Reece Wallace - Life in The Air
Freeride Fiesta w Meksyku było doskonałą okazją dla Kanadyjczyka do wybrania się na niesamowitą powietrzną eskapadę.
Glory Advanced
Under the lights at the Freeride Fiesta, Reece takes flight on his Glory Advanced.
Reece Wallace likes to be in the air. Sometimes it’s aboard his full-composite Glory Advanced downhill bike, which he regularly launches across mind-boggling gaps. Other times it’s piloting his single-engine Cessna 170B, which he’s owned and flown for about five years. And sometimes, such as earlier this year, he manages to combine both for an adventure like no other.
In January, Wallace and good friend Mike Goldstein flew Goldstein’s Piper PA-34 Seneca twin-engine from their home base in Nanaimo on Vancouver Island to Guadalajara, Mexico, to take part in Freeride Fiesta, a weeklong jam-style event put on by professional freerider Johny Salido at La Soledad Bike Park.
Upon departure, they were in the midst of a cold northern winter; upon arrival, they found themselves in a humid subtropical climate. Along the 2,200 nautical miles they flew across the western seaboard of the United States they saw snowstorms, rain, sun, volcanoes, deserts—nearly every type of of topography and weather imaginable. They also flew across the vast expanse of the Sea of Cortez, where an emergency landing was not an option.
Obtaining a pilot’s license was always part of the plan for Wallace, whose grandfather was a pilot. “My whole childhood I wanted to be a pilot,” he said. “Around age 13 I started getting into sports, and then I found mountain biking, and thought ‘This is amazing, I love it,’ and I dropped every other hobby. But I always had aviation in the back of my mind. I was still flying RC planes, I was really keen on it, but I was also so focused on the bike.”
Getting a communications degree and then becoming a professional freerider took priority, but when he was 28, Wallace began his flight training. “I thought, if I don’t do this now, I’m never going to do it. I had some time and some money, and when I turned 29 I got my pilot’s license and bought an airplane. I had that for plane for six months and sold it. It was too small to fit my bikes and all my gear.”
Having a plane and pilot’s license is a major bonus living on Vancouver Island, across the Strait of Georgia from the mainland—no need to wait on ferries, which are both slow and inconvenient. In addition to transportation, there’s the choose-your-own-adventure element of owning a plane, such as flying to a bike park in Mexico in the middle of winter.
This was Wallace’s second consecutive visit to Freeride Fiesta. Now in its fourth year, the event is an early season escape for riders from the northern hemisphere, an opportunity to share off the cobwebs, test out new equipment, and reconnect with friends and colleagues from across the freeride community.
Throughout the week, about 45 riders had access to unlimited tricks and tacos and tequila. There was also a high risk of injury. Soledad Bike Park features several massive jumps and is exposed to high winds. And there’s a finite amount of water available to pack down the dry, volcanic soil. The line between risk and reward was often indistinguishable. Fortunately, jams are more about camaraderie and collaboration than competition, so Wallace was able to stay within his comfort zone.
“At jams you don’t push yourself as much, there’s not as much pressure as with competitions,” Wallace explained. “When you’re riding in a competition, you get two tries, it really allows you to push yourself, but it’s way more stressful and not as fun. It’s nice to do both. At a jam you can tiptoe around a trick or a feature, there’s no pressure."
The highlight of the week, Wallace says, was a day trip to Parque Nacional Volcán Nevado de Colima, site of a dormant volcano that tops out at 13,976 feet above sea level. Wallace and about 10 other riders took a shuttle to the top of Mirador Volcán De Fuego, a multi-use trail, and bombed down the mountain.
Just as with the flight a few days earlier, the hourlong singletrack descent down the volcano exposed Wallace to an array of different biospheres and topographies, from dry, exposed high-alpine dirt at the top to forested loamy and lush soil down below. Along the way they crossed paths with dogs, goats, and horses.
“Riding down the volcano was definitely a highlight,” Wallace said. “That is a huge descent. It’s so fun. Some of the riders decided to party the night before instead, but I said, ‘No way I’m going to miss that.’”
Back at Soledad Bike Park, riders were getting injured at an alarming rate, with high winds forcing extended periods of downtime. “It’s basically sunrise or sunset riding,” Wallace said. “And then a lot of chilling out for eight or nine hours.”
The annual weeklong Freeride Fiesta culminates in Public Day, where fans are welcomed to the park to watch, and meet, the athletes. The name is a bit of a misnomer, however, as public day goes well into the night, with flood lights illuminating the park’s many big features.
Always one looking to push the boundaries, on Public Day Wallace decided to remove the boundaries completely. He borrowed a crescent wrench, disassembled the railing around the scaffolded Tequila Fortaleza VIP area at the top of the venue, and then dropped his Glory Advanced right out of the tequila bar onto an embankment below.
“I saw it, and I knew that within five minutes I could rake it and make it rideable,” he said. “I saw it when I first got there, and I thought, 'This needs to be jumped out of.’ It’s not something you could do in Canada, or in the United States. The landing was perfect, it worked out really well. I like doing things that are creative, or a little different, a little outside of the box. I’m always looking for different ways to look at features, or different ways how to ride my bike.”
Public Day brought Freeride Fiesta to a close, however the adventure was far from over. A massive winter storm was moving in, and after a smooth first leg of the trip back across the U.S. border, a planned visit to Giant USA headquarters, just north of Los Angeles, had to be canceled.
“The storm was forecast to have rain and ice,” Wallace explains. “It was something we could not fly through. We had a choice to make, to either push forward and beat the storm or be stuck in California for at least a week. We decided to sleep for a few hours, wake up early, and try to beat storm. The decision was a stressful one. We were going off the information that was forecasted—it could end up being better, it could be worse. You always want to err on the side of caution.”
On the second leg of the trip home, with the storm hanging over the coast and moving inland, the crew diverted about 250 miles to the east. They landed at a regional airport in Carson City, Nevada, to refuel. The following day, four feet of snow blanketed the same runway.
Flying over the Sierra Nevada mountain range presented its own challenges and risks, such as more turbulence and fewer areas to land in the event of an emergency. But the return flight ended without incident at sunset, on a slushy tarmac at Nanaimo Airport.
Wallace was back on the ground—though it would only be a matter of time until he was airborne again.