JACK FIELD / RHIANNA BUCHANAN
OK , let ’ s address the elephant in the room first : why did you choose trials instead of FMX ?
[ Laughs ] I started riding when I was three or four – my parents both rode – and I did everything from motocross to enduro and trials , and got pretty good at it and won a few state titles in trials . Then when I was 12 I had a big crash on the motocross bike and hurt my knee , and that influenced my decision to move to trials ; I was doing better at it and I felt there was a greater chance of success there . I ride a bit of everything now , but the others are just for play .
Do you get much flak about trials being uncool ?
Ohhh yeah . Traditionally trials is riders in a tight one-piece lycra suit , open-face helmet - pretty goofy-looking and it ’ s slow . Yeah , the skill is insane , but from a spectator point of view , it ’ s not very entertaining . I try and change that with our shows and highlight the cool things about trials that people want to see , not just sitting there balancing .
But yeah , all my mates on Nitro Circus and stuff always give me s ** t about riding a trials bike , but once I started jumping 75ft on it , that changed the perception a little .
When did you start playing around with freestyle trials ?
It was pretty early on . When I was 15 I was at the top of trials in Australia and I couldn ’ t see where to go with it , so I ’ d ride competitions then I ’ d play around and try different lines and stuff . Yeah , I ’ m competitive , but I like to have fun and find ways to express myself differently to what everyone else is doing . Seeing videos of the likes of Julien Dupont in France inspired me to start doing some BMX-style tricks on a trials bike and take my riding down a different road .
You do a massive amount of shows both in Australia and internationally now . How did it start and how did you grow it to where it is today ?
As a kid I did a few trials demos with other older guys and got the bug from there . I started doing demonstrations for bike shop openings and then people started asking me what I charged to do shows . That opened my eyes , like “ holy s ** t , people are going to pay me to ride bikes ?!” [ laughs ]
My parents were a huge help at the start . We built a stunt trailer with obstacles that ’ d fold out from it when I was about 12 , and it snowballed until it became my full-time career .
Now we ’ ve got three full trailer setups that travel the country , shipping containers set up that we can send overseas , setups on both the east and west coasts of the USA , and stuff in Asia and Dubai .
Rhianna and I make all the setups ourselves ; we design and build everything from the ground up .
We have the keys to the workshop of one of our big supporters , Tripp Industries , and there are plenty of late nights welding ramps , fixing trucks , building trailers , etcetera /
As far as shows go , though , on any weekend we could have 10-15 guys and girls riding trials , BMX , performing parkour and staff at shows around Australia .
Where did the international shows grow from ?
It ’ s funny because we ’ ve never really gone out and promoted ourselves . We ’ re not big on that sort of thing and we ’ d much rather let our actions speak for themselves . Pretty much everything that comes to us is through word of mouth . People see our shows - or my YouTube and Instagram videos - enjoy what they see , talk about it , then the phone starts ringing .
Is that also how the AMA Supercross shows came about ?
Yeah , we were kind of in the right place at the right time . A friend of ours rides street-bikes for Feld [ Feld Entertainment , promoters of the SX ]. We happened to be racing the Endurocross at the same time and made some introductions . That led to us performing for big crowds during the pit parties in 2015 . But this year they moved us inside the stadiums and we did the pre-race entertainment before the opening ceremonies at eight of the 14 rounds , which was pretty amazing . After this year ’ s Monster Cup we ’ ll start talking about our involvement for 2017 , but we ’ re hoping we can continue to grow with those guys .
Man , you and Rhianna must spend a ridiculous amount of time traveling . How many days a year do you spend on the road , on average ?
Honestly , it ’ s probably easier to figure out how many days we ’ re home ! This year we ’ ve probably been home about three months and that ’ s being pretty conservative . Rhianna ’ s had an extra two weeks at home , but yeah , we spend a crazy amount of time living out of a suitcase .
You must see a ton of cool stuff with that much travelling .
Yeah , a lot . I love seeing things and visiting places most people wouldn ’ t get to see . This year we drove a van around the entire USA following the rounds of the AMA Supercross , camping in the van during the week .
Between races we would pull up for a barbie whenever we found somewhere cool , a nice forest , a river , whatever . Being Aussies , we ’ re pretty well received wherever we go ; you can get out of a lot of trouble by letting people know you ’ re an Australian instead of an American [ laughs ].
Did the Aussie influence also help open the doors for you to get into stunt-riding for block-buster movies ?
Kind of . There ’ s an Australian motocross legend called Stephen Gall . He was working u