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A visit to Hans Rey's house - By JP Berube - Copyright mtbmadness.com © 2003

When we walked into Han Rey's house, we didn't know what to expect. Just because you watch someone on screen, that doesn't mean that they're like that in real life. We were happy to discover that Hans is an even nicer guy in person. He welcomed us into his home, and extended to us every courtesy. He even brought us juice! It is no wonder he is the superstar that he is today.

JP: How are you doing today Hans? HANS: Good, how are you doing? JP: Great. Nice to meet you and to come out to sunny Laguna Beach. HANS: Yea, my pleasure. JP: You are considered to be a biking legend. Who did you look to, when you were coming up, for inspiration?

HANS: Um, I looked at many people, in and outside the biking industry. From whoever had something, some quality to offer, you know. In terms of whatever it was, riding skills, character or whatever. I mean I try to learn from other athletes and their feats and not to copy their mistakes and try to copy, you know, their qualities. Doesn't matter if it is Tares in motorcycle trials, or Boris Becker, or John Tomac, or whoever was around, you know, and it was not one single person but a lot.

JP: You were kind of the founder of extreme mountain bike riding, or what they call today, the freeriding movement. What do you think of guys today that do extreme stunts like maybe Robbie "Air" Bourdon or Bender that do these huge drops. Do you think they're more of a positive influence on mountain bike riding or do you think they go too far?

HANS: I think it's all good, you know. Everybody can do their own thing and that is what mountain biking is all about. Everybody can interperet their own way. Somebody wants to go racing, that's just fine. If somebody wants to put their bike on top of their car and drive around and show off, that's fine with me. Somebody wants to do, you know, 40 foot cliffs, you know, that's fine with me too as long as they can deal with the consequences, and you know, obviously a lot of things change. I don't think any of these guys, I wouldn't say none of them, but I think most of these people that jump off the big cliffs, you know 15 feet and higher, they wouldn't have done it on a bike, you know, ten years ago and technology came a long way. But also it gets to the point where it's getting a little dangerous and the same thing happened in extreme skiing. It was one of those sports, you know, you just asked me before, you know, when back in the early nineties it was really going off. Same movement we have now mountain biking. It took us 12 years to get there. But um, it's good, and I think it's great what these guys do, you know, and it makes it really interesting to the general public and for the media and if somebody is not into the endurance part of biking, they might be into that.

JP: Mountain bike riding has come a long way since the mid nineties. What do you think the future holds for mountain bike riding?

HANS: You know, it will always change and evolve. I don't really know what the future holds, you know. I was saying that, a long time ago in the beginning everybody was just always just like focusing on racing. And they thought mountain biking is all about racing. And I think we found out now the hard way, the last five, six years that there's much more to it than racing. Which is true and good you know, and racing is a very small part and most people own a bike, they don't care about racing, they've never even heard of racing, and it's an important part. We trend setters, the racers, we do a lot for the sport, but also there's so much more to it you know. Especially with bikes, you have the fitness aspect, you have the transportation aspect, you have the recreational aspect, the travel aspect, and racing is just one of those things. You know, there are a lot of other aspects, and subcultures, and so, I don't know where it's gonna go, you know, it's hard to say but, one thing is clear with all these new bikes and everything is it's not so easy to ride a mountain bike. I was one of the guys who always used to say riding a mountain bike is a great sport, everybody can do it, and it is so easy, you know, but it's actually not. It's easy to ride a bike. Everybody can ride a bike and pedal, but to ride a mountain bike takes much more than pedaling. It takes a lot of body language and stuff like that. It takes endurance, it takes um, technique, and most people don't have it. And that is why they don't really enjoy biking because they are really stiff on the bike, they are really scared, they are really hesitant, they don't have any body language. And that is why they don't enjoy it. They actually sometimes have a negative experience with it. It's much different on a road bike. A road bike, I see why so many people like it so much because you just pedal, and you don't need that much technique, and all that, you know. But mountain biking is a little more complex and, to really enjoy it you have to stand up and do it, just like in skiing. You don't just stand on your skis going down the hill. If you don't use your body to turn, you're not gonna turn. It's the same with bikes.

JP: Have you ever been really scared before a big stunt?

