This article contains sections relating to Ric's background in the following areas:
It is during this time that Ric began a lifelong friendship with Jim Revitt, a leading Australian journalist and editor of the television news desk at the time. Ric would often answer a call in the early morning hours, help his Dad load their family station wagon and head out to cover a wide range of news events ranging from suicide attempts to jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge to car crashes, bush and house fires.
At 12 Ric lived in Fiji for a few months while waiting for his father to join the family on a trip to the US that lasted another 10 months. During that trip the family visited all the major west coast national parks down to Mexico and up the mountain states through Denver to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. The family then travelled to Alaska to visit a long time friend of Ric's father and came home via Tokyo, Hong Kong and Manilla.
In his pre-teen years Ric started experimenting with trying to adapt the characteristics of dirt motorcycles with bicycle design at the time. His modifications would include adding motorcycle handlebars to dragster frames, using extended front forks to change the centre of gravity and customized seat designs. Shortly after entering High School at Hunters Hill High in Sydney's northern suburbs, Ric opened the pages of the American magazine Dirt Bike to see that all the design features he had envisioned had been encapsulated in a new bicycle called the Mongoose.
The first BMX bike. In his first attempt at being an entrepreneur, Ric applied to become the Australian Distributor for Mongoose but failed to convince his parents to fund the $8,000 required purchase of the container load of bikes needed to establish the business. Ric later remarked that "it was amazing that my parents even considered backing me when only a decade earlier they didn't spend much more than that to buy our family home." For three years after initially leaving school Ric did volunteer work including working as a "brickies labourer" at a building site for a cause he supports.
Early years
Ric was born in Sydney, Australia, to Fred and Helen Richardson. His father is one of the original cameramen of the Australian television era, working for early Australian television programs such as Four Corners, This Day Tonight and later as a stringer news cameraman for national television station the ABC. At an early age Ric started working with his Dad initially as an assistant cameraman and eventually as a sound recordist doing film jobs for the news department at the ABC.It is during this time that Ric began a lifelong friendship with Jim Revitt, a leading Australian journalist and editor of the television news desk at the time. Ric would often answer a call in the early morning hours, help his Dad load their family station wagon and head out to cover a wide range of news events ranging from suicide attempts to jump off the Sydney Harbour Bridge to car crashes, bush and house fires.
At 12 Ric lived in Fiji for a few months while waiting for his father to join the family on a trip to the US that lasted another 10 months. During that trip the family visited all the major west coast national parks down to Mexico and up the mountain states through Denver to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. The family then travelled to Alaska to visit a long time friend of Ric's father and came home via Tokyo, Hong Kong and Manilla.
In his pre-teen years Ric started experimenting with trying to adapt the characteristics of dirt motorcycles with bicycle design at the time. His modifications would include adding motorcycle handlebars to dragster frames, using extended front forks to change the centre of gravity and customized seat designs. Shortly after entering High School at Hunters Hill High in Sydney's northern suburbs, Ric opened the pages of the American magazine Dirt Bike to see that all the design features he had envisioned had been encapsulated in a new bicycle called the Mongoose.
The first BMX bike. In his first attempt at being an entrepreneur, Ric applied to become the Australian Distributor for Mongoose but failed to convince his parents to fund the $8,000 required purchase of the container load of bikes needed to establish the business. Ric later remarked that "it was amazing that my parents even considered backing me when only a decade earlier they didn't spend much more than that to buy our family home." For three years after initially leaving school Ric did volunteer work including working as a "brickies labourer" at a building site for a cause he supports.
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