Back for more: Harriet Burbidge-Smith’s return to Red Bull Rampage

As you read this, Harriet Burbidge Smith, or “Haz”, and her team are carefully etching a line in the dirt along a jagged cliff in Virgin, Utah. The sweaty crew toils, rakes and shovels in hand. They stop from time to time to strategize the best route their emerging trail should take back down to the valley floor. It’s a long, long way down. 

The view is breathtaking. Actually, scratch that. Breathtaking doesn’t do this justice at all. Dizzying is a far more fitting word because, at this height, vertigo is a constant companion. In fact, maybe standing up here, just inches away from a freefall into the void, isn’t such a great idea after all. And yet, in a few days Haz will be blasting her way down this mad line of rock and dirt, executing mind bending aerials aboard her bike. These are tricks that require superhuman skill and nerve… at heights most of us only attain aboard an airplane. The margin for error? Non-existent. 

And, oh yeah, this Canyon rider is doing all that aboard her Torque just one year after breaking her neck in what could have been a career-ending crash.  

A lot of riders would have been stopped cold by what Haz has been through, yet she’s back competing in mountain biking’s most daring event, Redbull Rampage. 2025 has been a year full of inspiring events, but what Harriet Burbidge-Smith is poised to do next may just be the most inspiring of all.

Let’s be clear, there have always been women at the highest levels of mountain biking. From day one, they were among the sports pioneers. When a gaggle of California hippies began modifying and racing 1940s-era Schwinn cruisers down the mountainsides of Marin County, you could find women shredding those corners, one foot out, race face on. And this was way back in `76, at the very birth of mountain biking. 

But when it came to gaining access to the highest levels of professional competition? That’s where things have lagged behind. For years, the best professional female racers and freeriders have been afforded fewer events and opportunities than their male counterparts. Thankfully, times are changing. Case in point, 2024 was the first year that women were invited to participate in the Crankworx FMBA Slopestyle World Championship series. And Haz was there, pulling flips, whips, and myriad tricks in that pioneering group of elite women on the international tour. For the first time, the world’s best female freeriders were given a shot at hitting the same massive slopestyle courses that men have been competing on for years. It all kicked off in Rotorua, New Zealand.

From that point on, things got even better, particularly for Haz, who notched a series of stellar results throughout the season, arriving at the season finale at Crankworx Whistler, high in the series rankings.  

“Getting to ride the big courses—was insanely good for my confidence and skills. And I think that was true for other riders too. It just showed me, and I think lots of other people, that we simply need to be given the opportunity to ride the same stuff as the men.” 

“I came into Whistler feeling pretty good. I did everything I needed to in practice and was pushing hard,” continues Haz. “I mean, it was pretty insane. Like the crowd is definitely the biggest crowd I've ever performed in front of.”  

But when Haz burst out of the start house atop Whistler’s Joyride course for her first of two final runs, her speed and timing were slightly off. However, on slopestyle course with massive jumps, even the slightest alteration to a well-practiced run can have a huge impact.  

“Everything was going good until that finals run,” says Haz. “It wasn't anything major that I made a mistake on. But obviously it wound up being really bad.” 

The hip jumps had been hard to judge all week—easy to come in a little too hot or slow. In this case Haz came in a bit too fast and landed her flip too deep and back wheel heavy. That’s all it took to shoot her over the handlebars and into the dirt. In footage from the event, you can see Haz land on her left shoulder, her right hand coming down hard on the ground. 

“When I stood up,” she says, “I immediately knew I’d broken my hand. It was massive.” 

Now Haz had to decide—pull out of the competition or take a shot at her 2nd final run. 

“You dream of competing in something as big as Joyride and you work so hard all year to get to that moment… I felt like I was in a position to put down a run that would be up there with a first or second place finish.” 

Haz kept testing her hand, doing little pops on the bike to see if she could hold on for just one more run. When it came time to pull the trigger, she took her place atop the course. “I’d come this far,” she continues. “It was such a big goal and it was the finale. I gave it a shot.” 

But right away she could feel something was wrong.  

“As soon as I dropped in for my second run,” says Haz, “ I was like, ‘Oh, no, something doesn’t feel right.’ But the adrenaline was flowing and I went for a small flip.” 

“As soon as I pulled for the flip,” she says, “I realized I couldn't even look up the ramp properly. And I just pulled completely wrong. I've never flipped like that before. It's one of those mistakes that you make when you're in pain and you've got the adrenaline going and you are not at 100 percent.” 

Haz crashed hard. Her shot at the Joyride podium was over, but something much bigger had just begun.

It was clear a trip to the hospital was in order.  

“I went straight to the hospital after the event, because they were worried about the circulation in my hand. And I had a concussion. They assessed me and didn't scan my neck. And I didn't really think anything of it.” 

But three days later, things still felt…wrong. There was clearly a bigger problem at play. Haz’s neck hurt like hell. 

