it. But yeah, I mean, it's a huge track and there's plenty of stuff above, below and between that you've got to tick off. So yeah, nothing but respect for the course. Any particular feature that you're sort of most concerned about? I mean, all these big jumps at the bottom are like 2x the biggest jump I've ever done previously. And I mean, obviously the cliff drop is quite intimidating, but I think something that could really easily be overlooked is all the linking sections between because it's super easy to get in your head. It's like feature, feature, feature, but between them is like equally gnarly downhill track. So never let your guard down, I don't think. And that's where the time's going to be made as well, because you've got so many line choices and like trying to stay on line whilst you're trying to process all those features is going to be really difficult. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's why it's good to have three days of practice because you get a day or two to start ticking features off and then that's where the practice and the game start to start. Right, this is the scariest feature on track, certainly for me. Riding past this this morning, I can't even put the size into perspective. It is massive, massive feature. This is the shipping container drop-off and this sets you up perfectly. This gives you all your speed for the following motorway section. You pretty much break this from here all the way down to the finish line. So it's a bit of a case of who can get the best speed tuck on, but definitely the most exciting features on the track and definitely the coolest looking. Right, shall we walk to the end? Oh dear. What do you think of this one, Sasha? It's spooky. Yeah. It's so blind coming into it. You just see, I don't know, trees and sky. You see nothing until you get to just a couple of metres before the take-off. By which time you're definitely committed. Yeah, you can't stop once you're here. It's just straight up. You just have to trust and send. They've been pretty good. They've got some sort of speed management terms. I guess that's good for when you first hit it. It's going to be easy to kind of get your speed right. It's still that unknown. I hear people saying a couple of hard pedals. I hear people saying no pedals. So we'll see. I mean, not that you should be taking any advice from me, but if it were me, I'd rather go long on that than come up short. Yeah, faster, I think. Definitely faster than slower. Wow. Incredible. So we're here at the iconic Shark Spin, and it's massive. It's measured in at 23 metres to the sweet spot. And from what riders are saying, you want to hit no brakes off the shipping container, round this corner, and then you want to be scrubbing this jump, which I can't imagine jumping it, let alone being pushing down. But apparently you need to do that. Push down, that then sets you up with all the speed to make it across the gorge gap at the bottom, which I think that's the one that's taken a few prisoners over the years. So, yeah, good advice, but I just would want to be touching my brakes. I'd be wanting grabbing brakes as soon as I landed the shipping container. I think it's insane. Once riders have come down off of these two Shark Spins, hitting 80k an hour, they hit this final Shark Spin, and then you're just met with this massive lip. And you can see the landing on this one. This is the first non-blind take-off of the entire course, I reckon, which is right at the end, but it is enormous. And 85k off a lip, yeah, I don't know. I mean, your suspension would have to be so stiff, and you have to be so strong just to be able to hold the g-force as you take off. And then you've got to deal with wind, keeping the front end high, and then obviously landing. And then because they've extended the course, so that's where the course used to finish, now they've extended it, you go around the corner and you have another four features before you hit the finish line. So, yeah, it's super physical, this track, and I think that the speed, everyone kind of forgets how hard it is to hold you and your bike up at such a high speed. That is so physically exerting, on top of obviously then dealing with all the other features. But, yeah, it's definitely a really technical track, but just doesn't necessarily look that way. But once you get here and look at the course in person, you understand just how physical it's really going to be. To give you guys some perspective of just how savage this course is, it drops 575 vertical metres, and it's 3.4 kilometres long. Now, that doesn't seem that long when you see these races come through, they do times of two minutes, two and a half minutes, but 3.4 kilometres of track is super physical, and then doing 575 vertical metres just shows how steep this track is the whole way down. So, catch up with the man who needs little introduction. Jackson, how is the track walk going? Yeah, so we just finished up day one. Track walk was sick. Yeah, it's a beauty day here in Tasmania again, so stoked to get on the bike tomorrow. Track's looking really good. A few little changes up top. They kind of tightened it up a bit in sections, so, yeah, could be pretty fun come riding. So, yeah, looking forward to it. Yeah, obviously you won last year. Any changes you've made to your bike or anything like that for this year? Nah, not too many changes so far. Maybe a few things along the way as we go, but, yeah, for the most part the bike's pretty much the same. You know, a few new components just as the years evolve, but, yeah, so far it's pretty identical. You've had a good off-season as well? A bit of time to chill and then obviously back to training, I guess? Yeah, yeah, I had a good off-season. Yeah, I basically just stayed at home the whole time. It wasn't great weather the whole time. It was pretty rainy and wet, but, yeah, I still was able to get a bit of downhill bike time in and I was able to get down for a road trip to California for a little bit of sun as well. So, yeah, it's been a pretty good off-season and stoked to kick things off here in Tasmania. There you have it, guys. 2026 Red Bull Hardline Tasmania track walk is done. Let us know in the comments below who your money's on to win and I'll catch you on Sunday for the race results.