Rick Koekoek

Rick Koekoek is regarded as one of the best freeriders in the world, a MTB Trials World Record Holder, an MTB coach and the holder of multiple World Records standing longer than 10 years. Let’s start with: Who are you? 

I am Rick Koekoek, 38 years old and I grew up in Hoogveen, a town in the northern Netherlands. I developed a passion for being outdoors, playing and going outside the set boundaries. My father did motor trial. Trial is driving from point A to point B over obstacles with a motorcycle. That can be compared to freerunning, boys and girls who go over rooftops, from A to B. The exact same idea, only on a bike. I came into contact with it at a very young age and it has become a very big part of my life. 

What inspired you to do freeride mountain biking? It’s a bit of a hybrid what I see, it’s not really a mountain bike either, not really a cross bike. 

My father who did motor trials, had a motorcycle and was busy going over blocks, over concrete pipes and up and down very steep mountains. As a boy I wanted to imitate that, of course, just like father and son go to football, we went to races every weekend. I wasn’t old enough, not strong enough, to have a motorcycle, so I had to start on a bike first. As a 2.5-year-old boy, I jumped over the neighbor children with my bike, using a small jumping board. Because I had seen my dad do this on the motorcycle during an event, I tried to imitate all those things. 

I wanted to be as good as my idols, but they rode a motorcycle, not on a bicycle. I had videotapes and I only watched motor trial. In my head it was: When I am big and strong enough, I can ride a motorcycle and everything before that time I have to cycle. So my style on the bike was the same as on the bike. I had that as a vision, as an idea of myself, I would like to do this. 

At one point I got the opportunity to switch to motor trial, when I was 11-12 years old. I did that for 4 years, it went very well, and I was in the Dutch top. But that bike always remained the basis. Before a motorcycle competition I was on the bike, after the motorcycle competition I was on the bike, because I just thought it was so cool to play with it. I could express myself in it. 

I was very young when my mother died and the bicycle was a road, a path, although I didn’t really realize it at the time, a form of meditation. Nobody judged and you could just do your thing. Everything, besides being on my bike was absolute chaos when my mother passed away. In the end, I was able to make something very beautiful and positive out of it. I was taught at home, by actually being able to use a difficult moment in life and therefore develop yourself and excel in it. For me, it is not necessarily the performance or a title which is the main goal. 

Can you share some of your most memorable experiences in the freeriders scene? What has always stayed with you? 

As a young man I was in Austria, in a very large courtyard in the town called Gratz. There, a world record was broken in the high jump on the bike, comparable to high jump in athletics, over a bar, only on a bike. The official world record was broken there by two Spaniards. I was 15 at the time, I was watching, for no reason I thought: That record is going to be for me. It was one of those moments and I told my dad: I’m going to do just that. 

It was only years later that I was allowed to make a first attempt. I knew I had the height, I had everything I needed to do it, but my first attempt was far from successful and that I had to go back to the drawing board. Actually in that process, I learned so many new things about myself, about my material, about the setting, so to speak, how to move yourself between those other champions, when the moment is there.  

A good 10 years after I got that idea in my head, I managed to break a world record for the very first time. It was in London, it was really bizarre to be able, and be allowed to, experience that. But that was very performance-oriented of course, what is expected of you in a competitive setting, that is a goal you set, you win or you don’t win. That was actually something that came back a lot, so I learned a lot about the things I did and at the same time, actually on the side of that competitive part, I can still remember that feeling and the thoughts of that young guy who was jumping on the curb, from a bench to a wall and with the eyes with which I was already looking at the world back then. 

Not limiting to: We are only going to make one high jump and these are the rules of the game. I looked at the wall, at the building around the corner from where I lived and thought: That’s actually cool too. At one point I had built up such a skill level that I actually saw the opportunity to do the same as, for example, those freerunners I had seen in a video of freerunners in Hong Kong, those guys did such bizarre shit on sky scrapers, so high. Somewhere in the back of my head I had: That’s where I want to go. Actually the same as when I was 15, I had another moment of okay, I actually want to go there. How I’m going to get there, I have no idea, but I do think that’s where the next goal lies for me. 

