Alberta X Games athlete rides bike off 90-metre cliff — and plans to do it again

A 25-year-old from Cochrane, Alta., has jumped off a 90-metre cliff — and he's planning to do it again.

Cody Matechuk, a gold medal-winning X Games athlete, has jumped off a cliff on a mountain near Whistler, B.C., hoping his "custom contraption" of a snow bike and two parachutes would work.

Matechuk pulled off what's likely the first snow bike BASE jump. (The acronym stands for building, antenna, span and Earth, for when a person jumps from a fixed structure or cliff).

In the video, you can hear the sound of his bike rushing through the snow.

Then the sound stops.

That's when he went over "the edge of a 300-foot cliff, out into the abyss."

"And then my parachute opened and then the bike's parachute opened — and it was all stoke from there," he told the Calgary Eyeopener on Wednesday.

Now he's ready to try it again. He's currently in Clearwater, B.C., scoping out the perfect site for a second attempt. 

If the weather's right, he'll take the leap.

Matechuk used to work on a drilling rig but three years ago he started competing in the X Games in Aspen, Colo. Then he won a gold medal in Snow BikeCross in 2018 — and again this year.

This latest feat was a bonus to an already great year.

"Most BASE jumps I can get into pretty quickly, gear up and ready to go," the X-Games athlete said. "This one was definitely the most intense thing that I've done."

Avoiding trouble

It's been a long journey getting here. This isn't something you try at home.

To get ready, he started preparations last year, including modifying his bike to have a parachute. He carefully checked everything before jumping.

"There's just so much more variables when you throw, obviously, the bike in it — but then the parachute? I'm basically tied between two parachute systems," he said.

"So if something goes wrong, and like crash off the lip or the bike dies off the jump, we're going to be in trouble."

Matechuk looked to U.S. motocross BASE jumper Bradley Slums for advice. He's done similar jumps on a dirt bike in sand dunes. 

But from what Matechuk can tell, the Whistler leap may have been the first BASE jump on a snow bike.

"I mean, that's the craziest feeling. I've done lots of bike jumps, done lots of BASE jumps," he said. "But to be riding a bike off a 300-foot cliff is just out of this world. So there's that moment you just enjoy."

His bike landed safely, and so did he.

Matechuk had carefully started the jump far back, in fourth gear at about 60 kilometres/hour, in order to clear the slope in case there was an avalanche.