The 23-year-old is one of the hottest prospects in downhill and has results to back that up. In 2024, he won the Red Bull Hardline races in Tasmania and Wales, and landed his first World Cup round success in Szczyrk, Poland.
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Last season, he repeated at the World Cup with another win at Les Gets, while one week later he was the bronze medallist behind Jackson Goldstone and Henri Kiefer at the worlds. But it is the context for his 2025 performances which really underlines the value of those results.
In early February, the Irishman crashed hard at Red Bull Hardline Tasmania, clattering into a boulder and suffering the first really big injuries of his career. Five months later, he had another big off at the La Thuile World Cup, incurring another serious whack. They were two big reality tests for a rider who said on September 24 that his biggest injury to date was a scaphoid fracture, and that ‘a lot of risk goes out the window’ when you are in a race and trying to win.
So what exactly happened last season?
“My Hardline crash, that was definitely my fault,” the Mondraker Factory Racing rider tells off.road.cc, speaking from his training base in New Zealand. “I was just pushing a little bit too hard for the very first run of the day. I broke my pelvis and collarbone, and then fractured my back. That set me back a bit, just as injuries do.”
Dunne was sidelined from the sport for weeks but, somewhat remarkably, was back in competition two months later
“We were quite happy, just because the pelvis is such a big bone,” he says of that rapid recovery. “I was lucky that the muscles stayed attached to it. Usually, it could be months and months and months of recovery, just because if you had to get surgery. But I was quite lucky. It was a big break, but I was lucky how it healed.
“The collarbone, that’s simple. Throw in a plate, and it’s pretty much ready to go in two weeks. It was my first time taking time off for a proper injury. So I was just doing nothing, really. It was pretty boring. But, yeah, it happens to everyone.”
Dunne’s matter-of-fact approach continued when he wiped out in the La Thuile World Cup in early July. He escaped fractures that time around, but suffered another injury, which might make some people think twice about their career choices.
“I had a crash there and bruised my liver. So I had to miss a World Cup because of that,” he explains. “That was quite annoying, actually, because I felt like I was getting up to speed, then another injury set me back.
“It was a tough time: obviously, you’re paid to get results, and you weren’t getting them.”
Dunne was urged to take a proper break from the sport to fully heal from the liver contusion, but he was having none of it. His defence of his Red Bull Hardline Wales was coming up three weeks after his La Thuile fall; determined to try to win again, he shrugged off medical advice to return to training far faster than anticipated.
“The doctor wanted me to take, I think, a month and a half off. I took a week and a half off,” he admits, then concedes: “It was kind of a risky one.”
Dunne did what he could in the race but had to be satisfied with third place. That’s still remarkable, given the context, but he didn’t see it that way.
“I wasn’t too happy with my result, obviously winning Red Bull Hardline twice before. I wanted to win it, but I was coming straight in with that liver injury. So I kind of physically wasn’t there. But then after that, I went to the World Cup in Les Gets and won it.
“It was a pretty good rollercoaster, I think.”
That’s something of an understatement.
Taking a major scalp with a breakthrough win
Dunne hails from Enniskerry in Wicklow, close to Ireland’s capital, Dublin. His father Larry, is a vet specialising in horses, while his mother is an equine trainer. He and his siblings grew up on a farm with plenty of those animals around.
However, for Dunne and his brother Anthony, their interests in the saddle were towards two wheels rather than four legs. “I never really had much of an interest in riding horses,” he tells Off.Road.CC. “It’s just always been bikes, whether it would just be bikes from Halfords or anything else. Then we got into motorbikes. We got a little motocross bike… I think I must have been seven or even younger.
“We eventually got into motor trials for a bit. And we did that for about five years. We destroyed so many of those bikes; we blew engines constantly. I did that for a good while, which was great for building up skills. Then one day I went up to my friend’s house and had to go on his mountain bike. I got pretty hooked on it.”
Dunne did more and more of that, riding for fun, playing around with the bikes on the farm, and then progressing to small national races in Ireland.
What was the appeal?
“It was just great craic,” he smiles, using the Irish phrase for fun. “Just the joy of it. The simple joy of just riding your bike.”
Dunne was a regular winner on the Irish circuit, with his successes including the junior national championships in 2019. And while he suggests he was a bit out of his depth internationally, he was a solid 18th in that year’s worlds.
Covid completely messed up his plans in 2020, with major restrictions on what non-professionals could do in terms of racing. However, in 2021, he headed abroad again and was third in round one of the European Cup. Things accelerated from that point on, and by 2024, he was a winner of those Red Bull Hardline races in Tasmania and Wales. He also took the World Cup round in Szczryk, Bielsko-Biała, en route to fourth overall in that series.
Dunne’s attitude prior to the final round revealed his aggressive mentality and his drive to win.
“I don’t normally look at the times, but this time I did,” he said then. “I saw the time Bruni scored, and I thought, ‘okay, let’s get to it, we’re not bluffing.’ I was ready to fight someone.
“I had the mindset that I’d be going for a helicopter trip or coming down in first. We didn’t take the helicopter trip, we took the win.”
