Bike
MTB
Behind the build of the 2026 Red Bull District Ride course
Course designer Desmond Tessemaker reveals how the three unique districts came together for the Netherlands’ first-ever Red Bull District Ride, including the integral role of the riders themselves.
Red Bull District Ride is one of the most iconic events in slopestyle mountain biking. The competition brings the tricks and technical skills usually reserved for freeride lines at bike parks to the streets of a city centre, creating an urban take on off-road riding that needs to be seen to be believed.
First held in 2005 in Nuremberg, Germany, there have been seven editions in its 21-year history with all but one taking place in the Bavarian city’s Hauptmarkt. But after a four-year break, Red Bull District Ride is back, and has crossed the border to the Netherlands for the first time, with Groningen’s Grote Markt playing host on July 24-25.
1 min
Red Bull District Ride 2026 track
The city will be making history in a number of other ways too – the 2026 edition the first to have its own full women’s competition alongside the men’s contest, while course designer Desmond Tessemaker suggests that each of the three unique districts have been crafted with world-first tricks in mind.
But how does a course like Red Bull District Ride come together? And what sort of input do the riders have on what they will be riding? Here, Tessemaker shares a deep dive on the Groningen build…
01
10 years in the making
The Red Bull District Ride course will transform Groningen's Grote Markt
© Pump Factory/Red Bull Content Pool
Tessemaker is a BMXer turned course designer who has been involved in show creation for freestyle events like Masters of Dirt, skate park construction and runs a company, Pump Factory, that builds pump tracks in the Netherlands. But Red Bull District Ride was an opportunity unlike anything else.
“Projects like this come up often, but they never go into the execution phase, so we had a lot of homework and a lot of ideas before, and then this one came to life. This has been the build up of the last 10 years of ideas,” he says.
Although initially intended for a different project aimed at bringing slopestyle to the Netherlands – one of the the world’s flattest countries – when it was confirmed that Red Bull District Ride would be coming back for the first time since 2022, it seemed like a perfect fit.
“We adapted the original concept so it would fit with the heritage that District Ride carries, but the actual designing only started last December.”
02
Rider input at every stage
The city-centre location will allow fans to get up close to the action
© Pump Factory/Red Bull
Tessemaker was keen to not create a course in isolation though, and wanted rider input at every stage.
“I've just been the sheep herder. I had some ideas, and I have the knowledge of the technical parts of it, but my main goal was that the riders create the course,” he says. “That's how we did it 15 years ago with the first Red Bull Joyride but it changed into this almost textbook, same-style course – Crankworx Rotorua hadn't been changed for three years, Crankworx Innsbruck had the same course for four years. This sport is made for creativity, so by getting the riders to design the course, I hope that it brings back a little bit of this quality into the riding.”
Once Groningen was confirmed as a host city, athletes Patricia Druwen, Alma Wiggberg and Jake Atkinson were invited to a location scout and involved in a two-day brainstorm session where they had complete freedom to design the course of their dreams.
Patricia Druwen and sports director Tarek Rasouli scout locations
© Rutger Pauw / Red Bull Content Pool
“We gave them the full idea of what we wanted to build on this place, but gave them full creativity of what would be possible,” says Tessemaker. “I gave them clay and paper, and we had this game where they could draw on a digital board, and show their ideas of what they would actually want to ride rather than what they have to ride when they show up at the competition.”
Tessemaker and his team took the athletes’ input and drew up three separate, technically feasible districts using their ideas. They then made a WhatsApp group with the event’s top athletes, and used it as a space to talk through ideas.
“My team then came up with the full course design, which we sent out to everybody for feedback with some minor adaptations, and that’s where we are now.”
03
Distinct districts
The result is three unique districts that tap into three different styles of slopestyle riding – big air, park and a street-inspired dual district.
Dual District
© Pump Factory/Red Bull Content Pool
Park District
© Pump Factory/Red Bull Content Pool
Big Air District
© Pump Factory/Red Bull Content Pool
“Talking with Tarek [Rasouli], who created Red Bull District Ride back in the day, he really wanted to put emphasis on the different qualities you need as a rider to ride everything, so we came up with the idea of finding the most complete rider – it needs more than the one trick show pony or the steeze lord,” says Tessemaker.
“To differentiate a little bit, and also to make the judging more fair, we said can we separate or segment even better into districts? Big Air is very clear – we want to see world firsts and with the set-up, we're going to see the first triple back flip landed to dirt in the contest. The Park District features everything you see in a park, but twice the size. The Dual District is a creativity part, where you can have multiple options in lines; for example, it has a bowl corner section that most riders will jump it as a hip and get one score, but there are options to have multiple scores on that same object to boost your score.”
Each district is also relatively short compared to other contests where there might be upwards of 10 jumps back to back, meaning that if you get an early landing wrong, that’s the end of your run.
“In theory, you could slip a pedal in one of the districts, but as everything goes together, you could still have a very decent score that would progress you to finals, which is a bit different to normally if you slip a pedal.”
04
Bringing elevation to one of the world’s flattest countries
There are plenty of jumps to bring the altitude at sea level
© Pump Factory/Red Bull
The course design process hasn’t been without its challenges, namely that most of the Netherlands sits less than one meter above sea-level.
“The biggest challenge we have in the country is that we don't have elevation and it's as simple as you can put a 10-metre roll in and make a first big jump, but then everything after that has to become smaller because of speed,” he says. “We tried to manage this by working with the terraces, so we start high, but don't go down all the way to the ground.”
The production team also got creative with the roll-in for the Big Air District, gaining access to a nearby building’s roof to ensure a 14m-high drop-in that riders could use to generate enough momentum to land world-first tricks.
The team have just over two days to get the course built
© Pump Factory/Red Bull
“It started as a joke, but then got very serious, which in the end helped us a lot to create the course that we did. Production wise, we're going to build everything on the floor and it's going to be lifted by crane onto the roof in one go.”
Also, getting the course ready itself will take a mammoth effort, with Tessemaker and his team having a little over two days to get everything finished.
“We have 52 hours from start to first practice. Everything is wood, other than the Big Air jump and Dual District landings, which are dirt. In an ideal world, I would see way more dirt, but this is the more safe way of doing it, and with obstacles that we built, it makes sense. The dirt landings are for safety, and also to keep this feeling of being a mountain biker.”
Make sure to either attend the event in Groningen on July 25 or check the livestream on Red Bull TV from 3.50pm CEST (1.50pm UTC).
About the author
