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Getting to the next stage - freeride icon Schley lets loose

"Whistler is divided - you can really feel that right now. And the result? The soul is being sucked right out of our community..." Richie Schley, January 2011 Richie Schley is no romantic.
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"Whistler is divided - you can really feel that right now. And the result? The soul is being sucked right out of our community..."

Richie Schley, January 2011

 

Richie Schley is no romantic. A one-time ski bum who parleyed his uniquely-configured physical skills into a surprisingly lucrative profession, the already-legendary 41-year old has a resume that reads like a mountain skid's wet-dream-come-true.

Consider: along with being featured on countless ski and bike magazine covers from Tokyo to Paris, Schley - according to his own reckoning - has appeared in "the full Kranked series of bike films, nine New World Disorder movies, four Matchstick Productions ski films, one Warren Miller Entertainment flick, and two RAP movies - just to mention the big ones..."

And if you think that's easy, you should try it. When it comes to self-marketing, Schley has had his eyes wide open since the beginning of his career. He's as calculating as an accountant: As ambitious as an entrepreneur.

But he hasn't lost track of the values that drew him to Whistler originally.

"Whistler's widening divide really disturbs me," he says sadly. And then he expands on his observation. "On one side of the divide you have the people who are still trying to maintain an outdoor-focused lifestyle. On the other, you have the ones who've transformed their lives into businesses."

He lets a few seconds pass. Takes a long breath. "And you can totally see that on a powder day," he finally says. "The first group still lives by the 20cm rule. When the pow hits, they'll do everything they can to be on the mountain. The others? I think they'd exchange powder snow for profits any day."

That wasn't always the case, he says.

Life at Whistler wasn't particularly easy when the Kamloops-based rider first arrived here in the early 1990's. Lodging was non-existent, good jobs were scarce and the price of life was stratospheric. Sound familiar?

But there was a can-do attitude in those days, says Schley, that encouraged you to dream big - and go big. "There was so much creativity here," he says. "People went ahead and DID things back then. Didn't matter what you looked like. Didn't matter where you came from. It was all about doing..."

That attitude stoked Richie's dreams. Along with a hard-charging posse of Blackcomb stalwarts, the young newcomer slowly honed his big-mountain skills. Gradually the word got out - this kid could ski. He wasn't the fastest. Or the edgiest. Or even the most aggressive. But he had something that set him apart from the other dirtbags. Schley had style.

"All the while," he recounts, "the Japanese hype is happening here. I'm working part-time at the high-performance rentals in the Carleton Lodge, and my Japanese clients keep telling me I should audition for this big modelling job." He smiles - if just a little sheepishly. "I have nothing to lose," he adds. "Besides, the pay is pretty good and the job looks like fun. So I go for it."

Turned out the camera liked him. His first Japanese modelling job led to a second job, which led to a third. Schley began working increasingly with local photographers Randy Links and Paul Morrisson. "I figured out who the players were pretty quickly," he says. "And then it was just a matter of making myself available whenever they needed me."

Meanwhile, Schley's obsession with filmmaker Greg Stump was still burning strong. "Stumpie was living in Whistler in those days," he recalls, "and I spent hours scheming and plotting ways to get into one of his ski movies. I even sent him this crazy resume one day. Stumpie's response? 'That's great Richie. I don't get it. But it's great...'"

And then it happened. "I'm on this modelling job in the Interior with Ace Mackay-Smith. And she tells me that she and Greg are making a bike movie and they need me to do a 360o for them. Bike movie? No way. I want to be in Stumpie's ski movie!"

Ace's proposal wasn't so far fetched however. Having returned to the BMX circuit of his youth, Schley was actually doing pretty well on his mini steed. Well enough, in fact, to be crowned Canadian BMX Champion in 1993. "Still," he says, "I'm really trying to make the ski thing happen. At this point I couldn't care less about a bike movie."

But Stumpie refused to take no for an answer. "So he calls me up on the phone," remembers Schley. "And he says to me: 'Richie - I like you. I want you to be famous. That's why I want you in this bike movie. So don't worry. I'm gonna put you in touch with this young filmmaker called Christian Begin. You'll be shooting with him.'"

Schley continues: "So I head down to Kamloops to meet this dude. Turns out he's this lippy little French Canadian guy. First impression? What a dick..." Richie laughs and laughs and laughs. "But seriously -- the moment we meet we're instant friends."

But what about the transition from BMX'ing to mountain biking? Wasn't that rather difficult? "It wasn't like I was a total newcomer to mountain biking," he says. "Still, it was a matter of taking my BMX skills and transferring them to the bigger bike. Once I'd accomplished that, I was off to the races..."

The word soon got around Kamloops. Schley and a film crew were in town to shoot the goods. Oh, and Brett Tippie, that legendary local snowboarder dude, he was there too. "Suddenly every bike-hound in the region is hanging out with us," says Schley. "The terrain around town is incredible. Steep and gnarly and totally insane. And the Kamloops crew is definitely going off..."

And Begin? "I remember standing with him while all this is happening," adds Schley. "And he turns to me. 'My god,' he says. 'This is like a ski movie on bikes!'

Exactly. And audiences ate it up. Magic. Luck. Sorcery. Timing. Whatever. That first Kamloops freeride session - immortalized in Stump's 1995 Pulp Traction - changed Schley's life forever. Remember, this was before ski lifts and groomed trails and tabletops. Mountain biking in those days was mostly an endurance event. Lycra still dominated.  And outside of Vancouver's North Shore, nobody had possessed the orbs to challenge that dominance. So what the heck was this?

"Having fun!" says Schley. And laughs again.

More bike movies followed in close progression. The first of the Kranked series hit the market. And then all hell broke loose. "Suddenly BC-style freeriding is all the rage in the bike world," laughs Schley. "And there I am still trying to make it in the ski world..."

But not for long. "I think it was the Fall bike show of 1996," he says. "Whatever - I came back from there a totally-sponsored athlete - in both sports!" He smiles like a canary-chewing cat. "My life is transformed overnight," he says. "I'm now making $60,000 a year to travel the world and dream up photo trips and film adventures. Compared to 'real' work, this is easy..."

So what about the 'Fro Rider Movement? "That came a little later," he says. And laughs. "Rocky Mountain Bicycles was putting together this freeride team with Brett Tippie, Wade Simmons and myself as the core of the team. But a rival bike company was trying to copyright the word 'freeride' at the time and threatened to sue us over the name." He stops. Takes a breath. Laughs again. "But instead of fighting them, we decided to have fun with it. So we donned big black wigs and became Rocky Mountain's 'Fro Riders.'"

It was hailed as one of the most entertaining marketing campaigns ever seen in the bike world. "By this point freeriding was really taking off," he says. "And BC was ground zero. The North Shore, Kamloops, the Kootenays -- everybody wanted to be part of the scene."

And Whistler? "It was more important to me than ever," he maintains. "The riding is so difficult here - it really challenged me. Pushed me to whole new heights. But it also defined me. As my 'fame' grew, I became increasingly embedded in Whistler culture. Our names slowly became more and more entwined..." Which is why, he says, he cares so much about the place. It's part of him now.

As for the future? "Everything is a process," he says. "I think Whistler is going to come together eventually. The divide will be bridged." A long pause. "But it's going to have to happen in steps."

He sighs deeply. "This is such a great place," he says finally. "But before we go for more development and more lifts and more infrastructure and more events, we need to figure out what the heart and soul of this place is really all about. We have to get back to being creative and playful and passionate." He smiles. And for just a beat that ol' Richie magic shines bright. "After all," he says, "isn't that what got us all here in the first place..."