Inside the absolutely incredible recovery of Tom van Steenbergen
A potentially career-ending injury kept the Canadian off his feet for three months going into 2022
Photo by:
Paris Gore / Red Bull Content Pool
When Tom van Steenbergen finished his run at Red Bull Rampage this year, it wasn’t his highest-scoring run ever. It didn’t put him on the podium, as he has in the past, or win best trick. But just getting to Utah and making it to the finish line was one of the most impressive accomplishments at Rampage.
Why? At the same event last year, he crashed and shattered his hips. Fans around the world witnessed the crash, which was broadcast live on Red Bull TV. But few know how hard the recovery was. It took three months just to start walking again. But, to van Steenbergen, the mental side of recovery was far more challenging.
His fellow riders agreed and awarded him the McGazza Spirit Award for riding in this year’s event.
“Coming back after an injury like that is insane. That would have been insanely difficult for him, to go and do a clean run. But I’m so proud of him for doing that,” Brett Rheeder said of his fellow Canadian when we interviewed him about his Rampage win. “He’s never held back, ever, and this year he held back. His future in Rampage is very bright and I think that’s one of the best moves he could have ever done.”
We talked to Tom van Steenbergen about recovery, his beautiful custom bike, returning to Rampage, and learning to move forward by backing down.
Canadian MTB: Your run at Rampage this year really starts at last year’s event. You had the high of that flat-drop front flip, which won Best Trick, followed seconds later by a devastating crash. That’s a lot to happen all at once. How have you processed those two things happening at the same time in the months since?
Tom van Steenbergen: That was the hardest part. It’s one thing to get hurt and have to deal with the injury. It’s another to get hurt after the biggest accomplishment of my career, landing that front flip. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever had to overcome to even commit to doing that trick. Then actually doing it in a run and, right away, everything is taken away from me. That was by far the hardest part. It was almost tougher than the actual recovery itself.
That was a potentially career-ending injury as well. You were quite positive right away about getting back to the bike. But did you ever doubt that that would be possible?
Yeah, it was the first time where I’d actually been in the hospital and had to ask the surgeon what he thought the risks were, and what the recovery is going to be like. Was I even going to recover? He seemed pretty confident that I would be able to recover fine. The surgeon didn’t promise me anything, but he didn’t tell me the worst-case scenario, really. He did an amazing job in the surgery. It was more of a break than he thought it would be, so it took a lot longer to put everything back together.
Then the doctors in Canada really told me to push the breaks. Every time I would see them for follow-ups I would be told to chill out more and more. Then, after three months of not being allowed to do anything, follow-up x-rays cleared me to start walking again and doing light exercise. That’s when I knew I was going to be able to make a full recovery. Before that… I never doubted that I was going to make a full recovery, for some reason, but the doctors weren’t so sure. They’ve seen this type of injury and they’ve seen people not be able to walk normally again so they were more concerned than I was because I was just sort of in the dark.
How long into that process was it when you started thinking about being able to compete this year?
It wasn’t until probably six weeks before Rampage. I was committed before that, but I wasn’t sure if there was going to be any weird obstacles that were going to come my way. The whole injury has been like that: unexpected things one after the other. I just didn’t want to commit to it publicly, but I was pretty committed to it two months before. That’s when I knew that my riding was going to be there. It was around the time I really started riding again. It all came together once I started riding my bike.
That is quite a compressed time period. What’s that process like, from getting back on the bike to being ready to do something like Rampage?
It’s a lengthy process. Building the confidence back up can be the most time-consuming process and can be the most frustrating one as well if you’re unaware of it. Luckily – well, not luckily – but I’ve been through it before. So I knew what it was going to take and wasn’t unrealistic about it. But building confidence is the most challenging part. You have the muscle memory, you’ve done everything, it’s all in your brain. You remember how to ride a bike. It just takes a little to get back and get the confidence.
Right after the event, you posted that “It has taken a few days for it to sink in that I actually accomplished something. This is the first year I’ve left Rampage knowing I had a lot more in the tank.” What was the experience of competing in Rampage like during the competition compared to other years?
It was weird, actually. It didn’t really feel like Rampage for me because I didn’t have some specific thing that I was looking to do. I was just looking to get as much time on the bike as possible and going there to have fun, as weird as that sounds.