HANS: Yea, I'm sure I have. Before a big stunt or a small stunt, it just depends on the situation and how much you have it under control or how much you don't have it under control. I think that's part of it and that keeps you alive and it keeps you going and keeps you pumped and it shows that you have some respect for what you do. But yea, fear is a factor which you need otherwise I don't think you are going to be very successful. Fear comes, also comes passion, you know, nothing great can be achieved without passion. JP: What was your worst crash ever? What was your worst experience in mountain biking?

HANS: It was probably, judging by the consequences, it was that crash on Honda Mountain that's on my video Level Vibes. It was a downhill race and I was probably going like forty five miles per hour and hit this water bar and didn't suck it up with my body, talking body language, and um, I did this nose wheelie for a pretty long ways, 60 feet, and ended up in the hospital.

JP: How many bones have you broken in your career?

HANS: I don't know. That big crash on Honda Mountain I broke several ribs and I tore a ligament here, punctured a lung, and then besides that I broke probably about five locations, and um, a wrist. And that's about it, I have to say I am pretty lucky, and I should knock on wood or something. I might have broken another rib here or there, and that is about it.

JP: If you weren't a world champion and doing mountain biking and trials competitions, what do you think you would be doing for a living?

HANS: It's hard to say you know, life can go so many different ways. You can get sucked into a direction before you know it. If I had the choice right now, if I would totally retire and turn my back to it, I think I would become a farmer. Back in the days I started to go to the University for marketing and I didn't study very much there. I did just one semester, then I took a semester off to come to the states and that was it. But, I have always had an interest with marketing and you know, I might be working in that field in one level or another.

JP: Speaking of retirement, is there any age that you think you might have to retire by, or do you have an age where you would like to retire and kinda get out of the sport?

HANS: It depends what you consider retirement. Because you know, you reach different stages in your career which not necessarily have to do with riding your bike, you know. I can be involved in a lot of levels. It's not like a racer, I mean, I retired from racing, um, about in ninety eight here from the US scene and actually probably five years before that already from the international scene. But, you know I did it very quietly because I knew I was going to do what I'm doing and do my adventure team and the trials competition part was never really the main part, like why I was sponsored and stuff. It was more like the publicity stuff I've done and shows I'm doing and then the adventure team, and the videos and all that stuff, the TV exposure, and the competitions had very little to do with that. Especially at the point when I was competing. So I didn't want to retire, because when you retire officially then everybody there going "yea, he's done". And yea, I'm done competing, I don't need to prove myself anymore. I've done it for twenty years. I've competed, I've earned my share of titles and stuff, and it's just natural that the young guys come, you know, and if you go to a trials world championship round, kids like on the top level, they are not even twenty years old. And I could be their dad, you know? And I still ride and I try to not get too rusty and try to stay in shape, and then I can, you know, I can go into different areas. Like, with my adventure team I use my extreme biking skills in real situations, and at the same time I can appeal to a much bigger audience, you know, I can do these shows. Travel, adventure, mystery, all together for Discovery or Outdoor Life, or ESPN, and I can bring the sport to a wide audience which, you know, is in the interest of the sponsors which makes it possible for me to do this professionally. So, who knows what my next step is. I know I'm not gonna, you know, even with my shows, I used to do much more shows, and I cut that back a bit. But I don't want to be the old guy with the grey beard hopping around and still doing shows. But I still have fun with it and I'm actually quite successful still when I do it. So, you know, you have to do compromises along the way. I still feel good and I feel strong, so I don't know when I'm going to retire. Since I'm sixteen years old I'm talking about I'll ride another two years or so. And I stopped saying that a few years ago finally because now I'm 36 and in many aspects my career grows stronger and better than ever before.

JP: I think I speak for a lot of mountain bikers when I say that I hope you don't retire any time soon.

HANS: Thanks.

JP: Speaking of the Adventure Team, aren't you like a one man team? Is that what the adventure team is all about?

HANS: Well, yea, I'm the only permanent guy on the team. And you have to look at it more like a race car team, cause there is a driver, and I'm maybe the main driver, but there's all these people around, from photographers, to film crews, to guest riders, to, you know, other people who help me who um, who change from trip to trip. And I don't always have the same photographer, you know, some trips I do by myself. Others, I maybe invite Steve Peat along, or Brian Lopes, or some other person who fits that particular mission or adventure, you know. And it could be some biking celebrity or it could be just the local guy somewhere in Egypt who we take along for other reasons than, you know, just biking. Those people always change, you know, nobody has ever done a second adventure with me officially. So I'm talking to Steve Peat about doing something else.

