Riley McIntosh drops by with his business idea, some great pictures and an amazing video. Read on to discover more about Riley and his business, Rilor Wilderness.
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Photos by Kari Medig
Note: This is a continuation from last week's interview with Riley, for part 1, click here!
Have you found moving from building stunts for pros to crafting trails for the everyday mountain biker an odd transition? Do you ever get tempted to thrown in the occasional 20-foot tall ladder bridge?
Well since I started with flowy trails when I first started building it?s just the natural cycle of things I think. My main problem with building super gnarly stuff is it actually doesn?t get ridden all that much no matter what you say. For 95% of the time it?s more enjoyable to just to get out there, be relaxed, and shred good solid fun trails, especially when you throw in different excuses like bad weather, bike problems, tiredness, and soreness! Scary trails are, well, scary.
However, I do want to get into building more flowy jumps on my new trails, the only hard part is whether or not to build gaps because I wouldn?t want my guests to nose case some gap or something, that would really suck. If your not building jumps with super built up landings then your just kind of stuck with finding natural transitions, which aren?t exactly usually perfect or all that common. Anyway more airtime is something I personally crave.
How many rides are there at Rilor, and how much total vertical does that add up to?
During the Rilor 4 day trip, of course depending on the group?s ability and the weather, we do about 3-5 trails per day, so usually around 8-10,000 vertical feet of descending each day.
Is there the possibility of some new ones popping up throughout this year?
Oh yeah, for sure. That is basically the thing I am most passionate about beyond riding my trails is building new ones. It will be interested to see how this season pans out but my basic goal is to add at least 1 new trail to the quiver each year. Hopefully ten years from now I?ll have 10 or 15 huge flowy trails built so every ride we do on my trips was built entirely by Rilor Wilderness, that is the ultimate goal.
Generally, what is the most popular ride when you bring people to the site?
I would say the trail that leads down to the Grizzly, called ?Tunnel Vision? it is kind of like a ?test piece? for the type of riding I am going for and a definite favorite, which is nice since it's so easy for us to ride it a bunch of times - it's undulating, has lots of berms, it's a trail that is not overly challenging but at the same time you can build so much skill on it because there are lots of options and ways to ride it faster or better - for example natural jump lines, corners with pumps after them that if you hit exactly right you can air into the next corner, all that good stuff!
What is the longest ride at the zone, and how long is it exactly?
At this point the longest ride we have is the Powerslave Helictoper Drop Ride, which is about 15km of singletrack. It?s quite unique because it?s directly above Nelson and you can see town for much of the trail. Powerslave starts off with an awesome alpine descent and then follows a ridge line for about 4 kilometers in a sort of ?all mountain? fashion with some short climbs and alpine riding. Eventually it gains a small mini peak called Morning Mountain and from there is the true crown jewel descent: 4,500 vertical feet of pristine freeride singletrack featuring old mine sites, some jumps, berms, huge old growth cedar, and quite a few big curving unique cedar stunts. A really huge new section of Powerslave will be opened in 2010 that will really change the way the lower/middle section of the trail flows, really excited for this.
Are the trails built on private or government owned land?
All trail are on Crown Land, meaning publicly owned government sanctioned land.
Has it been more or less difficult than you expected to obtain a business license for the operation?
I am working on gaining a commercial recreation license tenure agreement which is a fairly lengthy drawn out process but is well worth it in the end. It seems like a lot of trail agreements are popping up, and I know that John Hawkings with the Ministry of Tourism is pushing hard for mountain biking legitimacy to grow in the forests of BC. Unfortunately it is quite a complicated political process any time you are trying to coordinate different user groups, deal with liability, etc. Anyway I?m rambling but am very excited about the growth of Rilor Wilderness in the future and certain things in the Province such as new legitimized trail developments in Burns Lake, Whistler, Squamish, and Rossland appear to be signs of things to come hopefully. Another really exciting thing in BC right now is the Mountain Bike Certificate Program at Capliano College on the Sunshine Coast.
You teamed up with cinematographer Andre Nutini to produce a couple of promotional videos, how did the two of you meet?
We met through the new film Life Cycles. He is a very talented fellow and I?m pumped to keep working with him in the future. Film is a very intriguing medium; it?s one of those infinite pursuits like writing, photography, and art in general. Hopefully we can team up to produce a few web videos in 2010. With the internet nowadays webvideos are such an awesome way to get your message to tons of people. My webvideos have around 30,000 views on Pinkbike which seems like lots to me (laughs).
Working with a crew like Stance on Life Cycles must have been a pretty crazy experience, what were some of the highlights?
Oh yeah, they are awesome. My nickname for Derek Frankowski is ?Beautiful Mind,? he is such a rad guy, and he knows exactly the type of film he is trying to create. Ryan Gibb is a really funny guy and they make a great team, with Andre right in there as well of course.
Will the trails featured in that segment be open to riders at Rilor Wilderness?
Oh yes!
What is your favourite part of your job, and what are you looking forward to most this season?
Trying to follow my dreams and not back down in the face of challenges. I am most looking forward to sharing incredible moments on the trail with new friends. Those moments when you are really shredding a trail with somebody else and there is just that vibe when your both having so much fun, those moments are priceless and are what I want to create and experience.
And finally, is there a mission statement you?d like to get out there? A Slocan Slogan, perhaps?
My mission is to build the trails of my dreams and ride them with my guests into the future on an everlasting wave of tacky dirt, golden sunrays, winged unicorns and magical fairy dust, like in Peter Pan.
Thanks for doing this Riley, best of luck with the project!
For the complete skinny on Rilor Wilderness, head over to the fancy website!
