My Coastal Adventure with Ryan Leech

Words by Jennifer Clarke

I don’t remember where I first heard about Ryan Leech’s Ride and Reach workshop, but I remember thinking “I am SO in!” providing the dates worked for me. Thankfully they did!

I shared a link to the workshop on my facebook and on the Muddbunnies Riding Club page and enticed a couple more bunnies to join me on the adventure. We had no idea what we were getting into, but we knew that if we were together and riding/doing yoga with Ryan, how could it be anything short of awesome?

The workshop ran Friday evening to Sunday afternoon on the Sunshine Coast so we decided to leave early Friday morning and check out the new Coast Gravity Park in Sechelt before checking in. This required pre-booking and purchasing our park passes online prior to arrival. The long term plan is to provide lift access at this park, but until the money starts rolling in, they are shuttling. Because of the shuttle situation, the pre-booking process allows them to control the number of visitors to the park (usually a maximum of about 50, but up to 75 people per day).

The park is the brain child of the Coastal Crew and has been a couple of years in the making. Opening day was just a few weeks ago May 10 of this year. We couldn’t have chosen a better day to give it a try! The sun was shining, there were only about a dozen other people signed up for the day and they had 2 shuttles running.

There are only about a dozen trails so far ranging from beginner to pro line. A combination of mostly smoothly, flowy machined runs and a few hand cut, natural, slightly technical ones. They have possibly perfected the smooth, jumpy, machine runs. I am not able to ride the Expert trails so can’t comment on those (other than they are HUGE!), but in my opinion the flowy blues at this park are insanely fun! They want to kick you in the air whether you want it or not!

After lap after lap of flowy goodness and visiting the extremely friendly happy staff every time we shuttled with them or rested at the bottom, we decided to call it a day and head over to check in for our main purpose. The weekend with Ryan!

The workshop home base was at Up the Creek Backpackers B&B. The owner/operator Martin was there to greet us and get us settled in. The accommodations were really chill and comfortable, providing everything we needed.

Our first evening was timed well with Martin inviting us to a ‘Ride to Work’ party at the Gumboot Café down the street where we were able to hang with the locals and enjoy free pizza! This is where we were also able to relax and get to know Ryan and the other workshop attendees over a beer and in a welcoming, chill atmosphere.

Local guide extraordinaire Bjorn Enga planned our rides for the weekend in the Roberts Creek area. If you have ever ridden there, you know these trails are SWEET! We got the extra joy of riding some of the less trodden local trails on the first day. Along the way, it was hard not to appreciate the ease that Ryan seems to evoke in his riding. It was a pleasure to follow him up a technical trail section, down flowy sections, onto woodwork, whatever! We also got some great tips and tricks along the way.

Ryan and Bjorn had worked together on Kranked 6 and together built an insane course in Roberts Creek that is still there today. Not all of it is ride-able anymore and probably never was for mortal man anyway! We got to stop and check out the course and listen to the boys relive the filming and practice process.

But don’t let all the riding fun fool you. This is a workshop with a focus on personal introspection. Married with each of the yoga classes, was an equal amount, or more, of time spent reflecting on ourselves, how we relate to the world and how our ‘way’ applies to our riding and relationships. It is deep, thoughtful work and I found it fascinating. Ryan is a Professional Integral Coach as well as Yoga Instructor. You can look more online if you are interested in what this is exactly.

Based on those discussions each morning and evening, he organized exercises that we had to do either personally or within groups as we were riding. The exercises encompassed concepts we had learned that day and finding our edge, pushing our boundaries and asking us to push through them. Or acknowledge them and look at them differently and try to sit comfortably with them for a while. Or he asked us to work together as a group, giving and taking from each other without saying a word. These proved to be some of the deepest, most moving, profound experiences I’ve ever had the pleasure of taking part in. Everyone in the group was moved and we had new, deeper bonds.

But even in our exhaustive state, we managed to clean up, do some more yoga and head out for some fantastic dinner and wine at the Gumboot restaurant.

The guys were a little easier on us the next day. Again starting out with yoga and workshop, followed by some time for a coffee at the gumboot café and the guys agreed to let us shuttle Roberts Creek while they climbed! Woohoo! Ultimately it was more of the same amazing commeraderie, flowy fun, thoughtful experiences and open communication.

We had such a great group and I’m actually quite happy this date didn’t sell out. This year was only ½ full at 5 rather than the usual 10. Selfishly I was happy with this! I’m not sure if we would have had exactly the same bonding experiences and flexibility had there been more people, but maybe I’ll find out next year because I’m definitely doing this again!