So in that process, I first got past other obstacles. Maybe you’ve seen the video Montserrat Stairway to Heaven? That was the first time for me where the door opened and where I thought: So much more is possible than just the competitive mindset. You call it freeriding, that’s what I actually mean to say, there are no limits to it, only your own imagination and focus that you have and time that you want to put into it to achieve such a bizarre thing. 

How have you further developed your technique skills over the past few years? 

I actually went through a personal shift. For a long time I rode 20 inch trial bikes, which required a completely different mindset. The challenges I faced were extreme, like those skyscraper stunts I had seen in videos from Hong Kong, where free runners are jumping from building to building at dizzying heights, and I thought, I can do that to, so I did. I rode over 270 meters high buildings for example. 

For me it was a interesting idea what the free runners where doing, and almost nobody was searching for lines like that within the bike industry and I thought, keep searching for new lines and look where nobody is willing to go, to learn more about myself as a person and as a rider. At one point, I hit a limit. I could feel it in my dopamine levels, the adrenaline—there was a sense of reaching a cap. People around me, even the experts, were saying I was crazy for attempting things like that.   

Actually, my standard of riding in my daily life was so high on the adrenaline platform, that I didn’t see any other opportunities because of it, I love life to the max. A lot of people would say, are you tired of life? I say no, anything but. It is that thin edge that you are on and where you feel most alive. 

So how did I switch in the last two years? I’m very honest, I had to kick the habit first. At one point I thought okay, you’ll get a little older and in a moment, there will undoubtedly be other possibilities, which you may enjoy the same, if not more. So then I switched to mountain biking, started riding bigger wheels, and went more into the mountains. It’s a completely different setting, a completely different experience, but I really needed some time for that. 

Actually just finding the pleasure in the simplest things, I actually just went back to zero first and had to be patient, have confidence and set challenges again. That has caused quite a bit of resistance, but at some point I saw opportunities to re-set myself and find something to take on another cool challenge. 

Like now, I said that I really want to do an extreme distance, you are not unfamiliar with that yourself. I come from a very explosive sport and actually I have to take the complete opposite of the spectrum to maybe learn a lot more and that was maximum endurance. So the switch from explosive to maximum endurance, that’s what I’ve ended up in now. For myself I said: I would like to ride a duro, a duro race on the mountain bike, it’s just an event. Quite a few people participate, in that aspect it is not as unique as what I did at the time, but for me it is a springboard to more, to the next thing that will come next. 

A duro is just that I get to ride 130 km in a day, unpaved, with 5,000 altimeters and what it’s all about, 13 staged races. So then you’re up to speed and that’s timed, then you have about a 14-hour day, but you still have the extreme aspects of someone who is explosive, but also maximal endurance. The stages, which last between 8 and 20 minutes, where I’ll go completely into the red. I think this is super cool to do. Technically I can learn a lot, if I have to divide the 100% focus, then it’s 80% learning about my own body and how to prepare my internal engine to actually be able to do that duration and that other 20% is material, the technical aspect of descending and that chapter, I am now slowly growing into that and that is a super nice process. 

What does a training schedule look like for you and which exercises are the most crucial for you? 

For me, the most important thing is my endurance, I have always worked explosively for a very short time, so I really need to broaden my endurance to the maximum and for myself find out how recover best. Especially with the idea that, the faster I recover, the sooner I can be back on the bike and to be able to take another step forward. Have I done this completely flawlessly in recent months? No, certainly not. I have had moments when I have made the choice that my endurance, at least recovery part, is not yet equal to what my head actually has in mind. 

That’s of course the mental part. The process before, you choose to do x number of workouts, that’s where you find your balance. I just try to be optimally fit at the start. You already indicate, it is actually during the process itself, that it is just overexploitation of the body itself. How do you go after such a bizarre performance, do you land back in the normal world? 

