OK, so let’s first get out of the way that Red Bull makes possible a lot of bizarre but very cool things. Now this latest project was to take Venezuelan bike rider Daniel Dhers up to the Bolivian salt flats at 3600m/11,800′ and build a set of ramps to get in some scenic BMX park riding. And the catch, besides the unique location and the elevation, was that the entire ramp setup would be constructed out of the salt that makes up the Salar de Uyuni flats. Jump across the gap with us to take a closer look, ogle some cool footage, and get a little more of the backstory…
Red Bull enlisted the services of Skidmarkparks ramp builder John Saxton to design the setup made entirely of salt blocks, then Bolivian locals from nearby Colchani were called in to help Dhers make it real. They built the ramps by basically stacking blocks that they cut out of the salt and dried, and then sculpting and smoothing them out with a slurry of salt on top, refining as they went along and as it dried in the hot sun.
Dhers explained it saying, “I would make a line in the Salt Park and would stop for five minutes to catch my breath again… plus, it was really hot during the day, and when the sun was covered by a cloud I was freezing.”
“The whole project was crazy, you get Daniel who’s one of the best riders in the world and throw him out here at a crazy altitude in Uyuni, in this ramps made of salt,” said filmmaker Kyle Carlson of VitalBMX.com, on hand to capture the whole thing to share.”Obviously when you make a ramp out of a salt block, the transition is not going to be perfect. While he’s used to ride in perfect ramps, without difficulty there is no reward, so shout out to Daniel for making it all happen.”
