BMX Rider Kriss Kyle Does Insane Tricks at 2,000 Feet in World’s First Flying BMX Bowl

In yet another record-breaking sports event, Red Bull helped Scottish BMX rider – and longtime Red Bull athlete – Kriss Kyle to attain his old dream of doing tricks on a BMX bowl suspended in the air. This isn't just the first time that someone does something like that at 2,000 feet (609 meters): the event marks the creation of the world's first flying BMX bowl and the construction of the world's largest hot-air balloon. Not bad for a year's worth of hard work.

Kyle has been pushing the envelope in the sports for more than a decade and pushing his own limits in the process with each new stunt. But until Red Bull offered to help, he wasn't getting any closer to seeing one of his oldest dreams come true, one that got started when a thought popped into his mind during a ride: "imagine riding a skatepark up in the air." Kyle had imagined it, but he didn't actually believe it could be done.

Yet done it was, as the video at the bottom of the page will show. That's a preview of the Red Bull film Don't Look Down, which recounts the progress and the many challenges of the stunt. The fact that Kyle is scared of heights was perhaps the least of the obstacles they had to overcome along the way, and that's saying a lot since he was the one who was basically defying death to do the tricks.

It all started with a sketch Kyle drew after that ride, years ago. The idea of suspending an actual skatepark in the air was not feasible on considerations of weight, so they turned to someone who knows a thing or two (or a gazillion) about light weight and aerodynamics: the F1 engineers from Oracle Red Bull Racing and Red Bull Advanced Technologies (RBAT). Their mission was to build a bowl that would be lighter than anything made out of wood, but that would respond the same way when used.

The bowl was crafted entirely out of carbon fiber, smaller than anything Kyle had ever ridden, and weighing "just" 2.8 tons. To the rider's surprise, it was also infinitely bouncier, so it responded like a trampoline when used – something made even worse by what happened during the first suspended test, when it became clear that the bowl would sway, spin and pretty much do whatever it wanted in the air.

Red Bull describes the successful stunt as a "feat of aeronautical engineering and BMX-riding skill," and it's no exaggeration. It took place at 2,100 feet (640 meters) in the air, in sub-zero temperatures, with the world's largest hot-air balloon in cruise mode. That one was also custom-built for the occasion, by Cameroon Balloons: even though the carbon fiber bowl was very light, it was still too heavy for a regular hot-air balloon to carry.

Training took place first on the ground, while Kyle learned to work with the bouncy nature of the bowl, which had since been clad in vinyl for improved grip. Then, they suspended the bowl with a crane, a few feet off the ground, and ultimately to the balloon, which was anchored so it wouldn't hit the roof of the hangar. Not a single one of these tests could replicate the conditions he'd get in real-life, where atmospheric pressure, 5 kph winds (3.1 mph), cold and dry conditions, and Kyle's fear of heights would work together and against him.

As the video below shows, Kyle was wearing a parachute during the stunt, and for the obvious reason: that kind of altitude is a long way down if you fall. Far from this being the ace up the sleeve that makes the stunt easier or less dangerous, it was one of the obstacles that Kyle had to overcome.

"It weighs more than 20 percent of my own body weight,” Kyle says, recalling that it weighed more than a couple of cases of Red Bull. “You have to pull so much harder than I ever could have imagined. The weight isn't really spread around – it sits solely on my back. When doing flairs and flips and spins, I need to pull so much harder just to get around. I'm fighting against it the whole time and the 'chute just wants to do its own thing."

When the balloon was finally cleared for takeoff after 11 months of waiting for weather conditions to be met, and Kyle lowered himself into the bowl, he actually thought that the feat was an impossible one because everything he had experienced during tests was twice as hard at that altitude. But winners are not born, they're made, and a winning attitude is all about facing obstacles and pushing limits. He'd do what he came up to do, since he was already up there – and the outcome is nothing short of spectacular.

Kyle says the footage doesn't show how badly the bowl bounces and moves, because of the way it was shot from drones and a nearby helicopter. But you don't really need to see the bowl sway to appreciate the incredibly challenging stunt: this is what doing tricks on a BMX bike looks like on the world's first flying skatepark.