The father of freeride

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An interview with Hans Rey, April 15, 2006

Hans Rey didn't start out his career planning to found the freeride branch of the mountain-biking tree. In fact, the charismatic German didn't even plan to be a mountain biker at all; he had a fully established career in the prominent amateur European sport of trials. Both on motorcycles and bicycles, Rey could balance, pivot and hop as well as anyone, pocketing a number of national championships in his early career. But when mountain biking exploded in the US and Rey learned that riders near his skill level were making a living competing in trials, he moved to southern California's beach communities and dominated the fledgling American sport.

HR: TV is very important. It's what I've focused on for the last ten years. TV is the reason that I'm still around, the reason for my longevity. People wonder why a guy who's 40 is still sponsored and doing what he does, and the reason is that I generate a lot of media exposure which, ultimately, is what the sponsor wants to get out of me. My adventure team trips are always made for TV, for example. They end up as thirty to sixty minute documentaries that even air internationally – in like a hundred different countries on one channel or another. When I do the trips, I'm aware of what will be interesting on television. I treat them more like an expedition. I try hard to not just go to a pretty place and hop around on my bike. I try to accomplish something. I'm usually in search of something historical or mysterious.

HR: We haven't had success with that. We've pitched it here and there but the TV world doesn't really know what it wants. Right around the time when these reality shows became popular, the TV world decided that adventure shows were out. Then came a time when everybody in TV compared what we did to adventure racing. There's a big difference. But what can I do? Once the TV world decides something is out, it doesn't matter that they don't research it it's just out.

HR: A bit of both. I'm trying to stay true to what I set out to do but I also want to be flexible and open to new experiences. I admit that what I do is nichy and obscure, and TV people like to fabricate things so I just don't fit all the time. I mean, look at the Olympics. They don't care about the 25% hardcore athletic viewer; they want to get the other 75% - who don't care about sports. In the end they come up with a product that doesn't work for anybody. But it's all relative. There are too many channels now. In Germany, when I grew up, there were only three channels; nowadays, there are more channels than any person could ever watch. I wouldn't recognise anyone who's on MTV, for example. And I know it's huge with certain demographics. There are many more opportunities for us to find a home.

HR: In Europe, trials was a motorcycle and 20” bicycle sport. Then the word came along that there was this new sport of mountain biking evolving in the US and that one of the disciplines was trials. We heard that there were actually US trials riders who were sponsored! Even though trials riding was much more advanced in Europe, we were all amateurs; no-one was sponsored. In the US trials was just a small part of mountain biking. Kevin Norton, the US national trials champion, invited me over. He said ‘you have to come help with trials here, it's about to take off.' When I came over here, I got instant recognition.

HR: My skills were able to carry over. Back then they had these mountain bike stage races. You had to do everything; uphill, downhill, cross country and trials. All these mountain-bike stars - Tomac, Ned Overend - had to do the trials. At Mammoth, for example, there would be like 1,000 riders doing the trials competition. It was easy for me to do well. When the races broke up into specialised events, a small group of guys stuck with trials, but it was the hardest sport so most people opted out and it faded.

HR: For many years, I still competed in trials. I won the national championships and rode the world championships. Then, in the early '90's, I started doing videos. Many people tell me that was the beginning of freeriding; me taking my bike into these non-competitive environments like through waterfalls in Jamaica or down the slopes at Mammoth on the snow. I did urban sessions in San Francisco and rode on the Inca trail to Machu Picu and people remember it to this day. People were realising that mountain biking was not about racing.

HR: It didn't come overnight - I had to prove myself - but yes, they get what I do big time. The results speak for themselves. After the trip I did last year with Thomas Frischknecht (Alta Rezia Freeride Tour), we had 26 magazine features. A feature is like four to ten pages. That's about as much coverage as the whole world championships probably got. Plus we got TV and DVD's out of it! The stuff is really successful. These things have longevity as well. I look at DVD's that are seven years old and they don't look dated.

HR: It's called Wheels 4 Life (www.wheels4life.org). We give bikes to people in need of transportation in third-world countries. I've seen how a bike can make a difference in a person's life. For us it's a toy. For them, a bike can mean the difference between going to school or taking a job that's a few miles away or not. We give bikes to health care workers so they can see more patients. There are literally millions of people out there who need bikes.

HR: Fundraisers and donations. We put out some publicity and got support from people in the industry. A local school had a bake sale. One of the biggest bike races in Germany is tying my charity to their event, as is a festival in Switzerland. We also receive donations through the website. We take that money and buy bikes from a disributor that sells them in the places that need them most. The biggest obligation I have is to make sure the bikes end up in the right hands and we're looking at opportunities in the Philippines, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal - even an orphanage in Mexico.