How do you prepare? Do you still have big events or a competition coming up? 

I have made a timeline for myself and there I have a number of milestones that I want to tick. So far I am actually very close every time, for me it will be to spend time on the bike. A little over a year ago, if I would cycle for 30 minutes on a normal bike, I could feel it in my muscles. I had not kept up with my level of fitness after stopping to perform at the highest level. I seemed very fit and I also felt fit, only the foundation I had built up in top sport had slipped away after my sports career. 

A year ago I realized, when I once went for a small tour ride at a club competition, after two minutes I thought: What the fuck am I doing here?! This doesn’t go well. when I rode for half an hour in a day, I really had a challenge with recovery. Then I felt my body say: Give me some time, because it’s not as fit as it used to be. Back in the days I trained 6 days a week for 4 to 5-6 hours a day, that was no problem. So I had to go back to basics, recover, mentally specifically. 

A few months ago I came up with the idea to do a new challenge, which will take place next April. Because I saw that I was making progress again. 4 months ago I was able to sit on the bike for 4 hours, and I was super happy. But I wanted more. So I made a timeline, how do I work towards it? I don’t need to have any other opponents than myself, I just have to listen carefully to my body and actually go through the process step by step. For example, the goal for me now is to ride 130 km and 5,000 meters altitude, plus those stage races. But first I only look, can I just cycle 100 km? 

So for me it’s mainly a timeline of sketching and saying okay, this month I want to be able to sit on the bike for 7 hours or 8 hours. And then also be able to drive qualitatively. I would like to make so many altimeters, so I just made some of those charts for myself and I tick them off. I do this together with my partner Laura Turpijn, who has a background in mountain biking and has accomplished some amazing feats herself. She’s a great coach and monitors my performance, so I have someone who’s watching over my progress. This support is crucial for me. 

We’re growing towards the point where I need to be. Because, if you look at it, from the moment I’ve already said, yes I’m going to do this, to the moment that that performance is going to be, is less than 6 months and then you’re talking about that race. The very best athletes in endurance races say: This is really next level. So yes, what I said before, this is really a springboard for myself of okay, I want to grow towards this, make sure my body gets stronger, gain knowledge and skills to actually be able to continue going forward afterwards. 

So that’s my idea of what I’m doing with this. Actually in the process, sharing knowledge and especially learning from others, but also especially sharing what I go through myself and sharing this with people. So don’t be a closed book of, oh no this is my own. No, not at all. You actually have to be very open about that. 

What obstacles have you had to overcome in your career? 

From you young age I’ve viewed everything in my life as an obstacle I had to overcome, while it wasn’t really about that at all. It is also a combination between the physical aspect in combination with the mental aspect, actually the mental aspect is the really a big one. Overcoming. It is mainly having the self-image in relation to someone else, wanting to compare it with someone else. 

I always looked up to, for example, a Spanish rider, his name is Benito Ros, even as a little boy. When I turned 20 till my mid 20’s, he was still there. He was like a Sven Kramer (Dutch skater) who participated and where everyone tried to get past. Then the mental part is really an important aspect in it, how can you respect someone and at the same time be so hard for them during the competition, to go beyond that. 

It was my very first chance to break a world record, his world record. I was standing next to him and I have so much respect for him there at that moment, that I just couldn’t show my full potential there. It just didn’t work. In subsequent moments after that, I did find a way, of how can I still respect him completely and just be good friends, but in the competition find a way to make it to a victory? 

My biggest challenge for me, was mainly that aspect. For me it was sport in terms of physical and endurance, I had the perfect build and the aptitude for it. It was hard work, 100%. Only then there was the mental aspect and one more thing. There was not really a culture of riders in the Netherlands, if you had ten together, that was a lot. They had to compete against the large Spanish group of riders, they came from a country where everything was built and developed and which held all the champions. So we had a lot of challenges there, just to get much better technically. In terms of strength it was not a problem, explicit explosiveness was not a problem, but technically they were so good, so at one point I said, I have to go to Spain and what they do, I have to do too. I have to find my own path and my own way in that, to actually just go through that mirroring, learning that process. 

