Christian Rigal is a San Diego-born rider that has spent a lifetime shaping his own playgrounds. From concrete rails to backyard dirt lines. Now he\u2019s taking that same work ethic to the trails near home.
Armed with the new Specialized Turbo Levo 4, Rigal\u2019s days blur together in a satisfying cycle of building, shaping and sending. The new e-MTB\u2019s power and range mean he can climb faster, dig longer and ride harder. He\u2019s out there living the dream: mostly.<\/p>\n
The unbuckled truth<\/p>\n
If you\u2019ve seen his latest video, one thing stands out. And it\u2019s not just the smooth camera work or perfect dirt. It\u2019s that helmet, proudly perched and completely unbuckled.<\/p>\n
When asked about it on social, Rigal blames his BMX roots.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never rode in a helmet my whole life on a BMX so it still feels weird to me,\u201d he says. \u201cIt makes me sweat like crazy. For me, it\u2019s more comfortable with it unclipped, so that tends to happen on the chill fun stuff. Kinda just old habits tho\u2026 any time I wore one on a BMX it was never clipped haha. Bad practice I know.\u201d<\/p>\n
You have to respect the honesty. For a guy who can spin, gap and manual through terrain that would send most riders over the bars, the idea of a dangling strap might be no big deal. But accidents happen quickly. I know because I learned the hard way (with my helmet buckled thankfully!).<\/p>\n
Powered by play<\/p>\n
The new generation of e-bikes have clearly earned Rigal\u2019s stamp of approval. It climbs higher, handles tighter and keeps him out there longer \u2014 which, for a builder like him, means more time shaping and shredding.
The way Rigal rides it, the Levo 4 is less about power and more about possibility. He threads it through urban ledges, backyard booters and rough singletrack with the same creative energy that made him a standout in BMX.<\/p>\n
Helmet clipped or not, Christian Rigal rides like the rules never applied to him anyway.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Christian Rigal is a San Diego-born rider that has spent a lifetime shaping his own playgrounds. From concrete…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":198309,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,784,43062,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-198308","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-mtb-features","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/198309"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}