Look out for more from Ruben at home in Spain in DIG issue 70, but for now here is what he had to say about his ‘Big Hip’.

“It’s been years since Joe, Garret and I talked about jumping a giant hip. When we were filming for the T1 video we got the opportunity to build one and it worked really good, so good that we couldn’t pedal any faster to go higher. Since then I have been curious about how much fun it would be to go faster at something like this and see what will happen. One day riding at the trails looking at this little hill next to the jumps I had the idea and I found this line going between the jumps that will give you a ton of speed and also ended in a good spot to build ‘The Big Hip’ and with not much digging involved. The problem was that to make the landing by hand it would be a lot of hard work due to its size, and one day while digging at the trails with my good friend Sami (who used to work with digging machines) called me and told me that one of the machines was free one weeked and we could use it to make the landing… When I hung up I was so excited that I stopped fixing this little jump at the trails and went to start ‘The Big Hip’ and the first afternoon I almost finished the take off and in a couple more days everything was ready except the landing… then the machine came and, boom! There it was! Over three floors of hill and rollers to get the speed, a NINE foot tall take off, and a steep landing 30 feet away! Sooo beautiful! But then it was the moment to give it a go… Yes, I was a bit scared because you had to go really fast and it was huge! So, it made me think a lot the first time… I remember having flash backs of back in the day trying backflips for first time or something like that. The jump worked out so good! It felt like I was 18 years old again… I won’t forget this day, incredible! And it’s probably one of the best feelings that I ever had on my bike… but, it’s even better seeing my friends jumping it for the first time with scary faces and after they clear the jump you can tell how stoked and happy they are… we all agreed how good this jump is and that makes me happier.

Here there is a drawing that gives you a better idea of how the Big Hip is and why is so fun to ride it:

Well, all you guys who ride bikes know how fun it is to ride a hip. Small or big, a bank or transition… it doesn’t matter… it’s just sooo fun! It’s hard to describe the feeling but it can be compared to a good day in life… maybe because of the different ways to do it? Because you can pick the trajectory you want even if you don’t know what is going to happen?… Because in the middle of it you can correct this trajectory?… Because it always gives you a new good feeling?… Yes, it’s sounds like a good day in life and because good days exist big days do too. Maybe this is the reason I started The Big Hip?… Who knows, but one thing for sure is that we all had big days riding it.” -Ruben