I lived in Barcelona for 5 years and I was working with a really good mentor. That was Cesar Caňas, he is an 11-time world champion. He is one of the most technical riders ever. He said, okay now we’re going to see if we can teach my cookbook to you, see if you can do it. I have been able to learn a lot from that man in 2 years. Actually in that process, when I was competing successfully, I also started doing those things like Montserrat, so those big blocks. 

I then started to look outside the competitions. In Montserrat, when I had ascended it in the morning, I had a training with Cesar the next day. I had made a small video of it together with a friend of mine, and I thought, oh this looks cool, this is fun. It was also special, but I hadn’t realized for a long time what it actually did to me. That was the most important thing for me. But people from outside who looked at it said: What the fuck, what did you do?! I was, what do you mean, what did I do? But this is not possible! This is just literally not possible what you are doing now! I said why is that? Not being able to, I am not allowed to cycle there or not being able to? Or is it physical? That it’s out of this world that I try to do it at all? Well, the latter. 

Cesar was, really? Serious?? That guy is really just the GOAT. The chief. Everyone within the sport agrees on that. That man looked at it and said: I don’t know what you still do in competitions, you don’t really have a thing to look for. You just have to do more of this work. In that moment, I heard him, but I didn’t know how to find a way out of it. I was somehow stuck in the thought process of being competitive. It was a very interesting collaboration and development as well, just for myself, to think about what else was possible within the sport other than just the agreed framework and the rules of the game. So more the direction of freeriding and just making my own version of it. 

While practicing you get injuries, how do you deal with the recovery procedure? 

I don’t have both cruciate ligaments anymore, as a 12-year-old boy I tore my first cruciate ligament and then it was: I’m never going to cycle again! Half a day later it was: I might cycle at that place again. And a day later it was: It doesn’t really matter, I’m back on my bike. For example in 2010 I had my patellar tendon, under the kneecap,  overloaded, on both legs I had jumpers knees, that’s what they call it. It is common among volleyball players, basketball players. For 9 out of 10 athletes who get that, their top sports career is over. 

Because I had been through this kind of thing before, I knew there had to be a way to get through it and it was a matter of time to gather the right team of people around me who could help me recover. I had found them and I finally started the 2010 season with  bizarrely bad knees, but then I rode all over the year, European Championships, World Championships and World Cups, but in that process I didn’t do a single training. 

I had trained hard that winter before, trained my knees to hell and then I went into rest. Every time I was afraid for a race, I did half an hour of warming up, I was on a bike for the first time in a month or 6 weeks and I made it on the podium every race. The process I had used was yoga, breathing and visualization. The latter in particular is a very big one for me. 

Can you tell me a bit more about that? 

Visualization for myself, imagining. Ask the question, what do I want to achieve? I had it very clear in front of me, the techniques that I would have to apply to the bike, I just kept seeing them one by one in front of me and then I said: Okay, I want to make a certain jump, for example bunny hop, with two wheels you come off the ground, and then I started visualizing it by living through it with my eyes closed and then the most important thing is the gut feeling. So basically just the sensation, the feeling, how hard do I want to go on the pedals and on my handlebars? My hands and my feet, how hard do I push off, how hard does the bike pull up and how does that landing feel? What is the pressure of that, what would the temperature be if I am at the World Cup in Canada, for example? What kind of weather conditions? If the weather is bad, is there rain? No, okay! But how would you move in that? So you just feel the whole process, you outline all the possibilities, how do I actually think it’s going to happen? So I actually spent a lot of time doing that, just to live through that process. The moment I got on the bike, it was really okay check, I have to deal with gravity again. But I also tried to live through it as realistically as possible. That is a very big key, with which you can do a lot of great things. Even apart from cycling, I personally think that something like visualization was the key for me. 

