Reece Wallace had spent years dreaming about the moment he would combine his two biggest passions in one audacious adventure. He would fly his Cessna to Alaska, land on a remote mountain ridge with his mountain bike strapped to the plane, then ride down. Instead, the Nanaimo professional mountain biker ended up in a neck brace after crashing at about 50 km/h during the first day of filming. “It’s like that chase of something new and different and doing something that no one’s ever done before and pushing myself,” Wallace said. Six weeks ago, Wallace flew his single engine plane to Alaska with his bikes packed inside, ready to bring the idea to life. The dream came to a sudden stop during his second test ride down the mountainside. “I rode up into some terrain that I didn’t see coming and I was going too fast to handle it and just exploded off my bike,” he said. The crash left Wallace with a broken neck and hand. He is now recovering at home in Nanaimo and will spend another six weeks in a neck brace. The injury also meant putting another major milestone on hold. Wallace and his fiancée, Monica Falcos, were supposed to get married last Saturday. Instead, their wedding has been postponed. “A little neck brace got in the way,” Falcos said. “We’re going to get married next year in June, which to most of my friends was a more reasonable timeline anyway.” The setback has not changed Wallace’s plans for the mountain. He intends to return to Alaska next summer and finish the project, documenting the journey in a full length documentary. “When you dream about something like this, it’s hard not to finish it,” Wallace said. Wallace has already released the first of four episodes of “Flying to Alaska with a Mountain Bike” on his YouTube channel. The series follows his journey to Alaska and the preparations for the stunt before the crash brought filming to an unexpected halt. For now, Wallace is concentrating on healing. Next summer, he plans to return to Alaska and pick up where the dream left off.
