Bike
BMX
The story behind the custom-made carbon fibre Don’t Look Down bowl
What happened when the DIY world of BMX collabed with the high-tech engineering of Formula One? Something magical, of course...
“Imagine riding a skatepark up in the air.” When Kriss Kyle first dreamed up his Don’t Look Down project, little did he know the level of aeronautical engineering that would be required to turn his fantasy into a reality.
Combining BMXing with aeronautics isn't completely new to him, though. The 31-year-old Scottish star has previously experienced dropping out of a helicopter in his Dubai edit. He also knew that riding a ramp in the sky would require a much more gentle, downforce-free mode of transport. But even the biggest hot air balloon in the UK was unable to lift the load of a traditional steel and wooden skatebowl structure.
I first thought you could hang it under a Chinook helicopter, but when I dropped out of a much smaller helicopter in Dubai it was like jumping into a tornado
Enter Red Bull Racing. Masters in crafting Formula One World Championship-winning cars for Max Verstappen and Sergio Perez, Kriss and his team approached the commercial arm of the team – Red Bull Advanced Technologies (RBAT) – and challenged them to significantly reduce the weight of the bowl.
Here, RBAT’s Technical Director Rob Gray and Commercial Development Office Andy Damerum reveal what it took to get the project off the ground.
01
Light enough to be lifted, but strong enough for slams
Kriss first approached RBAT in February 2021. Armed with a CAD model of the bowl that he’d created in collaboration with long-time ramp builder George Eccleston, he needed a way of manufacturing the structure that would keep it rideable but also light enough to be lifted by a balloon.
Kriss, Rob and Andy (l-r) worked together to create the carbon fibre bowl
© Eisa Bakos
“Weight was the primary thing, and getting it down was a difficult challenge,” explains Rob Gray. The wooden and steel build came in at roughly eight tonnes. For the project to succeed, the bowl and its metalwork (guard rails, bolts) needed to be under 2.9.
“Effectively they couldn't get a balloon big enough to lift it,” he adds. “They came to us and said, ‘Can you design a bowl that is light enough that we can lift?’ It goes without saying that it also needs to be strong enough so that when he lands on the bottom of it, he doesn't go straight through it; it has guardrails for the safety side of it; and then as a side requirement, you need to be able to land the thing and not have it fall into a million pieces.”
Technology refined in Formula 1 was used to create a light enough bowl
© Eisa Bakos
To meet the unique needs of the project, the RBAT team used carbon fibre to build a structure where each section's thickness was tailored to provide overall strength, while also keeping weight at a minimum.
The result is a bowl that weighs in at 1.5 tonnes and an overall structure that is 300kg under the limit.
02
Piecing together the puzzle
As if the original requirements weren’t restrictive enough, the project posed another challenge for RBAT – each section of the bowl had to be narrow enough to fit through a farmer’s gate. While it might sound like a slightly odd request at first, all becomes clearer when you remember what the bowl is suspended beneath – balloons might take off from a set location, but their landing location is completely random.
The bowl needed to be able to be put together and taken apart on the move
© Eisa Bakos
“As it was going to be flown in the countryside, it needed to [be able to] go through a farmer's gate, as most balloons do, so it couldn't be any wider than three metres,” says Andy Damerum. This meant that the bowl would have to be split up into sections, and each would require additional hardware to secure together – impacting overall weight. This delicate balancing act was made even more difficult by the fact that each piece had a maximum weight of 150kg – “you also needed to be able to carry these parts and assemble them in a field,” adds Damerum.
The bowl is made out of 22 different sections
© Eisa Bakos
Each join required additional metalwork – increasing the weight
© Eisa Bakos
The result was, “effectively a 22-piece jigsaw of carbon parts no more than 100kg”.
03
World Championship-winning carbon fibre
“Fundametally, the carbon fibre is the same [as that used on the Formula One cars],” says Gray. “The race car uses different types of carbon all over. For example, suspension legs have strands of carbon fibre running all the way down their length and very few going around the outside – that gives you a link that's very strong in tension and compression. The bodywork is more of a fabric matt of carbon fibre – it's woven with pieces overlapping each other because that gives you strength in both directions. The vast majority of the bowl is carbon fibre matt – so it's a fairly generic carbon.”
The carbon fibre bowl was finished in vinyl for grip
© Eisa Bakos
The material doesn’t extend to the finish of the bowl though, with a vinyl wrap preferred. “It needed to be a certain roughness so that the bike gripped it, but he doesn't grip it so well that if he falls off it takes his skin off,” adds Gray.
04
It’s not the first Red Bull project they’ve worked on
While it might be the first time a BMX bowl has ever been fully constructed out of carbon fibre, this isn’t the first time that you’ll have seen RBAT’s work. “RBAT's really all about land, sea, air and making best use of our F1 technologies and processes,” say Damerum. “We like the projects that have a bit of Red Bull about them – we don't want to be designing door handles.”
We like the projects that have a bit of Red Bull about them – we don't want to be designing door handles
Previous examples of collaborations include work with the Red Bull Air Race, skydivers, and the Aston Martin Valkyrie.
Watch Kriss ride the bowl in Don't Look Down
4 min
Don’t Look Down with Kriss Kyle
See how Kriss Kyle’s daring idea ballooned into the ultimate test of BMX skill.
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Watch the full feature-length Don't Look Down documentary, revealing how this incredible project came together, on Red Bull TV. For the best viewing experience, download the free app on your TV, console or device.