He edged out Loïc Bruni by .064 of a second, earning the admiration of the then world number one. The Frenchman went on to win the World Cup, three places ahead of Dunne, and lauded the young rider for his ability and achievements.
“Congrats to Ronan for his amazing season. It’s been really cool to see him progress and get better,” Bruni told this writer. “He has always been quite a loose unit, just sending it [throwing caution to the wind – ed.] and going for wins.
“This year, changing programme, I think he understood how to make race runs a bit more consistent, and a little bit more efficient.
“It’s been cool to see he had it in him. His mindset was always quite fierce. When he won his first World Cup this year in Poland, I was second by a small margin. It was really cool to be battling with him in that race and battling the whole season, pretty much.”
Red Bull saw his potential too, joining with his Mondraker Factory Racing team as another big backer. He was on his way.
“The worst part is not riding your bike”
Talking to Dunne in autumn 2024, the overriding impression was that of a rider who had dodged serious injury and had an element of fearlessness about him. Over a year on, and with those two big crashes behind him, he retains his determination to shrug off risk in pursuit of reward. He recognises the dangers of the sport, but also accepts them.
“Crashes are always going to have an element of error to them, really. It’s just the way our sport is, you’re going so fast,” he says. “You can do something wrong and crash, or you can just be lucky and save them. Or be lucky in how you fall, or in what you fall on.
“But with our sport, it’s not one where you can have an injury and be like, ‘why me?’ Basically, after your last injury, the clock has started for the next one, really. You’re going to get another one. There’s going to be more and more, I’m sure.
“You can look at it in different ways, but that’s the way I’m looking at it. I’ve got this collarbone plated [he points at one shoulder]. I’m sure the other one is going to be plated in the next while. And I’m sure this [first] plate is going to have to get replaced. It’s the sport it is.”
So, given his previous near-nonchalance about the risks of downhill, have his two big spills in 2025 made him more aware of the dangers?
“Kind of. Yes, and no,” he says, considering the question. “They definitely sucked. They were pretty sore, and you’re out of action. I think the worst part is actually just not riding your bike. The pain is…like, they’re sore, but it’s only for a couple of days and then you’re grand. But it’s more just missing out on riding your bike. That’s kind of the worst thing.”
Every rider tries to avoid big offs, of course. Nobody enjoys the surgeries, the scars and, as Dunne puts it, the enforced time off the bike.
But he also regards other areas of cycling as demanding in their own ways. He expresses admiration, for example, at the crazy speeds roadies hit during mountain descents. He also marvels at their ability to suffer for hour after hour in long races.
“We think they’re mad in the sense that they give themselves that hardship,” he says. “Those events look so physically tiring. I suppose it’s each to their own. They’re probably like, ‘oh, why do they do what they do?’ But then also we’re like, ‘why did they do that to their body? Like, the abuse?’ So I think both sides respect their own kind of madness, really.”
For Dunne, the accepted madness is that injuries must be avoided, wherever possible, but that there is also an inevitability about them.
“After my first injury, the first big one, I knew I was due one. It was my fourth year of racing professionally, and I hadn’t broken a bone. And I have quite an aggressive riding style, and I have quite a few big crashes. So I was definitely like, ‘okay, it’s for sure coming, because you can’t stay injury-free.’
“Obviously, you can do things to prevent it, like your training, or also just having naturally stronger bones. I’d like to think a few people have that.
“But it hasn’t changed my mindset too much, to be honest. I’ll just try not to crash as often. That would be nice.”
“It’s getting tougher and tougher”
Having spent several weeks thus far in New Zealand, building form in the heat of a Kiwi summer, Dunne is due to start his racing season on February 7th and 8th in Red Bull Hardline Tasmania. Winner two years ago, crashing out last year; he sees the race as a chance of redemption, and is psyched to top the podium once more.
He’ll spend a further month in New Zealand after that, then will begin a busy season crisscrossing the globe and racking up the best results possible.
“For the World Cups, top three in the overall would be the main goal,” he says when asked to name his targets. “In 2024, I got fourth overall, so I think the top three should be pretty doable. Obviously, I’d like to win, but I’ll take a top three. And then obviously just consistent podiums and the odd win will be pretty nice.
“That’s the main goal, really, because every year there are new riders coming up. So it’s just getting tougher and tougher. Everybody else gets faster as well, not just yourself. So it’s always nice just to build, really.”
Dunne describes finishing third in the 2025 worlds as ‘pretty special,’ both for the medal itself and also because his mother Riceal was there. “That was her first time seeing me actually do well at a race,” he smiles. “Usually, the races she comes to, I don’t do that well.”
The worlds is, of course, going to be a major target again. He admits he doesn’t like the course as much as last year’s venue, but will give his all.
“I definitely will have the eyes on that one. I think every rider has their eyes on worlds, because it’s just that one-off race that you can just really go for it. It doesn’t matter if you crack. It doesn’t really matter unless you get podium; nobody really cares where you come otherwise.
“It’s one you just have to go for it”
Ideal course or not, Dunne will for sure be one to watch there and in general this season. He’s building a serious set of results, and now, another year older and wiser, his aggressive racing style and the tightrope between risk and reward will, he hopes, go his way more often than not in the months ahead.
