31. October 2024

Richie Schley – Pioneer of the Freeride Movement. A Look Back at the Early Days

When the movie Kranked 1 came out in 1998, it was one of the first films to put the emerging freeride mountain bike scene in the spotlight and played a huge role in making the discipline popular. Inspired by snowboarders and freeride skiers, mountain bikers began to venture off traditional race courses, exploring new terrain and pushing the limits of what was possible on two wheels. The focus was on creative line choices, big jumps, and technical maneuvers in gnarly descents. Freeride quickly became its own movement, especially in Canada, in places like British Columbia. Canadian riders like Richie Schley, Brett Tippie, and Wade Simmons, as part of the FroRiders, were major influences on the sport’s development.

In honor of the final issue of the German-language Freeride magazine, Richie reflects on this evolution—after all, he graced both the cover of the first issue and this last one.

Foto: Scott Markewitz (le.), Dylan Sherrard (ri.), Copyright: www.bike-magazin.de

A Letter to the Editors: 20 Years of Freeride Magazine Germany

After the freeride movement exploded in North America and spread to Europe, we, the Rocky Mountain FroRiders, visited Germany. Kranked 1 had already been released, and everyone wanted a piece of the freeride scene. The typical mountain bike magazines covered us, but some of our riding and photos were way too radical for them.

Bike Mag in the U.S. did a decent job highlighting the movement, but it took a long time for a true freeride magazine to hit newsstands. If I remember correctly, Freeride from Germany was the first. Wow – one of the biggest mountain bike markets in the world had decided our movement was worthy of its own publication. Dimitri Lehner’s passion for the sport and his drive to find that niche that spoke to him, as it did for so many of us, was the inspiration.

In den Anfangstagen des Freeridens, Mitte der 1990er, waren die Bikes wirklich nicht dafür gemacht, was wir in unserer Fantasie mit ihnen vorhatten. Sie haben nicht das ausgehalten, was wir mit ihnen gemacht haben. Die Geometrie war steil und eigentlich mehr fürs Klettern und sanfte Abfahrten gedacht, flache Trails eben. Keines der Anbauteile hat die Schläge und Stöße ausgehalten, die wir ihnen verpasst haben. Wir haben Neuland betreten, das Unmögliche probiert und es manchmal sogar geschafft – aber es gab jede Menge Stürze zwischendurch.

Wow – one of the biggest mountain bike markets in the world had decided our movement was worthy of its own publication. Dimitri Lehner’s passion for the sport and his drive to find that niche that spoke to him, as it did for so many of us, was the inspiration.

When I found out I’d be on the cover of the first issue, I was stoked and honored. By that time, Brett Tippie, Wade Simmons, and I had been on a few magazine covers worldwide, but one called Freeride – that was something special. The bike industry, the scene, the gear, and the riding itself have changed, evolved, and progressed dramatically since that first issue in 2004.

Heutzutage mache ich mir kaum Gedanken darüber, was mein Bike aushält, weil ich weiß, dass es für alles gebaut ist, was man fahren oder springen kann, egal was. Die heutigen Bikes sind einfach auf einem ganz anderen Level.

Just take a look at the original photo: small frames, steep angles, 26-inch wheels, heavy DH bikes with only 170 mm of travel, and, let’s be honest, some pretty terrible tires. In the new photo, which we think is at the same location, I’m dropping in on an e-bike with 820 Wh of power, 180 mm travel in the front, 160 mm in the rear, an integrated dropper post, wide bars, and some seriously grippy tires. The frame is carbon. The weight of my new ROTWILD R.EXC trail bike is lighter than my old Rocky Mountain RM7 DH bike in the original shot, which was almost entirely made of aluminum.

One of the biggest concerns back when the original photo was taken was gear failure. These days, that barely crosses my mind. Helmets and protective gear were hot and heavy, without offering much protection compared to today's standards. In the early freeride days, nobody was jumping off cliffs, and we didn’t prep our stunts. We’d just kick in a landing or runout with our feet. We were skiers and snowboarders trying to bring what we could do on snow onto our bikes and push the boundaries of what we thought was possible.

In der Zukunft sehe ich verschiedene E-MTBs mit verschiedenen Unterstützungsstufen – und das fängt ja jetzt schon an. Die Geometrie wird immer besser und sorgt für maximalen Komfort beim Klettern, ohne die Abfahrtsqualitäten zu beeinträchtigen. Akkukapazität und Gewicht werden auch weiter optimiert, um das bestmögliche Fahrgefühl für jedes Bike zu bieten. Wenn die Vergangenheit uns was zeigt, dann, dass wir in Zukunft noch mehr Spaß und Leichtigkeit in den Bergen erleben werden – und ich kann es kaum erwarten!

If I remember correctly, that’s what Dimitri liked about this first cover shot – it was raw, just like the beginning of freeriding. Then the scene realized how much further, higher, and faster you could go if you actually shaped the landings and runouts—like how Rampage is today compared to the first couple of events. Freeriding is still alive and kicking!

Yours Richie