“I went to see a physio [therapist] and he said, ‘I don’t want to scare you, but I’ve worked with athletes before who experienced what you are feeling now and in those cases they had broken necks. You should go back in and get it scanned.” 

Still in Whistler, Haz climbed back on her slopestyle bike and rode to the hospital to have her neck scanned. Turns out, it was broken. As bad as that sounds, the true severity of the issue was still unclear. 

“There wasn’t a real sense of urgency. They were like, ‘Here’s a soft collar, you should rest for a few months, let it heal.’ So that’s what I did.” 

Haz returned home to Australia to recuperate. 

“It was hard. My neck still really hurt…it just felt incredibly unstable and simple things like walking were painful.” 

What’s more, Haz had been slated to compete in the inaugural women’s Redbull Rampage. For the first time since the event began in 2001, a select group of the world’s best women freeriders were able to compete in the invitation-only event in the Utah desert. Sidelined by her injury, Haz now had to sit it out and watch from afar.  

It was a bitter pill to swallow, but Haz chose to focus on channeling her love for riding into supporting the seven other women, her friends, still competing in the event. 

“That was really hard. There’s only one ‘first-ever’ competition and I’d really been working hard and looking forwards to it. But I’m so grateful I made peace with it and that I could take joy in watching my friends. I was able to turn my perspective around. I was on the phone getting live updates with Robin Goome’s partner when she won was awesome.” 

Following Rampage Haz focused on her recovery. As a Red Bull-sponsored athlete, she’d be able to do some of her critical physical therapy work at Red Bull’s Athlete Performance Center in Germany. 

Haz arrived at the Red Bull facility in February, eager to start rebuilding. Red Bull’s staff, however, had their doubts. They ordered scans of her neck. That’s when Haz got the hard news. 

“They said my neck wasn’t healing at all. Would never heal without surgery because the damage to my C7 vertebra was a pincer fracture.” 

In the kind of injury Haz sustained, there’s a vertical fracture of one of the spine’s vertebrae. Two of the cushioning discs in her spine were also destroyed. 

“They told me my spine hadn't healed at all in the last three months and it wasn’t going to get better without surgery, especially in a sport like ours.“ 

Haz now had to decide—go under the surgeon’s scalpel or walk away from the bike forever. 

“I actually made the choice—taking riding out of the equation entirely. Without the surgery, I wouldn’t be able to do anything physical really. I’d always be scared. I wasn’t willing to live like that.” 

Surgeons fused Haz’s C6, C7, and T1 vertebrae together. The operation included grafting bone from a cadaver. It wasn’t at all clear that it’d be a success. The grafts don’t always take. Thankfully, the results proved positive. 

“It was clear that this is what I’d needed from the start. My neck felt so much more stable.” 

The surgery was a success, but it still wasn’t clear that Haz would be able to return to form again and ride at her former level. 

“It was frustrating at times. As a rider, you’re constantly measuring yourself against your past performances. You’re always evolving, pushing yourself to learn new tricks. And now I wasn’t at the same level I’d been at before. My spine just doesn’t move the way it used to. It can’t. That’s just a reality.” 

And then there was the mental component.  

“Part of me was like, ‘Am I crazy enough to even think of riding again? After a wreck like that?’ I mean, it’s your spine. Your ability to move. I just didn’t know.” 

For the next few months Haz committed to a grueling physical therapy regimen. In April she returned to the bike, tentatively at first. By May, amazingly, Haz was soaring through the air again. 

“Would I have a mental block that would stop me from riding again? I honestly didn’t know until I got back on the bike and hit some jumps for the first time. But every time I hit a jump, I could feel the mental barriers go down. It was all coming back. I kept realizing, ‘Okay, I can do this. Let’s move on and go bigger. Let’s try the next thing!’ That question mark about whether I could do this disappeared. I felt this massive wave of relief.” 

In just a few days, perhaps by the time you read this, Haz will have done what seemed impossible just a few months ago. She’ll be competing at Red Bull Rampage…launching herself into that void and performing tricks the vast majority of us can only dream of.  

No matter where this rider finds herself at the end of this competition, simply performing on mountain biking’s biggest and most demanding stage is an undeniable victory. 

“I’m very, very lucky and I realized that coming out of the surgery,” reflects Haz. “Having a broken neck, taking a second run, and crashing at Whistler? And then going months without it being fixed? The odds of me not having some kind of permanent damage… I’m so grateful for what my body has done for me.” 

“I'm definitely approaching Rampage differently than I would have before,” she continues.  

“Obviously, you want to just send it at Rampage. But I’m not going to compare myself to who I was, or how I was riding before that crash at Joyride. I’m not the same person—you can’t be after something like that. But as tough as this has been, I’ve also learned so much. This is the best and hardest I’ve ever worked in my life. I'm focusing on that. To be here… it’s amazing.”