There are few hills in Holland and consequently few mountain bikers because, being fairly relaxed by nature, mountain bikers prefer it when gravity assists in their work. There are some crazy BMX riders though, because they’ll ride on almost anything.

Never ones to let mere physics, or, say, national topography get in their way, Red Bull teamed up with BMX pro Rob Van Den Wildenberg and broke into a disused 11 storey towerblock a little while back so they could all enjoy a day of hurtling downstairs at breakneck speed – thus Redbull Downstairs was born.

Rob is one of the top BMX riders in the world, nabbing an impressive fifth place at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. We caught up with him to find out what the hell they we’re playing at.

‘As a little boy I started riding BMX in the late 80’s. Since 2005 I’ve been a professional BMX racer. My 5th place finish at the Bejing Olympics has been the highlight of my career so far!’

Ooh wanted to know, because it’s quite hard to imagine, what was going through Rob’s head at the start line of his first race in Beijing.

‘Heartbeat of 200 beats per minute I guess!! Worked my butt off for so many years to make it to the Olympics and then finally it’s getting started: awesome feeling!’

So how did the whole Downstairs thing get started? ‘Red Bull came up with the Downstairs idea…I was immediately interested to participate in the race, no question about that! They also asked if I could arrange 8 world class bikers. I asked around some friends; they didn’t need to much time to think about it either – they all were very excited about it.’

Best bit? ‘Working together with Red Bull is just great, such a bunch of cool people! Riding downstairs in a building, that idea is sick! And making that idea a reality was so exciting.’

Because they share an enthusiasm for insanely dangerous activity, we asked Rob what he thought of the diver who became famous recently for grappling with a shark for two hours. He speared it 6 times in the head, tried to drown it, then knifed it.

‘Crazy guy! If it was necessary, I would swim for two hours as fast as I could to get rid of the shark, instead of fighting it. I saw the Jaws movies…’

Looking at the photos of Rob in action, we got the impression he’d be a useful person to ask for BMX tips, so here are his top five:

1. Hours and hours in the gym!
2. Even more hours in the gym.
3. Then find some more hours, use them for riding your bike.
4. Dont’ forget to rest from time to time.
5. Have a lot of fun doing all this! That’s most important – improvement will come automatically.

We’ve had a quick look around the internets and found a couple of places where you can give BMX a go. If you’re in the UK, try the Milton Keynes BMX Track where the manager is currently having a full time BMX coach trained specifically to provide coaching to enthusiasts like these ones:

We also like the look of the Monster BMX track in Sydney, where these riders are leaning how to bust the all important start gates:

Many thanks to Rob and his agent Nikki from Project Pro Exrtreme.

Tags: BMX, Downstairs, Games, Olympic, riding, Rob Van Den Wildenberg