Hans Rey learns from new hotshots and old legends to work out his place in mountain biking’s legacy. Words & Photography Carmen Freeman-Rey Looking back on life can be a funny thing, thankfully we have a knack for forgetting the bad and our recollections are sometimes viewed through rose-tinted spectacles. Sometimes we had a solid plan, sometimes we winged it. Talking to Hans Rey, it becomes apparent that his long-spanning career was never just down to luck, there was plenty of forethought – mostly he had a plan, but sometimes he had to wing it too. An example was when he embarked on the most challenging adventure of his life. Hans had turned 50 in 2016 and in terms of being a professional mountain bike rider he was getting on. Coincidentally, that year they were finally allowing bikes beyond the gates of Kilimanjaro park. Hans’ opinion was, and is, that Kilimanjaro is the mountain biker’s Everest, the highest ridable mountain in the world. The change in rules made an ambitious dream possible for Hans and fellow rider, Gerhard Czerner, to mark this quinquagenarian milestone by taking on Africa’s two greatest behemoths, Mount Kenya and Mount Kilimanjaro, back-to-back. What he was proposing was even more remarkable considering his age. Months earlier Hans invited Danny MacAskill to come along as well. “This trip will be epic and fun,” he said. Danny accepted. Safe to say, this extreme adventure was beyond anything they imagined, not just the sheer physicality of it, or the...
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