I first met Chris Hargrave (aka Roni) years ago through his 'zine; he's contributed artwork to Radazine and Wire (among many other riding 'zines), and one of his designs was on the first Wire shirt. An all-around nice guy (besides an apparent midget fetish...) he's now working for Brad McDonald as editor of Ride magazine -- the best riding magazine since the pre-skateboard Freestylin' days. I hadn't talked to Chris in quite a while and figured it was time to see how he's doing...

eWire: How did you get into riding in the first place? Chris: Um, man... So long ago... It was. Let's see, it was probably in fifth or sixth grade and it was just something we did; just setting up boards on cinder blocks to jump our bikes. Where I'm from it's pretty redneck, and if you're not into hunting and all the rest of it you just had to do your own thing. There was a few of us who'd go out and jump our Huffys and Murrays and whatnot. Then one day I ran into a copy of BMX Action, and it was cool to see there was actually a sport for what we were doing. Then I got a subscription to Action, followed it through...

And took it from there. Yeah. What's your first love -- art or bikes? I'd have to say art. My mom used to tell me crazy stories about when I was real little, like two years old, trying to draw and freaking out 'cause I couldn't make things look the way I wanted them to. Drawing's just something I've always been doing; biking came shortly thereafter.

You seem to be the Lew of the '90's: a guy really into riding gets a spot at the top riding magazine. How did you go from the world of 'zines to the big time? That's a pretty cool compliment to be compared to Lew. Um, actually, when I was in college I was doing this thing called Foundry, making shirts and videos and stuff for fun. I called Brad asking for ad rates one day and we started talking. I told him I was going to school for design, and he figured that I could contribute layouts for Ride here and there. One of the first batches he sent me didn't have captions, so I just made up my own captions and sent them with him, and I guess he was pretty stoked on what I'd done. At that time Ride was really growing beyond what he could do, so he originally wanted me to do layouts and whatnot, but I ended up being editor. I'm happier with that actually. Do you handle the artwork there, or is it mainly writing? At Ride all I do is write, like I do all the editorial stuff for that. And for Snap I just took over as art director, doing all the layouts for it. Is the job what you expected it to be? Is it harder? [laughing] It's a LOT more than I'd expected it to be. I think maybe if I was just being editor for Ride it wouldn't be too bad, but like I said I'm editor of Ride and art director of Snap, and I do the production work for both magazines. So it's pretty much like a minimum of 10 hour days usually, and no less than 5 days a week; last week it was six. So it's a full-time job.

Roni icepicking a trash can.

What are some of the stresses and hassles working for a magazine? Um, I suck at riding now, that's one of my biggest complaints [laughter]. I never get to touch my bike. I live an hour away from the office, so I leave in the morning at 9 and don't get home until like 8 or 9 at night. So I never really get to ride my bike anymore. Plus the hassles of getting everything done on time, I end up having nightmares about that [laughter], trying to make the deadlines. I guess the worst part is just making sure it's going to be well-received. There's that real nervous period once the issue ships out, you know, just waiting for the response. Make sure that the readers liked it or whatever; that's my biggest worry since what I'm doing might have some sort of impact on people...like Lew and Andy and those guys had on Keith and I when we were kids.

Right. What are the perks? I'm sure there are some good things about working there, right? Oh yeah. I get to travel, go ride and see spots, that's really cool. I dunno, it definitely beats what I was doing before, which was washing dishes [laughter]. Just the fact that I'm able to do what I love on a full-time basis is great, plus it's a good feeling when people call saying they got the new issue and liked it. Do you guys at Ride ever get any intelligent letters, or are most pretty much written by retards? Aw man, what we print is what we get [laughter]. I read some of them and think "Oh God, I can't wait to see what McGoo says to this one." It's almost frightening. Some are just terrible. I read them all before they go to him, and he ends up picking the best of what's there. Occasionally I get a good one that makes a pretty good point and states a decent view. But McGoo usually ends up ripping those guys apart, too [laughter]. Return of Star Wars: good thing or money-making scam? I dunno, the only thing that disappointed me on the new one was the Sandtroopers and Dewbacks: Keith and I have discussed this quite heavily. They looked a little too off-paced with everything else; like a little too computer animated. But I think it's totally cool to get to see it in the movie theater again. I remember seeing it when I was five, and now being able to see it again is totally rad. My little brother is nine years old and he's gonna be able to see it for the first time; he's watched it with me on a VCR, but now he's able to see it in the theaters and that's totally cool. But Lucas has got enough money [laughter].

I'm just gonna end with some word association; you just say the first thing that comes to your mind. Okay. California. Hell. Daredevil. Rooftop. ESPN. Money. Midgets. [laughing] Aw man, I have to plead the fifth on this one [laughter]. Okay, heavy metal. Good. Pinhead. Hellraiser. Brad. [laughing] Um...same as with the midgets [laughter]. McGoo. Hilarious.

And finally: Mutt. Aw man, ending an interview with Mutt [laughter]. Well, that guy: I've never understood the reasoning behind Mutt, like how or where anything ends up. I mean, in the 'zine days he helped me out a lot. I don't know how or why, but I ended up among his network with everyone else and he turned a lot of people on to my 'zine. So as bad as that may seem Mutt actually helped me [laughter]. He helped you get where you are today [laughter]. As frightening as that is, yes [laughter].