Seeing him on the trail, you’d never know he’s anything besides
another good rider. And of all the death-defying tricks pro moun-
tain biker Paul Basagoitia ever stuck in his lifetime, that may be
the most impressive one yet.
- – –
ON THE MORNING of October 16, 2015, in the desert outside
of Virgin, Utah, people woke up stressed.
It was finals day at Red Bull Rampage, the most extreme mountain
biking competition on earth. For the past week, the best freeriders
in the world and their dig teams had been carving and shaping the
side of a red, f lat-topped mountain. They had utilized its vertical
faces, knife-edge furrows, and gaping canyons to design a course
where they planned to showcase superhuman aerial feats: backf lips
and suicide no-handers, arms outstretched like wings as they freefell
for seconds at a time.
Organizers had announced that finals would be moved up a day
early due to an incoming storm, so almost everyone was rushing to
get ready. All the riders had counted on that extra day of practice
and rest.
But at least one woke up cool and calm. Paul Basagoitia, then
29, had been competing for a long time, so he was accustomed to
last-minute changes like this. He had been coming to Rampage
since 2008, and was dominant in slopestyle events, where riders
perform BMX-like tricks on mountain bikes. But recently, he had
been feeling burned out from the constant pressure of competition,
the need to keep pushing for bigger and wilder tricks. He had been
thinking this would be his last Rampage. His plan was to win, then
buy an engagement ring for his girlfriend of five years, Nichole
Munk. He’d use the prize check to take her on a celebratory trip,
and propose on the beach.
Paul felt confident as he walked up to the start gate and dropped
in. There was just one part of the run that gave him some concern—
a backf lip over a canyon. But he nailed it: His speed, takeoff, and
landing were perfect.
Next up, a 270 off a massive hip jump. Again, he nailed it. Wow,
this is going so good, he thought.
He kept riding. A casual whip over a kicker. A gap jump. He could
not believe how well this was all going. He sailed off a 40-foot drop.
In the video, you can hear him say “Shit” in midair.
Paul had more speed than he wanted, and when he landed, the
impact jolted him slightly off-course. But Paul was still upright,
Paul was riding it out. Then his pedal caught the branch of a bush.
It f lipped him over his handlebar. He bounced off the dirt, tumbled
over a small shelf, and landed on his back. It knocked the wind out
of him. He was pissed. He’d had such a good run going. Definitely
top-three. But it was okay: He still had his second run.
- – –
PAUL BASAGOITIA’S DAD joked that his son could ride a
bike before he could walk. It wasn’t quite true, but from age 2, Paul
preferred to move through his world on two wheels. “He would take
off and ride all over town,” older sister Carol Basagoitia remembers.
“People knew him as the kid on the bike.”
When Paul was 6 years old, his mom took
him to a BMX race. He got third place. “I
remember my trophy,” he laughs. “I thought,
I wanna do this every weekend and get as
many trophies as I can.” Then someone told
his mom that his bike was too big. So she
got him a new bike. Paul took second at his
next race, and won every single one after
that for a long time.
The kid from Minden, Nevada, liked
winning. He and his mom would travel to
races every weekend, and by age 10, he was
ranked number one in the world for his age
group. But he felt a lot of pressure. “When I
didn’t do well, my mom would yell at me,”
says Paul. “What are we spending all this
money on if you’re not doing well? Shit like
that. We’re talking when I was 7 years old.”
He moved on to dirt jumping when he
was 14, then to mountain biking. One of
his favorite things about his new discipline
was that his mom wasn’t involved. “It was
fresh air,” he says. Still, that fierce drive was
deeply instilled.
“Paul came from BMX, a more cutthroat,
competitive style of riding [than freeride
mountain biking],” says best friend and
former Rampage winner Cam Zink, who
first met Paul at the local dirt jumps when
the two were rising teen stars in the Reno,
Nevada, area. Once, Cam recalls, Paul got
access to a foam pit ahead of a contest. He
was borrowing Cam’s bike at the time, so
he brought it to the foam pit to practice new
tricks. But he didn’t bring Cam.
Despite these early hurdles, when Paul
was 17, Cam helped him get into the inau-
gural Crankworx slopestyle competition in
Whistler, British Columbia. Paul didn’t have
any sponsors yet, so he borrowed Cam’s
bike for the contest again—and won. Cam
was the first person to run up and give him
a huge hug. That night, the two of them
stayed in a friend’s old RV with no lights
or hot water.
It would be the last time Paul would have
to slum it. After Crankworx, he signed a slew
of sponsors, including Kona Bikes. He was
still in high school and “making more money
than my teachers,” he says. The next year,
he came back to Crankworx and won again.
Paul quickly established himself as one
of the best slopestyle and freeriders in the
world. By age 21, he was able to buy himselfISSUE 5 • BICYCLING.COM 73BEFORE
HIS INJURY,
PAUL SPENT
HIS TIME ON
DOWNHILL
BIKES. NOW
HE LOVES
EXPLORING THE
TRAILS AROUND
RENO AND
TAHOE.