Progression in mountain bike freeride at the moment is actually insane. Two years ago, throwing down a backflip, a 360 and a tailwhip in a competition, and you were always sure to be pushing into the top ranks in the podium. This year it’s hard to even get noticed if you can’t do these kinds of tricks.

Last year there was usually only one person throwing down the frontflip or the 720. This year I’ve seen riders doing both in the same competition. Lance McDermott was the only rider to pull the frontflip consistently last year and now when he turns up at a competition people expect him just to do it. Words around that he’s been working on a no-handed frontflip for this year to stay ahead of the game. It seems the only way to fully grab the attention of the crowd or judges is to do something wild or never done before.

Take the Qashqai challenge last year in Milan. Andreu Lacondeguy won throwing down one of the craziest superman backflips in competition. And Lance McDermott won the Park round in Cologne with a 360 handplant over the spine. Lance also won the best trick award in Milan with a backflip Indian air superman. This year there is a handful of riders pulling off backflip supermans.

When I first heard of Lance McDermott, it was in an MBUK magazine article, where he was talking about how he had just changed from riding BMX and transferred his skills to a mountain bike. He had only been riding that bike for a few weeks and was already doing flairs and backflip turndowns.

An issue or two later he was in another article doing frontflips. I remember thinking to myself ‘doing a backflip variation is hard enough. Frontflip ones must be impossible’ I just never thought it could be done.

If you search on youtube you can see the amazing Scotty Cranmer totally prove me wrong. He has been doing no handed frontflips for a while now but has recently been pulling the frontflip tailwhip in the AST Dew Tour in the BMX park course.

Can you imagine what tricks are going to be done in years to come?