I had more in the tank and more that I was going to do, but I backed out of it because… there were a whole lot of things that weren’t sitting well with me. The bike wasn’t completely set for the tricks I was planning on doing, that was the biggest thing. Normally I would have just taken that extra risk but I can’t afford to crash again right now. Staying healthy was the top priority this year. So I decided to back out of that.
That was the biggest thing that I was thinking immediately as I got to the bottom, feeling almost disappointed that I didn’t go for it. Obviously, I had to remember, and it took a few days for me to realize that, that I came from that crazy injury and had two months on the bike before I came to Rampage. It was just a weird time at Rampage for me. Not getting that second run was also a strange feeling: walking down the mountain after you’re at the top wanting to do another run. It was all very weird.
It has to be hard being in that mindset to drop in then having to step back like that. You’ve built a reputation dating back to at least 2013, when you were the first that year to hit the canyon gap, and 2014 doing a 70-foot front flip world record as someone who seeks out things that are exceptionally hard, that’s willing to be the first one to hit things like that. Was it hard to break out of that mindset to make the decision to be safer this year? Or is that more of a public perception?
No, for me it was so hard to back out of that. It took a lot for me to weigh out the risk-vs-reward on that. I was going to do a back flip on the big flat drop. Just the way that my bike was set up, I just wasn’t feeling right about it and the risk-versus-reward just didn’t add up for me. It would have been more for me personally than for my overall Rampage score.
Just being able to make that decision is more of an accomplishment than just saying “fuck it” and going for it, like I usually do.
You did walk away with the Kelly McGarry Spirit Award, which is a rider-voted award. What does it mean to you to have the other riders acknowledge what you’ve accomplished in getting back to Rampage?
That’s gotta be one of the coolest things, getting the McGazza spirit award. Especially because it comes from the riders. They’ve all been in my position and know how hard it is to come back from an injury. Maybe not one as severe as mine or as quickly, but everyone’s been through it. It’s cool to see that they acknowledged that.
For your video parts, Wild West I and II, you’ve done some incredibly heavy riding. What’s the difference for you between a project like that and competing at Rampage?
I guess the best way to describe it is that everything is on your own terms. The perfect example is the front flip flat drop from last year and crashing on the next feature. Normally I’d do that front flip and just throw the bike right after and give your friends a big hug for surviving that. But I had to put my head straight somehow and trick the next couple of features to make it to the finish corral. That’s the biggest difference: you can focus on one thing then, in a video, make it look like you keep going or whatever. But when you’re in a competition you have to put it all together in one run and focus on more than one thing at the same time.
Tom van Steenbergen's "Redy to Die" Hyper. Photo: Fresh Paints of Whistler
Van Steenbergen's favourite album. Photo: Fresh Paints of Whistler
Seriously next-level work. Photo: Fresh Paints of Whistler
You rode a very custom bike painted by the guys at Fresh Paints of Whistler. How did that connection and bike come about?
It was just a cool idea that I had for a Biggie Smalls bike. He’s one of my favourite rappers and that Ready to Die album is one of the greatest hip-hop albums all time. It doesn’t have any resemblance to my comeback or crash, it’s just something I’m passionate about. The guys at Industry Nine definitely outdid themselves, putting a bunch of songs on every one of my spokes. The Fresh Paints guys crushed it on the frame. We went over the basic design – colours and the theme and logo placements – the rest of the art I left up to them. They blew it out of the water.
What’s up next for you, now that you’ve completed the comeback by riding at Rampage?
I’m just taking a day at a time right now. It’s just amazing to be healthy and actually have the opportunity to ride my bike for more than a couple months at a time. I’ve got a few video projects to work on this winter. We’ve been working on a video documentary about the injuries, so we’ll continue to work on that. Then just trying to get a bunch of riding in this winter. Being healthy is the biggest thing for me, so I’m just trying to keep that in mind. The reward has to outweigh the risk all the time and that’s something I just need to … learn.
You did have a few big injuries in a row. Does it ever feel like you can get stuck in that cycle?
Yeah. And I think it is pretty easy to get stuck in a cycle of injuries like that if you do what I did the first time and not take your time to get healthy again. You can rush your way back from an injury, but your body and your mind needs time off. Your body remembers those things very well. It’s easy to want to come back early, but sometimes you need to take that bit of extra time off to fully heal even though it feels like you’re healed already.
