This is my first blog, which contains a fairly comprehensive history of how i got into mountain biking and how i got to where i am today. Then in the next blog i'll talk about what i've been up to in the last year, how my riding has developed and what i have planned for the year ahead. then after that I'm hoping to write a weekly blog with photos and films of that weeks action and digging. this first ones a bit boring, but i hope as i get used to doing this it will become more relaxed and easier to read. Thanks for reading, Ben...
So going back 15 years to 1996, when i was just 11. My cousin came over to England from Australia for about 9 months to say with us. He was 16 back then, and a keen mountain biker, he introduced me to this wonderful sport. So i pleaded with my Dad to by me my first Mountain Bike, a Releigh Ascender (fully Rigid) 15gears, i loved that bike. After 9 months of riding it up at my local wood, Bramcote park. My cousin went back to Australia, but left his bike behind in the UK for me to have, his was a Releigh Summit wit Rock Shox Magnesium series 2 suspension forks up front, 18 gears with Shimano XT groupset, this bike was the mutts nuts. A year later i managed to ride into a post box and bent the down tube, cant really remember how i managed this. But this meant i need a new frame, and so my Dad scraped some pennys together to by me a new frame a Voodoo Hoodoo (which believe they still make) it was metallic midnight blue, and a thing of complete beauty and that Christmas i was given a pair of Rock Shox Indy XC Forks. This bike lasted me a couple of years until i was mugged on my way home from riding at the local trails one sunday, and it was gone. Some ten days later the insurance had paid out. Orange Missile was the next ride of choice, they'd only been out a few week and was told my my local bike shop that i'd bought the first one in Nottingham, sweet. this was to be short lived as some 9 months later it was stolen from outside my parents workshop one afternoon. Again the insurance paid out and went for another Orange, this time the only just released Patriot, this was to be my first full suspension bike, back in 1998 this was the bike to have, even though i did think its wasn't that good, the manitou forks were slow and sluggish, and the Fox Shox on the back was Stiff and had a lack Dampening. This got stolen to, which proved to be a good thing in the end. Next up was a Santacruz Chameleon in bright orange with orange Marzocchi Bomber Z1 forks, this bike was the best thing since sliced bread, i loved this bike, i rode it place i'd never been before, it was a true all rounder, i did my first ever race on it, at Nottingham University, i can't remember what place i came. But i'm sure i was in the top 20. i'd later sell this bike to a friend of mine, in hindsight this was a massive mistake. But thats life. this ended the first half of my mountain biking life style. I would now concentrate on collage and learning to drive, owning a car and earning money.
It wasnt till i was 22 that i bought another bike and started riding again, partly due to not being able to afford to run my car, which meant i had to sell it. This was a heavy weight Kona Coiler, which i was using to commute to work, doing 100 plus miles a week and XC/Trail riding at the weekends. It was like driving a tank. This went one for a couple of years until the Kona was about dead and i was sick of having it fixed. At the end of 2007 i'd got myself a new job and with more money in my pocket i set about one of my dreams of owning a £3000 mountain bike, everything else had been half that and so this was gonna be a massive step forward for me and i was getting excited. I spent weeks and weeks searching the web and reading reviews. After all if i was gonna be spending this kind of money i need the bike to be just right. I knew i really wanted a DH bike, but also needed to be able to ride to work as well, so went for the best of both world. The Giant Raign X0 would be my new ride, a light Freeride/trail bike (light in comparison to the Kona i had).
This bike changed the way i looked at riding, before it was a means of travel to and from work, and in my teens just a bit of fun. Now i was determined to ride proper bike trail and go to trail centers and increase my fitness level and skills. So in the spring of 2008 i booked my first ever mountain bike to Les Gets in the French Alps for a week in August of DH riding. This was a massive eye opener, I realized this is the riding style i wanted so badly to do, which i hadn't really done much in the UK. But always liked the look of it. So i got back from the alps with a different focus, on improving my skills over technical terrain (roots/rocks), and also riding jumps and drops which at the time i sucked at, what with having a fairly big crash when i was in my teens, i'd never really had much confidence after that with doubles or drop. Then in 2009 i saved up enough money to buy a car again. this then aloud me to drive to trail centers and ride more technical trails than my local woods, which i did a couple of time a week, for the rest of the year.
At the end off 2009 i bought myself another new bike in the form of Treks Session 88 FR, this being a full on Freeride Bike, at about the same time my girl friend and i moved in to a flat together, not realizing that living next door is a chap who's also a mountain biker. So for about 3 month we lived next to each other without knowing each other, until one morning we'd set off to work at the same time and bumped into one another, and so the rest is history as they say...
The photo thats at the top is a taster of where i am now, and what's to come...
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