Red Bull Ride takes us to the 2002 run of this course, with twenty-five riders from nine different countries contending to be the best. One of the interesting elements of this particular event is that it's not about who's the fastest: the riders are awarded points as they complete the route, and can earn points for creativity and style as well as successful navigation of the course.

The sixty-minute feature begins with an overview of the terrain of the course, giving us a nice introduction to the event. Interview clips of the various riders are interspersed with footage of them trying out the course; the riders, who come from all over the world to compete in the Red Bull Ride, offer insights into what they like about mountain biking as well as their plans for tackling the difficult course itself. The film then moves to covering Round One and Round Two of the ride itself; because of the lead-in, this material is all the more exciting as we know which sections are the most challenging.

The central appeal of Red Bull Ride, not surprisingly, is the footage of the riders on the course itself. I did a fair amount of mountain biking a few years ago, in the woods of western Massachusetts, and having tackled my fair share of technical terrain, scary drops, and nasty crashes, I found myself completely relating to the riders as they attempted the course. They're far better riders than I ever was, of course, and the ride itself is much harder than anything I'd dare to do, but the bond of common experience made watching Red Bull Run a lot of fun. There's the holding-your-breath feeling of navigating a tricky section with lots of smooth round boulders ready to make your wheel slide; the sense of relief when you can release your grip on the brakes and roll out of a tight turn onto relatively smooth dirt; the agonizing slow-motion realization that your wheel is slipping and you're heading for a spill; the "oh no!" realization that you've hit something solid with your front wheel and you're about to do an "endo" and flip your bike over your head.

Red Bull Ride does an excellent job of capturing the excitement of downhill mountain biking. Personally, I'm more a fan of cross-country mountain biking, in which the riders have to go up the hills as well as down them, but this documentary certainly demonstrates the technical skills and straight-out daring of these downhill riders. The use of informative captions to let us know which rider is being interviewed on-screen, and what that rider's score is when he finishes the race, provides a very helpful context for the viewer. I would have enjoyed a bit more detail in some of the coverage, such as seeing the complete ride from start to finish of at least some of the riders, but all in all this documentary offers a very entertaining and fast-paced viewing experience.

Video

Red Bull Ride is presented in a non-anamorphic 1.85:1 widescreen image. The overall picture quality is quite good: the image is clean and colorful. There's a moderate amount of edge enhancement present, but no noise or flaws. On the whole it's a pleasing, good-quality image.

Audio

The sound for Red Bull Ride is presented in Dolby Digital mono, but it does as competent a job as many 2.0 tracks out there. The soundtrack nicely captures the ambient sounds of the riders on the course, as well as presenting the interviews clearly and cleanly. The music portion of the track is a bit over-loud in a few places when there's no voiceover present, but fortunately it is balanced correctly for most of the film.

Extras

Red Bull Ride plays the main feature immediately upon putting the DVD into the player, but there is still a main menu allowing access to scene selections as well as the special features.

Two short "judge's view" segments are included, which show an overhead view of the winner and runner-up as they ride the course. Curiously, these segments are in anamorphic widescreen, though the main feature is non-anamorphic. These clips offer an interesting look at the whole course, since the film itself doesn't show any complete rides, only the most noteworthy parts. About fifteen seconds' worth of footage appears to be missing from the "winner" clip, though: while the "runner-up" clip starts with the rider coming out of the starting gate, the "winner" segment jumps immediately to partway down the course. Despite this apparent glitch, these two segments, totaling about seven minutes' worth of footage, are fun to watch.

Final thoughts

I would definitely recommend Red Bull Ride to any mountain biker: it offers an interesting and well-presented look at an impressive event; most importantly, it shows a lot of great footage of top-notch riders navigating insanely difficult terrain and obstacles. In general, Red Bull Ride is worth checking out for anyone interested in taking a look at a non-mainstream sport.