Just wanted to share the good news that Crux was honored with the People Choice Award in the mountain sport category from the Banff Mountain Film Festival. 

The Crux Team: (from left to right: the man behind the lens-Alex, the man on the bike-Ryan, and the man behind the microphone-Shawn) image courtesy of Yorick Carroux

Here’s the posting from Banff…

If you live in Vancouver, please come out for the local stop of the Banff Mountain Film Fest on either Dec. 4th or 5th. Here are the details:

Best of Banff 2008 Hosted by The Alpine Club of Canada - 

Thurs Dec 4th Kay Meek Centre 1700 Mathers Avenue, West Vancouver. Doors open 6:30pm / Films 7:30pm 

Fri Dec 5th Hollywood Theatre NEW VENUE 3123 West Broadway, Vancouver. Doors open 6:30pm / Films 7:30pm 

Tickets: At the Door: $18 at Kay Meek; $15 at Hollywood (cash only) Outlets: $15 Mountain Equipment Co-op (130 West Broadway in Van, 1341 Main Street in North Van) Online: $18 For program details, see: accvancouver.ca Contact us at: bestofbanffinfo at accvancouver.ca

Hopefully see you there!

Ryan

My filmmaker friend Alex Lavigne filmed and edited together a short from one of my Trials of Life school presentations. He had some out takes from Crux that didn’t make the final film, they’re spliced in throughout the short. Have a look if you like:

Just had a call from my good friend Shawn Hall (aka Corduroy Kid) yesterday. I had the good news for him that CRUX, the film that he scored, won ‘Best of Show’ for mountain sports film at the Banff Mountain Film Festival. 

He told me he just finished producing a song that I might like called Occupying Army by Vanessa Richards. Some beautiful, reality distilling, planet loving lyrics sung with style. Check it out here!

Also, check out and buy the Crux Soundtrack here.

Greetings from Banff, Alberta!

The Banff International Mountain Film and Book Festival is underway; my excuse to visit this incredible mountain town is to introduce CRUX on the Radical Reels evening of the festival. If you live in the vicinity, grab some tickets here and enjoy the selection of outdoor action films from around the globe.

Caryn and I are staying at The Fox Hotel during our visit, thanks to Banff Lake Louise Tourism for the hook up!…(I performed for them earlier this year at a conference). Today was a meandering day around town, soaking up the views, drinking tea, etc. I just finished John Vaillant’s book The Golden Spruce (check it out here, it’s a beautifully rich, true story of slightly misguided ex-logger turned environmentalist), and was excited to find out that he’s in town (the author John, not the Grant) to speak about his adventure to British Columbia’s Muskwa-Kechika wilderness area which is said to be the biggest well-kept wilderness secret in North America. He, along with conservationist/author/photographer Wayne Sawchuk explored the area for four weeks, and the story of their adventure, written by Vaillant, can be found in the current issue of National Geographic Magazine. I have to go home to do a school show, and Caryn has to go home to take care of our nephews, so looks like we’ll have to miss the presentation. 

Well, since Caryn is having a little apres tea power nap, I think I may do a quick apres tea power yoga. So cheers and cheerio for now…RL

I caught up with the film crew from 4-Seasons.tv while at the EuroBike show. They interviewed me about “Crux” and the latest news about my career. It’s about a 10 minutes long interview, and we were generous with the footage from Crux, just in case you’d like a little more of a tease. Of course you can buy the DVD right here if you’re intrigued

Click here to watch…

Ride ON!

One of the joys of living in the Vancouver area is that the snow is conveniently located up in the mountains. That hasn’t been the case for the last week or so, it dumped about a foot and half at my house, and that seriously put a cramp in my pre-season trials riding! I don’t really consider building a huge snow fort training. Now I know I am totally spoiled living in Vancouver where most of the winter I can ride outside no problem, and I know a good chunk of the people who read this may be in the middle of a severe winter lock down, I feel you, I really do! I guess I’m just psyched to get riding! It’s a nice time of year for me to ride, my show count is low, so the time and energy I do spend on my bike is mostly fun practice. I am busy booking shows right now, and pretty soon it’ll be full on demo time, and my energy level for extra practice will go down.

