FreestyleXtreme Magazine Issue 10 | Page 51

© PREDRAG VUCKOVIC / RED BULL CONTENT POOL

© SEBASTIAN MARKO / RED BULL CONTENT POOL

2015 RED BULL X-FIGHTERS
Quarries rule!
The X-Fighters always strive to find new,
interesting and challenging venues, and for the
second stop of the 2015 series they really hit the
nail on the head. Since the early freeride films and
video games of the late ‘90s, freestyle motocross
has held a strong connection with the humble
quarry. To many a quarry is just a work site. To
a freestyle motocross rider though, a quarry is
essentially a limitless playground with endless
transitions, elevation changes and jump options;
where imagination and guts become the only
limiting factors.
After letting Dane Herron and his crew loose on
the Dionyssos Marble Quarry in Athens, Greece, it
became apparent just how insane a course could
be built using today’s advanced track-building
techniques, the quarry’s natural landscape and a
little imagination.
Last time a round of X-Fighters took place in a
quarry, was back in 2008 in Wuppertal, Germany.
It has always stood out to us as one of the coolest
locations in the history of X-Fighters, but we think
it’s fair to say the marble quarry in Athens just
topped the table. Hopefully we will see more crazy
quarry rounds in the future.

No one can do an
Egg Roll like Levi
During the first course-testing session at the
opening round of the season in Mexico, New
Zealand’s Levi Sherwood unveiled a completely
new FMX trick: the Egg Roll. Sherwood blew
everyone away, when he launched into the air
with his huge, slow and insanely steezy transfer
Backflip, only to stomp it perfectly and ride away
like he had done it a hundred times that day
already. Using the quarter pipe in a completely
new way (essentially backwards compared to the
traditional set-up) it took a while for everyone to
scratch their heads and figure out exactly what it
was Levi just did.
Throughout the season, more and more riders
learned and incorporated the Egg Roll into their
runs (including the anti-Flipper himself Tom
Pagès) and by the end of the season it had
become a pretty standard trick. In the final round
in Abu Dhabi, huge variations had been brought
in by Rob Adelberg (Cordova Egg Roll) and Josh
Sheehan (Double Can Egg Roll). Although it’s
awesome to see the riders putting their own spin
on the new trick, we don’t think anyone has got
close to making the trick look as cool as when it
was originally done by its inventor.