Turning Cranks - Keenan Kovacs

I am really excited to bring you this interview. It didn't take long for his name to pop up for one of these. When I messaged him this fall, I was surprised to hear he was still working dawn 'til dusk at Revelstoke Mountain Resort. I'd seen some sneaky social media posts about what he was working on up there. With his encouragement that it was a photogenic part of the trail, I packed my camera and headed up. Oddly it was the first time we had properly met in person. His calm demeanour didn't stop that passion and excitement for biking and building from bursting out of him as he showed me the new features. It wasn't long before he dropped the tools and jumped on the bike.

Anyway, let's get into it and hear from the man himself.

We are going to start a bit random, but it’s a fun question I have been enjoying recently. 

If you were ice cream, what flavour would you be?

Maybe one of those Sponge Bob ice creams you get from the Ice Cream truck as a kid. Maybe it’s the yellow plaid, but that’s where my mind went as soon as you said ice cream. Sponge Bob Pops, I don’t know what they’re called.

I feel like I missed out on these Sponge Bob Pops. I know you are from Kamloops, but that’s about it. What’s a little bit more of your background?

Yeah, from Kamloops, I grew up like two minutes above the bike ranch. That’s kind of how I got into biking when that thing was put in back in ’05. Yeah, then moved up to Sunpeaks for a few years. I think in grade 11, I moved up there and started on trail crew for a few years. And Now been here full-time in Revelstoke for 4 years now.

What are you riding these days?

Im on a Specialized Status 160. That bike is super fun, just got it this year. Then on a Demo 8, the downhill bike. The Status is actually the first trail bike I have ever had. Always rode downhill and dirt jumpers which is sweet ’cause the Status kind of feels like a cross between the two anyway.

That leads me nicely on to the first of our Instagram sent-in questions, “If you were to ride one wheel size for the rest of your life, what would it be?”

Probably 27, maybe 26 but realistically 27. I think next year, I am going to try building up my bike up as a 26, 27 mullet. See how that goes. I've been riding 29 front wheel all year and like it too, just depends on what kind of riding your into.

With the dirt jump background, do you have any favourite tricks?

Yeah, my trick list is definitely pretty small. I landed a flip whip on an airbag a while ago, I wanted to get that to dirt, but now I am realising I’m pretty old, so I might not get that one. (He says at 26.)

I just like tables, really, just cracking big tables!

So you are working at RMR these days as kind of trail crew supervisor/ machine operator. Tell us a little bit more about what you do up there?

So yeah, my job is like… ok, we are going to build this trail, so I’m on the ground, like, here’s how we’re going to do it, kind of leading the crews through the build. When I started, It was just getting the bike park started, some blue trail to get the main highways in place, and now we are working on some black and green, kind of different trails that come of those ones.

That must be an extensive process with how long the trails are there?

Yeah, dude, it’s insane! Yeah, at this point, we have 6 trails, maybe, but they're so long that riding 2 trails is basically a full day. Even Doomsday will be about twice the length of dirt merchant once we finish it. I have spent a lot of time walking around in the woods up there. You find some treasures. I found an old GoPro from like 2009, I think. It had an old clip of the dude smashing the tree, and then it’s been chilling there in the snow ever since.

I’ve seen a bunch of cool things happening this year. You mentioned Doomsday and some of the work you’ve been doing this fall on End Game, you excited to be working on those?

Yeah, was awesome to finally get some more advanced jump trails in. That's my favourite stuff to ride and build. I think having them open made our park instantly feel like all the work we have put in in the past few years is finally coming together. Seeing other people's reactions to Doomsday really felt good. There's still another section to build but played it safe with the weather and moved the machine down to End Game to avoid getting snowed in.

Yeah, Doomsday got a really positive reaction from what I heard. That must have felt good. How about End Game? That’s where I found you this fall, working away.

Yeah, we’re testing it and riding during building, but that first lap down it, all together and then cracking it open and seeing other people’s reactions feels really good.

End Game is a bit differant, because rather than being an entirely new trail, it's one of the original sections of 5620 that we've been rebuilding as a jump trail bit by bit. It's nice to have it right at the bottom of the mountain because it means it's the first and last thing we are able to work on in the spring and fall.

So what have you chucked in there this fall? What can we look forward to?

Yeah, I asked a question on Instagram. "What would people like to see on it?" There were a lot of responses. Like a wallride, bigger shark fins, jumps, of course, boner logs, so I tried to build as many of those things as possible. The first thing that needed to be changed was the start. There was a long straight stretch, super high speed of nothing that was through good terrain. So I had some fun in there, added some jumps, the wallride, three more jumps need to go in, in the spring and then hopefully reroute the end of it after the two jumps. Turn it into kind of like Doomsday but more dirt jumpy, maybe more experimental with wooden features, more jibby. With the internet, you see so much of other people building stuff that you can get a lot of inspiration.

I'm glad you said that. Another one of our Instagram questions was “do you have any role models for your building career?”

Oh yeah, absolutely! Especially growing in Kamloops, there's not only lots of good riders there but amazing builders. Brad Stewart and the Landmark guys, they are probably the best builders in the world, I think. Just seeing what those guys build is where a lot of my inspiration comes from. Even like the Matt Hunter freeride stuff back in the day, and Aggi's freeride stuff, you can't build that in a public bike park as much, but that's kind of where a lot of it comes from. A bunch of Kamloops stuff and bringing it here. The riding here's super cool but different from what I am used to, and I would like to give some of the younger kids in the town some stuff I got to grow up with and a safe place to learn new things.

Any thoughts on what it might look like in 5 years or the bigger picture?

More variety of trails, more progression focus by filling the blanks between levels of trail difficulty, maybe some more alpine enduro stuff too. We are also at the point where we need to maintain and perfect what we already have built to keep everything sustainable and make sure all types of riders are getting the best riding experience possible. We still have a long way to go. With such a big mountain, everything we build has to be done strategically to balance the flow of traffic, especially in spots where there is only one route down. It's not very easy terrain to build trails on, and every section of trail is so long, our time needs to be spent very carefully.

Awesome, I think everyone would love to see it develop and increase in variety. You also work there in the winter, in the snowcats, so big question... summer or winter?

I think I'm feeling summer a bit more lately. I got pretty burnt out on the snow last year and was just counting down the days until spring. Building a terrain park again might refresh my feelings for winter though so we'll see. Rails are an aspect that mountain bike trails don't really have, so that's one thing I'm looking forward to having.

I feel like we've covered a bunch of stuff, so I will wrap up with one more from the gram.

What's your best memory of living at Cleavers house?

Oh shit, erm yeah, I don't know, we would always have big dinners, we always had a super sick bowl made out of snow we could jib around on. Burning couches was sweet. Whenever we were sick of a couch, we would just haul it out and set it on fire. There are all sorts of memories, not sure how many I want to say on here.

Haha, I figured it was going to be a bit like that. Thank you so much for taking the time to shoot and chat Keenan, You have any sponsors we should probably mention?

No worries, man! That was dope to talk about that stuff. Thanks so much! Yeah, I should probably shout out to Specialized.ca, Title Components and Flowt Bike Shop here in Revelstoke.