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Keep up to speed and follow all the latest Red Bull Hardline British Columbia 2026 updates as the race heads to the steep, rocky slopes and lush forests of Cypress Mountain, on Saturday 17 October.
Red Bull Hardline heads to beautiful British Columbia for its first-ever event in Canada, as riders prepare to take on this iteration of the world’s most toughest downhill race at Cypress Mountain.
The 12th year of the event, which began in Wales in 2014, brings the world’s most progressive male and female downhill mountain bikers to one of the most extreme courses in the sport, with finals day on Saturday, October 17.
The Cypress Mountain track is unlike a typical downhill course. It borrows elements from dirt jumping and BMX that don’t show up at World Cup or other UCI races, including massive jumps and gaps, drops of more than 10 meters, rock gardens and steep descents.
The course was shaped by Red Bull Hardline creators Gee Atherton and Dan Atherton and built by head builder Justin “Viper” Wyper and his team. Locals including Jackson Goldstone helped scout the location. The result is technical, rocky and off-camber, with the outside of the turns lower than the inside, the opposite of a traditional downhill track. A standout is the lily pad feature leading into the final third: a 30m gap, with the course dropping 543m over roughly 2,000m.
Red Bull Hardline is a race against the clock, with no judges or style points. Riders drop in one at a time and chase tenths of a second while holding speed from one huge feature to the next, and the fastest time wins. Riders must stay within the marked track, and anyone who leaves the course has to re-enter at the same point or face disqualification.
The event takes place over two days. Friday, October 16 is seeding, where each rider sets a timed run that determines the starting order. Saturday, October 17 is the finals.
HERE IS ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW:
Read about Gee and Dan Atherton’s vision for the brand new BC track HERE
Learn more about the 2026 venue
Get to know the invited riders
Finals: Saturday, October 17 at 12:00 p.m. PDT (7:00 p.m. UTC / 9:00 p.m. CEST), live on Red Bull TV and Red Bull Bike YouTube
TRACK
Go behind the scenes of the build and see what it takes to create a Red Bull Hardline course from scratch:
Building the Gnarliest Course in Mountain Biking | Red Bull Hardline British Columbia
Final track in numbers:
The course is approximately 2,08 kilometres long, descending more than 370m of elevation
The top of the course is located at 1426m and the bottom at 934m
Top speeds are between 70 and 72 kilometres an hour
Largest drop on course is a 35 foot vertical drop (approximately 10,67 metres)
Largest jump on hill is 80 (24,38 metres) to 100 foot (30,48 metres)
FIRST REACTIONS
“I think it’s super, super good – it’s just that this first hit, this first speed, is really gnarly.”
- Finn Iles
“The track here on Cypress is steep and rocky – everything that you find on the North Shore. To build a 2,3km track in 5 months is pretty big undertaking. Probably close 7000 man hours have gone into this thing. We have kinda just done exactly what we’ve dreamt of, for years and tried to make that.”
- Justin Wyper, Lead builder
“Gee and Dan (Atherton) had a big part in this. Hardline is their baby and when they came out and did the initial site check and looked at the terrain they were ‘this can definitely produce a really cool track and something that we think is in line with what we have and they kind of gave us a little bit of creative freedom to do what we want. That’s meant a lot, having their trust.”
- Justin Wyper, Lead builder
“Its is super technical, and you’re going to have to hit all your marks, keep speed, generating in certain areas, I think someone who could hit their mark ”
- Justin Wyper, Lead builder
“You’re kind of trying to guess how much speed you’re going to pick up that 8 meters or so, which is a lot, so you’re pretty much crawling in and trying to visualise how much speed you’re going to pick up.”
-Dan Booker (About SRAM Kitchen Sink feature)
