Ryan Leech performing at Sea Otter, 2008
The very cool Ryan Leech did an interview with Dirt Rag.
DR: I read that you changed your style in order to make it more audience-friendly. Tell me more about how you got away from focusing on competitions, since I imagine if someone’s into trials, competition’s sort of the easy route…
RL: It’s one route for sure, and it perhaps wasn’t so much that I changed my style for an audience, I guess it was more I grew tired of the structure of trials competition and rather enjoyed the freedom and creativity of riding for a film or in front of an audience. I enjoyed that outlet, that sort of creative release style of riding, more so than competition. In order for me to really feel excited about riding a line it had to be smooth and flowy to a certain point, which is why I was motivated to create my first film which sort of took away a lot of those slow hopping style things that you often see in trials. That’s kind of how that started and it just lent itself really well to doing shows.
DR: It seems to blend well with the mountain bike style…I’ve known a few riders who incorporate smooth moves like that, and it would seem to be useful, watching what you do and then seeing things differently out on the trail.
RL: Yeah, I think it’s more useful also quite fortunately for doing shows because I’m on more of a regular-looking mountain bike, so the people that I do a show for are more likely to be able to relate to the bike, and perhaps they might be more likely to go home and find their bike buried in the garage somewhere and go for a ride.
Click here for the rest of the interview.
