Lat34.com
Colin Bane
Jul 31 2006 / Los Angeles, CA

If “the bigger the better” is your kind of mantra, then the Big Air ramp at the X Games is the place to be this week. Competitors here to collect chump change and sign a few autographs might want to take a leisurely roll-in from the main deck a mere 65 feet 4 inches above ground, point for the little 60-foot gap, grab some hang time, and clear the ramp for the riders with Gold medals and Guinness records in their sights.

All-in for this pot means hiking up to the big roll-in at over 85 feet, hucking something huge over the 70-foot gap, and heading for a 27-foot quarter-pipe with some serious velocity: The entire contraption is over 350 feet long, and skaters will be traveling across it at over 40 miles per hour. The guys from the Guinness Book will be looking for gap jumps over 80 feet and quarter-pipe launches over 24 feet above the lip; X Games judges will want to see big air combined with big tricks. In either case, Danny Way is the man to beat. He dreamed up the ramp in the first place, holds all the records, and is two for two at the X Games.

The evolution of the sport is such that Way’s prize-winning frontside 360 in last year’s contest now seems laughable: he and Bob Burnquist were seen throwing front and back flips over the gaps at a Megaramp event in Mexico earlier this year, where BMX rider Chad Kagy also got some gulps of the huge air previously reserved for guys with motors on their bikes (BMX Big Air on the Megaramp makes its X Games debut this week, with Allan Cooke, Ryan Nyquist, Dave Mirra, and Kevin Robinson joining Kagy).

A dozen skaters will be competing in the event, and there are probably not many other skaters anywhere qualified to even drop in on the thing. Danny Way is the clear favorite to win it, but Burnquist, Andy Macdonald, Bucky Lasek, Pierre-Luc Gagnon, Rob Lorifice, and Rune Glifberg are all capable of lofty air. Look for the tricks to get even more technical as the airtime increases: Burnquist is comfortable enough on the ramp to toss off kickflips as casually as if he were skating down the street. Bigger spins and off-axis flips are on the horizon, as are body varials and infinite variations of your favorite vert tricks. Four days of practice on the ramp at the Home Depot Center could produce just about anything.