| Brett
Tippie Brett Tippie, the name alone conjures images of huge hucks and big smiles. Tippie is one of the pioneers of the freeride movement and is still throwing down. Armed with a 2004 Demo 9, Tippie looks to go large and spread the Specialized groove across the world. Brett took an afternoon out of his busy schedule to session a photo shoot at Whistler’s GLC drop and to have a few words afterward. |
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| Rob:
Everyone knows you came up with Rocky Mountain, who do you ride for now? Brett Tippie: I ride for Specialized, Marzocchi and Raceface. RR: Where do you ride mostly? BT: I’m living in Kamloops right now so right now Sun Peaks. I love the Interior. Sun Peaks is great, but I think I’m moving to Whistler soon. RR: Why did you move back to Kamloops from Whistler? BT: I was partying way too hard. It was crazy here. I had the hottest apartment in downtown Whistler and the hottest babe in town. I had a fireman pole going from my living room into a bar. RR: Wow. BT: Yeah man. It just got too hectic. RR: What happened to the girl? BT: She said if you go out riding one more time that’s it. RR: So? BT: I said, “I’m going to miss you.” |
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| RR:
Wow. So what are you doing now? BT: I’m traveling around with my dad in the Gulf Islands of the coast of B.C. RR: How’s that? BT: Cool. It’s so beautiful out there. Total hippie land. Really nice descents. I’m trying to get my dad back into riding. He’s about 290 lbs and I want to help him get back in shape. I had to take all the padding out of the biggest helmet I could find to fit on his melon. RR: What kind of bike is he on? BT: A ‘04Specialized Big Hit with a 750 weight spring. He’s still bottoming it though. RR: Got him rocking any 12 ft drops yet? BT: Actually he used to ride when he was a kid. He grew up on a farm in Alberta and used to ride over the teeter totter in the playground. |
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| RR:
Are you saying he was the first free rider? BT: Hmm. I don’t know if I’m prepared to make that statement. RR: What are you doing in the Gulf Islands? BT: I’m going out to look at a pick-up truck. I just trashed mine. RR: How’d that happen? BT: There’s this guy in Kamloops I hang out with who is soo sick in a truck. The guy hits corners like the thing’s on rails. I followed him over a train track and we both went airborne and I just couldn’t manage the corner. RR: Where you hurt? BT: Naw. The thing flipped, but I just got out of it and walked away. Had a little bruise from the seatbelt, but I was fine. RR: What’s your most serious crash on a bike? BT: I fell off a 42ft cliff. |
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| RR:
What happened? BT: Well I was doing this canyon shoot and there a 25 ft drop then a flat segment then another 17 ft drop to the left. I’d done the drop like 6 times for this guy and as I was coming into the drop my front wheel tracked into a crack and I tried to push the bike out in front of me. My shorts caught on the seat so I just sort of slid down the drop attached with my bike. I landed on my feet and ass with 6 inches of dust on my head. So the photographer just saw me spill from the top but didn’t see the landing. I was real quiet for a minute and I hear him scrambling over and man I was just trying not to laugh. Finally he comes over and the guy is just white as a ghost and he says, “Aw shit man, I thought you were dead!” It didn’t hurt too much, so I dusted off and got back on the horse. |
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| RR:
Fair play, so you got up and did the drop again? BT: Have to get back on the horse. RR: Where do you ride in Kamloops? BT: I’m living in Kamloops now so I’ve been riding Rose Hill and Harper a lot. I’ll be at Whistler and Sun Peaks more and more now though. RR: How’s the riding in Kamloops? BT: Dope. The town is a bunch of neighborhoods on different levels so you can just rip from the hill all the way downtown. There’s trail’s that link every elevation right down to the river. I’ve been riding this little 4 inch skinny of cement right in front of the cop shop. It’s like 45 feet long and begins at their front door. I’ll session it like 12 times in a row before they kick me out. |
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| RR:
Got any good Kamloops stories to leave the kids with? BT: Yeah, there’s this bridge over Peterson’s Creek in Kamloops that’s got to be 250 ft high. There’s a little 3 inch railing across it and I used to go and stand up there in my boarder-cross days to practice calming my heart rate. I would get in my snowboard tuck and look over the edge and my heart rate would just skyrocket. Then I would close my eyes and through bio-feedback I would calm my heart rate. I would do this every fall before going to the World Cup Boardercross Circuit in Europe. I told my friend Greg Olssen about the bridge and we went up there together. We both got up on the bridge and got in the crouch. Of course we started to outdo each other so next thing I know we’re both hanging by one arm from the bridge. He climbs back on the bridge and says, “Hang on to my leg.” He hangs his leg off the bridge and I’m hanging on to his leg with both hands. I say, “Greg are these 501’s?” He says, “Yeah.” So I take a bunch of the fabric at the bottom of his pants and bite them. And for a split second I took my hands away. RR: Hold up. You were hanging off a 250 ft bridge by your teeth, biting into a pair of Levi’s? BT: Yeah, instant rush. RR: Wow. Got another quick one? BT: I fell 3 flights onto my back and walked away from it. RR: What happened? BT: I was at a party in Kamloops at a 3 story dorm. Each level had a terrace with 3 posts with chains between each post. So I tried to free-grab the chain from the 3rd floor to the 2nd. I caught the 2nd floor chain, but it wasn’t attached at the ends so I just kept sailing down. So in the air I counted the levels and knew when I was going to hit the ground. I was back facing the ground and as I was about to hit the ground I gave a huge judo slap to counter the force. I got up and walked away, but the next day I realized I burst the fluid sacks in both my elbows. |
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RR:
Damn. Any parting words?
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