JP: You are living a life that a lot of people wish they could have. What kind of advice would you give somebody that wants to make a living doing mountain bike riding?

HANS: Yea, it's a difficult thing to do because it's like where do you start? There's many different ways of doing a living, you know. You can go racing, and in racing results speak, so you better kick ass. But then there's other ways, you know, you don't have to be the best racer. There's a lot of guys that are really professional. They're well spoken, they were in touch with the media, with their sponsors, they inform them, they understand that it's more than racing that makes it successful. And these are the guys that do the best and stay around. They're not always number one, you know. It helps if you're number one, but might be just the top ten, they might be in the top twenty only, but they're doing a good job and they find other ways to help their sponsors because people always think, oh you know, these companies like GT or Specialized, they have millions of dollars to throw out the window and give to somebody. Most people don't even understand why, what the motives is of these companies, because they're not doing it just for fun. The bottom line is to sell more bikes, and how they sell more bikes, well indirectly with you maybe getting the media exposure, getting the name out, the GT name or whatever, and that way more people know about it. You give credibility to the product and the whole thing, but a lot of athletes don't understand that, they're very unprofessional, or they expect too much from the sponsors. They don't understand that these guys have a full time job and they have so many things to do, and the rider sponsorship is sometimes the last thing that they worry about. If you take some work off their hands, off their shoulders you know, it would help you a lot and it would make them happy. And find other ways how to get exposure besides racing, you know. Or make sure that, after you did good in a race, that you inform yourself the local press, you send them the press release and let them know hey, I was just at the nationals in Michigan and I got second place, and you can generate some attention to you and do some things, and it goes a long way.

JP: So you kind of create your own hype, through trial and error?

HANS: Yea, it's not so much hype. It's a lot of, yea, in a way, but it's also just like communicating with people and staying in touch. Like for example, I try to collect a lot of the media experiences or clippings I have. And at the end of the year I put a book together which I show to my sponsors. But I don't expect my sponsors to see every magazine in the world, and to look at the magazines and see my pictures. And then especially, my boss at GT, he might know exactly what I'm doing and what I'm all about, but his boss might not know. And my boss might not be really good at communicating to all them. But if I have a book and I make it myself, my boss can take it to his boss, and his boss, you know, so, it's a lot of things like this communicating and you know you help the sponsors in other ways, you know you test products, you help them with ideas, you keep them informed of what's going on. It's a science by itself, and I personally spend, and always have, probably more time in the office than on a bike you know. But it is more to biking than that and, but go for it. If you're a young kid and you want to do it you know, go for it. But don't just see the money. Have fun with it. And just try to be good at what you do and professional and hopefully you can make a living out of it, but don't expect too much. That's what the mistake is.

JP: You have won a lot of competitions. What would you say is your, personally for you, your biggest and your best win?

HANS: It has been a lot of championships and titles over the years. There was a big world championship round in my hometown in Germany in eighty seven. That was a long time ago, but it was a really big victory. I didn't only win my class, I won the overall that day and it was really cool riding in front of a hometown audience. The event was scattered throughout the whole town and everybody following and all the top riders were there and there was lots of highlights. There was a lot of other highlights, competing and also just media wise, working on good movies or being on a cool TV show. Back in ninety three at the world championships in Frace, I got a first in the trials and third in the slalom. I was doing some slalom and downhilling kind of on the side and I was never one of the top dogs really you know, but occasionally I rode in the top ten. In France it was kind of a surprise that I got third place.

JP: Well Hans, thank you very much for your time. It has been a pleasure and an honor to interview you. You're one of the pioneers in the sport, if not the person responsible for starting all this, and thank you very much for your time.

HANS: No problem. Alright.

The rest of our visit with Hans consisted of him showing us his office, which is full of large stacks magazines that Hans is featured in, his garage, which looks more like a bike store than a garage with all of his cool bikes, and talking about the local Orange County trails. Hans is a class act, and I am glad to have had the pleasure of meeting him.