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Pelican at Red Bull Rampage 2026
Every October, Red Bull Rampage puts out a few photos that end up on bedroom walls and phone lock screens for years.
We’ve written about Red Bull Rampage extensively over the years here at BroBible, so hopefully you can picture the visuals we’re talking about. A rider hangs in the air over a red rock canyon in southern Utah, and the crowd looks tiny below him. Most of us never think about who took that photo, or how they got to that spot.
Pelican made a film about exactly that. The Torrance, California, filmmaker made a short documentary called EXPOSURE: Capturing Red Bull Rampage to celebrate its 50th anniversary. It follows three photographers who have spent a big chunk of their careers on Rampage ridgelines capturing the most iconic event in mountain biking.
Christian Pondella from Mammoth Lakes, California, has shot every Rampage since the first one in 2001. Paris Gore is a Red Bull photographer from Bellingham, Washington, and he’s on his 13th. Bartek Wolinski comes from Poland and has shot 12.
Wolinski’s first Rampage in 2014 was a weird one. He came with Polish rider Szymon Godziek, who decided to ride at the last minute. Wolinski ended up digging Godziek’s line while also trying to shoot the event. “That was very difficult,” he says. “It was a journey.”
These days his approach is dialed-in. “I try to follow the light always. First the light, then the action,” he says. “There’s always good action, but without good light, there’s no good photo.”
Gore wants people to know how physical the job is. During finals, you might be on one side of a ridge and need to get across the whole mountain before the next rider drops. The footing is loose and the drops are real. “You could fall off a huge cliff,” he says. He loves it anyway.
Pondella has a historian’s view of the event. The 2025 Rampage went back to the original venue for the 25th anniversary, and he hadn’t set foot there since 2004. It took him a while to recognize the old jumps because riders use them so differently now. “The sport’s evolved, our photography has evolved,” he says. “The bikes have evolved, the riders have evolved.”
The photographers do their own homework, too. They spend the four or five practice days scouting angles while the riders dial in their lines. Then the crowd shows up on event day and the plan changes. A jump that looked best one way in practice might get shot from somewhere else so the spectators end up in the frame.
Nobody in the film is planning to quit. “I can’t miss a Rampage,” one of them says. “Hopefully 25 years from now, it’s still going on.” Some of the kids competing now weren’t born yet when the first Rampage happened.
Watch the full short below.
The Pelican Gear Behind the Shots
To shoot Rampage, these photographers start with 4 a.m. pack-outs. They haul camera bodies and long lenses across loose scree in triple-digit desert heat, then dump memory cards at midnight in a dirt camp.
Pelican has been building cases for that kind of punishment since 1976, and the coolest part is that they still make most of their tougher-than-nails products right here in the USA. In fact, I toured their manufacturing facility right here in Los Angeles, California, back in the spring. Also, a few months ago I talked to legendary adventure photographer Chris Burkard about how he’s used his Pelican cases over the years.
If you’re a shooter, or just hard on your stuff, these two are worth a look.
Pelican 1535AV Air Universal Camera Case ($389.95):
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The first Pelican case built from the inside out for photographers. It’s built on the carry-on-sized 1535 Air, and it’s waterproof, crushproof, and dustproof. It also has a retractable extension trolley handle and quiet rolling wheels, it’s made in the USA, and it comes with a lifetime guarantee.
TAP HERE TO BUY VIA PELICAN – $414.95
PX35 Aegis 35L Creator Backpack:
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This is the one for the hike in. It’s a 35-liter pack with a DWR-coated 1000D nylon outer shell, ballistic nylon-coated EVA impact zones on the base, and a padded laptop sleeve. If you think Pelican is just a case company, you need to know that their backpacks are truly next level. I own the Ageis 25L and it’s my daily driver for any kind of traveling. It’s tough as nails, stashes all sorts of stuff, and is easy to keep my laptop protected on the go.