After a very successful year from the 2009/2010/2011 Stumpjumper Trail Crew, it is no surprise to me that Specialized have decided to run the SJTC program again this year in Canada. After seeing previous winning entries, it is also no surprise that the Stumpjumper song I wrote as last years entry did not quite cut it. So this year, I plan to get a little personal and let you into my life and my riding. This is my 2011/12 SJTC Entry.
My love of riding and racing started when I was very young. I can not remember that far back but my parents keep telling me the story of my first ever race. I was 3 years old and entered into my first ever race at Minto BMX track. I still had training wheels attached to my bike and I was told that I refused to race without my bottle. It was the under 5’s race and there was no way I was ever going to beat the big kids, but I must have thrown the biggest tantrum to make my parents let me race. My brothers had been racing for a few years by this stage and I just wanted to do the same.
For years we had a regular routine of playing football on Saturday mornings and racing all day Sunday. We would travel all over the east coast to different events every weekend just to race on different tracks and against different riders.
Midway though my BMX “career”, the State Police came to our school for a learn to ride weekend. It was a weekend class that we all had to attend even if we knew how to ride. My brother and I turned up on our bikes with our racing helmets. Everyone had pretty standard BMX bikes with stackhats and we turned up with very light custom made chromoly 20 inch bikes, running sew-up tires, uni seats and Echo full face helmets. Sew-up tires are pretty much a 20 inch version of a cyclocross tire these days. You can imagine how much attention we got.
Not long after that, our family started to achieve some success in racing. My brothers gained a state title plate, which means they made the final where every person in that race used their finishing position as their number plate for the next 12 months. That year the State championships were held at Southlake BMX track. This track will always be my favourite for one particular reason. That year not only did I make the final, but I won it. For the next 12 months I had number 1 on my plate. I was in 3rd coming around the last corner and gained a little bit on the leaders as we came to the last jump. 1st and 2nd were next to each other over the jump when they clipped each other and crashed. My 3rd place just turned into 1st as I crossed the finish line. I still remember that race to this day.
The success I had at a state level didn’t quite carry over to the National Championships or the World Champs which were held in Brisbane, Australia on one particular year. Soon after the worlds, my brother broke his ankle quite badly and we went to my Aunty and Uncles farm one Easter instead of the usual National Championships. We swapped our race bikes for motorbikes and started chasing foxes and jumping out of dam’s. We never went back to racing. These days we can see the people we raced against and beat in the National Olympic team which always causes a lot of happy and sad memories to come back.
Years later I moved from the big smoke to a small country town to do a Bachelors degree in I.T. and without realising it, I turned into a county boy with no desire to return to the city. I used to work for Mars in their I.T. department and have enjoyed travelling to some exotic destinations around the world. A few years ago I borrowed my brothers full rigid mountain bike to try and get fit again. My life of eating Snickers bars at work and being a stereotypical computer geek had certainly caught up to me. I started out on small path rides which became longer and longer. I then borrowed my other old brothers bike which was a Giant Rainer and it introduced me into a world of suspension. I was convinced by a close mate to go off road with him and I have never looked back.
Skip forward to today
These days I live in Vancouver and I ride 12 months of the year multiple times a week and enter Super D, cross country and quite a few endurance races which I will never win, but get a great satisfaction in completing some of the hardest trails this country has to offer. I am lucky enough to be only a 5 minute ride from my front door to the trail head. I can get from work to the trail head, via home to grab my bike within 20 minutes. Not many people in this world have that and it is one of the best reasons for living where I do.
I was lucky enough to have a ride of this years (and last years) S-Works Stumpy as part of a ride day organised by Trail Crew member Matt (aka @Mattunderground) and must say that it is certainly a nice bike to be on. You can also see me as the second rider on an Enduro in @mattunderground’s Fan boy movie “Live to Dirt - Stumpy Style”, (thats me that wrecks after the credits) as well as a lot of Go Pro footage which has been posted on the SJTC website. When I am not out riding or at work, I am usually looking after my blog (this site), my jointly run mountain bike review website (DirtGeek.com), or doing some work as part of my Trail Manager commitments for my local MTB Club. We are currently working on a skills park, a new downhill course and making our existing trails more sustainable. On top of that, I am also a certified UCI Commissaire, which allows me to continue running races and events.
And some photos of me doing what I love.
