The RW Invitational isn\u2019t most backyard riding sessions. The fourth edition of Reece Wallace\u2019s homegrown event gets underway today in Nanaimo, B.C., bringing together an invited roster of freeride athletes. Think progression sessions, camping and one of the most unique spectator experiences in mountain biking.<\/p>\n
What began as a handful of jumps behind Wallace\u2019s house has evolved into one of Canada\u2019s most unique freeride gatherings.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019ve never heard of the RW Invitational before, it\u2019s basically some of the world\u2019s top freeriders showing up to ride all this dumb stuff I spent all spring building,\u201d Wallace says.<\/p>\n
Every year gets bigger<\/p>\n
Despite promising himself otherwise, Wallace admits the event keeps growing.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone keeps telling me events are supposed to get easier the more you host them,\u201d he says. \u201cI haven\u2019t found that to be the case at all. Somehow this year I built an entire new course, invited more riders, more spectators, and even an on-site afterparty.\u201d<\/p>\n
The work behind the scenes has been enormous.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think I rebuilt every feature in the yard like four times because eyeballing it doesn\u2019t really cut it as engineering.\u201d<\/p>\n
More than just riding<\/p>\n
There are plans for a more than just riding.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got an entirely rebuilt course, food trucks, beer gardens, afterparty, night events and a bunch of stuff that probably shouldn\u2019t happen in someone\u2019s backyard,\u201d he says with a laugh.<\/p>\n
The event has also remained remarkably rider-focused. Wallace says every ticket sold goes directly back into supporting the athletes.<\/p>\n
\u201c100 per cent of the ticket sales go straight back to the riders.\u201d<\/p>\n
With a sold-out event, that means there is $10,500 up for grabs in the rider purse.<\/p>\n
A celebration of freeride<\/p>\n
Friday evening the Whip Off starts things off from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. There are men\u2019s and women\u2019s categories. On Saturday, the Best Trick contest goes from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. Then the event wraps up with an official on-site after-party.<\/p>\n
\u201cHonestly, it\u2019s turned out to be one of the wildest weeks of the summer,\u201d Wallace says.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re in the Nanaimo area and haven\u2019t got tickets yet, you\u2019re too late. But maybe you could find a scalper in the neighbourhood?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The RW Invitational isn\u2019t most backyard riding sessions. The fourth edition of Reece Wallace\u2019s homegrown event gets underway…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":808036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[445],"tags":[49,48,635,1700,82],"class_list":["post-808035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cycling","tag-mtb-features","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=808035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/808035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/808036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=808035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=808035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=808035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}