Could This Contest Be the Future of Mountain Biking?
Natural Selection (NST) Bike is headed back to Aotearoa New Zealand in 2026—and the stakes just got higher. Twenty-five of the world’s best riders will descend on the wild ridgelines of Mt. Dewar in Tāhuna Queenstown for another action-packed year of pushing what’s possible on a bike.
What is Natural Selection? A brief history
Originally founded as a standalone event in 2008 by legendary snowboarder Travis Rice, the goal was simple: elevate snowboarding by putting the sport’s most progressive riders head-to-head on enhanced natural terrain. But it wasn’t until 2012 and 2013—when the concept evolved into Supernatural and then Ultranatural—that the modern vision of Natural Selection trulybegan to take shape. While the name changed, the idea stayed much the same, and went beyond simply transplanting a traditional contest format like X Games onto a big-mountain venue. It aimed to give riders a stage where they could genuinely revolutionize the sport. With an emphasis on style, line choice, flow, and rider creativity, these early events became a visionary, competition-driven glimpse into the beating heart of what big-mountain snowboarding is truly about.
Fast forward nearly a decade to 2022, and the concept of Super Natural expanded beyond its snowboarding roots, becoming a mountain bike event known as Proving Grounds. Taking place in Prineville, Oregon, the same idea that had subtly revolutionized how the masses saw big-mountain snowboarding was first applied to freeride mountain biking. Borrowing elements (and a venue) from former culture-first events in the bike space like The Fest Series and combining them with the event’s unique format and high-production storytelling that came from the snowboard side, Proving Grounds was a monumental proof of concept that brought the sport’s established legends and its up-and-comers into the same fold and instantaneously proved that Natural Selection was a format that worked for more than just snow.
Rider: Thomas Genon
Photo: Graham Fee
Tangentially, Proving Grounds in 2022 was the first time I met reigning Rampage Champion Hayden Zablotny, and it was also a key point in the career of Talus Turk, who qualified for finals at the event as a relatively unknown rookie. We saw Dylan Stark throw a legendary flat-spin middle finger to the judges, Brett Rheeder and Cami Nogueira took the top spots, I got to shoot alongside and meet some of my heroes of snowboarding. It was an awesome experience to be a part of, and it quietly became a critical launchpad from which some undoubtedly legendary careers were born—a core value that still holds true to the event today.
Photo: Graham Fee
After a few years of snowboard-only format and working through development on the multi-sport and event side, the Natural Selection Tour as we now know it truly began to take shape. Not only was this contest format something special for viewers who were given an intimate glimpse into the core of freeride, but these early events proved time and time again that this format had what it took to consistently give riders a place to shine. Natural Selection is about more than just who is the best today and provides riders the opportunity to step into being the best tomorrow—Natural Selection is more than just a name; it’s an ideology and a format that supports the evolutionary process of progressing the sport.
In 2024, we saw its much-anticipated return in Pacific City, Oregon, at one of mountain biking’s most special venues (IYKYK), and it became a qualifier for the full-scale event we saw last spring in New Zealand. 2025 was a mere scratching of the surface of what the future of this event is and will undoubtedly become in the coming years. More than two decades of innovation and the combined efforts of an elite-level team on all fronts became Natural Selection Bike—a revolutionary contest format that is sure to push the sport to previously unfathomable heights.
What makes NST unique?
2025 was just the beginning. In its inaugural year, the collective dream was realized, a format was established, and the bike world was introduced to a contest unlike any other.
The event began with a Dream Ticket Qualifier—a two-hour jam-style format that decided the last four spots on the official rider list. Pulling from a pool of 20 riders comprised of some of the best up-and-comers in the sport, two men and two women were ultimately added to the main field of the event as a result of their performance. While this opportunity to ride your way into the main event is certainly extraordinary, what truly makes the event unique is its two-run combined format and the ability to choose from several different line options on each of those two runs.
Staying true to the early days of Super- and Ultranatural, riders were judged on line choice, tricks, style, and flow. By combining some of the sport’s otherwise more disparate disciplines of freeride, big mountain, and slope all into one dynamic event, Natural Selection captures perhaps the greatest glimpse at what makes a multi-talented freerider. Add in the fact that neither run on either line can be a throwaway, and NST explores an innovative concept of what it means to be a consistent and well-rounded rider in the face of high-consequence, trick-oriented terrain. Of course, events like Hardline and Rampage touch on this concept of being “well-rounded” as well, but Natural Selection takes it a step in a slightly different direction, putting more emphasis on rider creativity while still keeping things in a directly comparable head-to-head format.
NST Bike 2026
After many years of pushing the envelope, working tirelessly on what the event could be, and carefully reimagining what role contests play in the natural progression of extreme sports, NST 2026 feels like it’s the beginning of a fully fleshed-out dream. 2026 could be the next phase of the event’s—and thus the sport’s—evolution.
Photo: Bartosz Wolinski
Similar to last year, the course will be at the same location but is said to be new and improved, offering riders more options, enhanced features, and an overall more dynamic canvas. Overall, the goal continues to be a venue that blends the natural landscape with the more hybrid-style features and unique builds that we have come to know and love from NST in the past.
Additionally, several riders are prequalified from last year’s event, with the top eight men and the top four women already announced (and listed below). There will be four riders (two men and two women) earning their spots through the Dream Ticket Qualifier. The rest will be hand-selected by the NST Bike Selection Committee and announced throughout this winter.
Prequalified Men:
- Szymon Godziek (POL)
- Carson Storch (USA)
- Louis Reboul (FRA)
- Finley Kirschenmann (USA)
- Reed Boggs (USA)
- Johny Salido (MEX)
- Nicholi Rogatkin (USA)
- Kurtis Downs (USA)
Prequalified Women:
- Cami Nogueira (ARG)
- Hannah Bergemann (USA)
- Kirsten Van Horne (CAN)
- Janelle Soukop (USA)
- Charlie Lester-Rosson (secured a spot by winning Casey Brown’s Dark Horse Event in July)
Perhaps the biggest change to the event is that coverage will be kept completely under wraps until May, when the broadcast goes live as a global premiere on Red Bull TV. This change has been promised to not only elevate the production and rollout of the event, but also elevate the storytelling and rival the top freeride films of the last several years.
So as the dust settles on the build crew’s latest work and the roster locks into place, one thing is clear: Natural Selection Bike 2026 isn’t just another contest—it’s perhaps the next evolutionary step in freeride. Featuring a refined venue, an elevated production, an updated roster, and a renewed commitment to creativity, signs all seem to point toward an event that could redefine how freeride is seen. But it’s only once the lights come up on the global premiere that time will truly tell if we are watching the next chapter unfold; for NST, it’s time to go for broke, and if that’s not freeride energy, I don’t know what is.