Barrie Clarke, Caroline Alexander, David Baker, Helen Mortimer, Jason McRoy, Martyn Salt, Nick Craig, Rob Warner, Steve Peat, Tim Flooks, Tim Gould, Tracey Moseley…

When I first started mountain biking, back in April of ‘93, these were just some of the names on everyone’s lips. The faces you saw at the front of the race every weekend (or running the race every weekend) they were the poeple you’d see in every magazine, every month. Larger than life, living or pursuing the dream, mountain biking was fun and fresh, cutting edge, and these people were shaping the sport in every which way. To me they were, and still are today, pure inspiration: the life and soul of everything good about our sport.

Well the sport grew, and multiplied, the disciplines fractured and the doors of opportunity opened ever wider to anyone young, impressionable and ambitions. Anyone like me. To ride my bike like anyone from the list of greats was aspiration, inspiration, to pursue my own dreams, to be larger than life. I didn’t know what I wanted, other than to breathe in the intoxicating aim of competition and dirt.

And so I grew, and two decades later I find that despite the late start on my cycling adventure, I have now been a racer for more than half of my life, and I’m no spring chicken! The sport has changed immeasurably, unbelievably, it has given me so much opportunity, and I in return have given it my life, embraced, immersed, as one. I have done too many things to list, too many things to remember, and still te journey continues.

To be recognised by the industry, to be nominated for the UK Mountain Biking Hall of Fame? Wow, what can I say? That my name may one day appear on the list alongside Barrie Clarke, Caroline Alexander, David Baker, Helen Mortimer, Jason McRoy, Martyn Salt, Nick Craig, Rob Warner, Steve Peat, Tim Flooks, Tim Gould and Tracey Moseley? I am deeply honoured, amazed, a lump in the pit of my stomach and a tear rolling gently down my cheek. What to think of this? What to do next? it’s all too much to take in.

I think I’ll just go for a ride and enjoy the sun, after all, it’s what I know best… 

I’ve been working with the Councils that cover the South Pennines area. As you will probably know the Tour de France is coming through in 2014 and there’s keen interest in showing off our area. As part of this I’ve gathered a collective of different types of cyclists from the area to do #30daysofbiking it is exactly as it says, you must ride each day in April.

Here’s the collective blog - 

http://30daysofbikingsouthpennines.wordpress.com

“Do you want to know who you are? Don’t ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you” - Thomas Jefferson

I’m very pleased to announce the launch of The Bike Picture; a new UK based bike team that I have helped to create. Like all good things it’s taken it’s time to come together, but like all good things I am sure it will be worth the wait. For those who don’t know this is the third team I’ve been involved with from a management perspective – the other two being the Focus team of the mid-90s that later became the mountain bike team at Adidas Scicon, and Extreme Endurance (later known as Syncros Endurance) which I created, owned and managed from 2004 through to 2010 – and The Bike Picture is a culmination of all the lessons learned from those previous roles and involvements.

My time on the KMP as purely a rider/racer has been, and I hope will continue to be, fantastic. We’ve spoken openly about The Bike Picture and as always the guys at KMP “get it” and are totally supportive. I can’t thank them enough for their continued sponsorship and my position on the team – true passion for the sport is often talked about but rarely seen in these days of hard competitive business, yet the guys at Kinesis and Morvelo always seem to get the blend right.

I am still on the KMP as a rider, so what’s this new team about and how am I involved? Well, being a rider is good, having the time to train and just go about regular things – like living a life with my family – yet something inside me drives me to put something back, or contribute something on a regular basis. I also see a lot of riders and every now and then something springs to mind where I think there’s a gap here and someone needs to do something about it.

I also have my own dreams and aspirations outside of racing, many of which involve coaching and supporting others and this year is all about establishing the coaching I have been doing for the past 15 years into something tangible and formally presented (more ont his later in the year) The creation of The Bike Picture allows me one way of making these dreams a reality.

On paper I’m Team Manager and Coach. I’m also the main sponsor – in terms of financial input – in the early days of creating this new team. But enough of me, my ramblings and motivations! Onto the team…

The concept behind The Bike Picture is to shift the percieved parameters of excellence. To alter the perspective of performance, the notion that fun is only experienced by the slow or the non-serious, to dispell the myth that only the elite succeed and that regular folk with families and jobs have no chance to excel. It’s a team of regular people doing irregular things, marvelous adventures and impressive accomplishments. It’s an embodiment of belief in following a dream: something I have held fast to for almost two decades.

It’s all about real people, with regular lives, young families, full time jobs and big dreams! Some are business owners, some work for big corporations, others for your local bike shop. They sound a lot like me, and quite possibly like you? And together they bring with them a notion that attempt to be better can still be fun, performance isn’t mearly the domain of the elite, and that even the most time-constrained individual can still pursue a sporting dream. Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you: The Bike Picture