What does 2026 look like for you? You are going to do an endurance at a high level, what will the year look like for you? 

For me it’s the process, I’m just creating a springboard and that’s the beauty of this process. I don’t know the exact answer either and that’s the coolest thing there is. It is a reference of every moment I have ticked off another one, that self-image that I eventually have. 

I always start with an idea, so my potential. The idea is then OK, cool, I would like to get fit for life again. I just noticed that I dropped an important topic, the only way is to start living according to that, I want to get fitter. What that means for me, I am going to participate in an event, what action should I take? So I just have to make sure that my basic strength, my basic energy, nutrition, recovery and all those things so to speak, are going to be optimal. By taking only 1 action, a result comes out and with that result becomes a new belief about myself, what I could actually do and that turns into potential again and that is actually just a circle that I repeat every time, and that is the same with this event. 

So this is going to be the springboard. In addition, I would really like to do something high in the mountain, like in the Alps or Dolomites. Bike & hike, you throw your bike on your back and just walk up the impossible parts. Make special trips and eventually descend completely by bike, as far as possible of course. 

Do you still have dreams or goals that you want to achieve in freeride? 

At the moment I’m just resetting the standard for myself, so to speak. Because at the time, with that trial part, it  was very clear to me. But that has been a process for years, I grew into it as a little boy and I feel like myself, now it’s just about getting stronger and for example if I could do such a bizarre trip up in Chamonix. It is short and explosive. I think for myself, that it is just very important to have such an experience. In the end, my thoughts always think of something further and bigger. 

It starts with a dream, doesn’t it? 

Exactly that. I now make small moments and small dreams again, then bigger dreams and eventually I grow towards that. At the time it was so crazy in my head. I also skydived and things like that, super fun. I saw guys skydiving with their snowboards, flying through the air with them. I seriously thought about doing something like that as well, you should be able to do that in a combination with a bike. That would be possible, but then that passion and conviction has to be there, it has to click completely. And you have to be able to make those hours. And I never entered that chapter. So for me now it’s like okay, what can I do with a mountain bike, what can I combine with hiking and actually take it from there, let the dreams grow again. That’s actually what I do, I don’t have a specific thing now that I can say, okay this is what I want exactly. I do have some things and they will grow over time. 

What advice would you give to young freeriders or mountain bikers? 

The most important thing I have seen in recent years, what I have experienced myself, it is easy to follow other people, but it is the most beautiful thing to be able to create something yourself. If you say, I would like to ride a certain style, or I would like, well what you say, to have a dream, to ride a certain line in Chamonix. Go for it! As a little boy I got two things from my parents, the first thing was from my mother who said: If you see the opportunity to do something, go do it and the second is what my dad said when I fell down: If you don’t try it again now, you will never do it again.  

So basically observe and learn. Those two things have been very powerful. I would love to give that advice to other people. I just try to look at it with an open mind and just go. 

I have heard a bit here and there about major influences and mentors in sports. Who has influenced you the most? 

What I actually just said, my mom and my dad. My dad actually because he handed over the baton to me and my mother because I only had her for a very short time in my life. What I just said, her statement was an example for me: If you have the opportunity to do something, go do it. It is actually very simple, but this really had a big influence on me. My dad because he shared his knowledge, which he had to share at that moment, by sparring with me, by traveling with me and by being there, has given me a lot. 

How important is it for you to stimulate this sport among young people and are you also involved in local communities? 

Some time ago, in 2010, I set up a project for secondary schools, where young people could go into the gym and get to work on their bikes in the gymnasium, and in particular, we called it free biking. We had made a CD for that and also teaching material, so that those teachers could also just get started in the gym with a bicycle package. That program ran really strong for a good 10 years, but then I actually chose to make a switch. I did quite a lot in that, but eventually chose mountain biking and now slowly I am coming back to the youth, to share that knowledge again. I myself am more active in the Nijmegen region in the Netherlands. That has slowly grown in terms of coaching and things like that.