Talking about Vancouver weather, and talking about demos, I have some shows coming up in Vancouver for the Outdoor Adventure Sports show. Anyone living in the area that is interested in going can print out the 2 for 1 coupon I have attached below, love to see you there!

One of the most common questions I get about Crux is whether the soundtrack is available. Well it is now through iTunes, just search for ‘Crux Soundtrack’. Corduroy Kid worked some magic on this soundtrack! Here is the announcement directly from the musician himself:

“Okay so I’ve been lending music ahemm licensing music to these outdoor filmmaker thrill seeker types for the last 4 or 5 years right. Well last May, my friends, filmmaker Alex Levigne, and allstar world trials/yoga zen like rider Ryan Leech asked me if I wanted to compose a soundtrack for their film. This film would follow 3 riders from Victoria BC thru to Nova Scotia, and on to Austria on Ryan Leeches summer tour 2007. I had a couple of ideas kicking in my brain bucket regarding tempos after having worked on a couple of Ryan’s previous films. I gave these guys two pitches ‘Sonic Pleasure’ and ‘Mood Ruff’ this in return gave them the inspiration to ride to the new music on their ipods and start filming…kind of a reverse process for soundtracks…but very cool. After the first two songs, these guys mainly wanted Corduroy kid flow with lyrical gravy…which was really really hard for me…. after all, how do you write lyrics about riding a bike etc…without writing lyrics about riding a bike. In the end I think some cool lyrical relationships were formed and it’s a damn good record on its own…so with that said go check it out on iTunes, it’s only $6.00!!

Love to all of ya, Shawn”

On that ‘note’, I’ll sign off for now! Ryan

After a year of chatting with pro photographer Haruki Noguchi (Harookz), we finally managed to get out for a shoot. We decided to go back to my chain line from Crux at night because Harookz had some great ideas for lighting.

I arrived at the shoot hoping to get far enough along the chain to get the photo, not really expecting to make it all the way up on to the jersey barrier at the other end; but after about 30 minutes of attempts, I managed to clean the line again, ahhhhh! I wrote a little caption to go along with the photo for the magazines, here are those words: My fascination with riding the most questionable objects has been so enjoyable. Curiosity is an element, the romance of being ‘the first’ is an element, but primarily the euphoria felt when cleaning the envisioned line unbeatable. The most difficult aspect of this line, and most others for that matter, is my mind. It has a habit of focusing on elements of the challenge and blowing them out of proportion. For instance, the fact that the first jersey barrier wasn’t in line with the chain drove me crazy; and thinking that I’d end up on my face if my front tire didn’t roll on to the chain just right spooked me to an unnecessary level. Working through those issues is enjoyable to me, and getting to that state where I can just let my body do what it needs to do is a fantastic experience.

Harookz and some of his gear; checking out the shot together.

Hope you’re all well! Ryan.

Just sitting here sipping my second cup of tea, and having a chill day at home. I’m going to try and rest for a few days after a fantastic tour in Victoria on Vancouver Island.

Alex and I had the official CRUX world premier on the 15th. Here’s a short video of the evening compliments of rip.tv. Then I hopped on a plane with Ben Boyko to check out United Cycles Bike Expo in Edmonton. When I got home I quickly grabbed my truck and trailer and hopped on a ferry to the Island in what was the start of an 8 school Trials of Life mini tour.

What a fantastic week of presentations, I had a blast and felt a great connection with the students. Big thanks to Mike at Russ Hays bike shop, Karl at Oak Bay bike shop, and Liz Wiebel, for helping coordinate and schedule schools and media for the week. Such a fantastic riding scene in Victoria!! Talking about the riding scene, I agreed to go on the Oak Bay bikes Thursday night ride. Turns out it was pretty much a road/mountain bike race, and I got worked!! These guys have been doing these rides for 17 years, and never miss a Thursday. Whew, first time I bonked hard since my cross-country racing days over 11 years ago!!

We had another great Crux premier in Victoria at the Fernwood Pub, great venue that my old trials riding buddy Mike Colwill operates. Great turn out, good vibe. Seeya!