Was he BASE jumping when you first got together?

He was really into sky-diving and had basically done his first BASE jump a month before I met him.

How did you feel about that?

It was such a new sport then, you know. Nobody had died yet and it was definitely wow crazy.

It was kind of like bungee jumping in the beginning. We all used to bungee jump a bunch. It was the next step but then people starting dying and it started getting real. But he was always so calculated.

Some people love risk. Some just love the feeling of the actual sports and want to minimise risk. Which was he?

That is so cool. No one’s said it like that before.

He was the most calculated person, sometimes in an annoying way. We’d go to a cliff and he’d stay there for hours checking the wind and go scope then he’d walk out.

In South Africa, just before he died, he went up every morning at 5am to this cliff to see if he could jump.

He never jumped because there was always a little bit of wind, which was cool for me because I trusted him. I knew that he was safe and that he was doing everything he could to be safe.

I can’t tell you how many cliffs he hiked up and then hiked down again. So he wasn’t a daredevil, he just loved to fly. Who doesn’t love to fly? It’s everyone’s dream so I got it, you know.

How did he talk about it?

You could see it in his face. You can’t explain it. It’s like us, we can’t explain a powder day it’s like, “Well sex is great but you know this is…” It’s just beyond explanation because it’s so amazing and we all get that.

A lot of people who criticise him sit behind a cubicle all day. They could never understand because they’ve never done that. He’s not, I hate this word, an “adrenaline junkie” because it makes him sound like a heroin addict and he was not reckless.

You’ve had criticism online, have you? Wow it’s not like you weren’t feeling bad enough already

I know. That was one of the hugest reasons I pushed this movie because people just think of Red Bull pushing people, making athletes do crazy things but it’s not true.

They’re making dreams come true and it’s up to the individual to decide how much to push their sport.

How did Shane’s sponsors react to his death?

They were devastated too because he was one of their first athletes.

They loved him because he was real, so nice and kind, not a stroppy athlete. He was just a cool, good guy.

Even before Shane passed, Red Bull really took care of me. It was always like, “Bring your family” “Where’s Sherry?”

All his sponsors were like that K2, Oakley all of them. It obviously makes you feel like they really loved him.

We watched The Crash Reel recently and it brings up the interesting question of why people enjoy watching slams too much?

I’m not into watching them at all. They make me feel horrible.

It’s fine for an athlete to watch them to learn from his or her mistake but otherwise…

I never let Shane’s crash footage be televised. They have the intro to his death in the film, but they destroyed the rest of the footage. I don’t think it’s necessary at all.

If somebody dies or gets really hurt, I don’t want to see it. Maybe because we have kids we think that, I don’t know but we should celebrate people’s life on the internet and not make it so sad.

What’s your favourite memory of Shane?

I have so many. One thing I loved which we didn’t get much footage of was when I tried to stop breastfeeding and I couldn’t do it.

So I had to leave for the weekend and I came back and have you ever heard of Girls Gone Wild? It’s this college thing they do where they lift their shirts up and say “Girls gone wild!”

I walked into the house and Ayla came up to me aged 15 months. Shane said “Girls gone wild!” and she would lift her top up. It was so funny.

I like how he was with Ayla and just his delight with her. It’s hard for me to watch clips of that in the movie, it’s almost impossible…

What do you hope people will take from the movie?

Live life to the fullest.

Watch the McConkey trailer here and the full length movie at mcconkeymovie.com