Patrick Adams – The Big Man Has Left Us

We’re truly sorry to have to tell you that Patrick Adams, that legend of the mountain bike scene, passed away last night, Feb 11^th 2024 leaving the whole cycling world with a massive hole in it. 

Mountain biking and cycling in general has lost one of its greatest and most loved characters. In fact it’s hard to think of a single person who’s had such a long-lasting and wide-ranging effect on mountain biking. 

Pat Adams is probably best known for pioneering the whole 24 hour mountain bike (and later trail running) race scene, starting back in 1998, running six, 12 and 24 hour events for 20 years. He was much more than 24 hour racing, though, having started in cycling as a soigneur with Team Raleigh and Team GB in the early nineties. He then was instrumental in promoting the new sports drink ‘Red Bull’ to the cycling world. This relationship led to many things – not least the sponsorship of the Red Bull trail at Coed y Brenin in 1996 – the UK’s first mountain bike trail at the first mountain bike centre. Two years later, he pitched an idea to Red Bull about sponsoring a 24 hour mountain bike team race – and the rest, they say, is history – with thousands of competitors, both serious and recreational, racing over the ensuing decades.

Pat was at ease with everyone, whether charming company CEOs into sponsorships, helping organise Core Bike – one of the UK’s top bike trade shows, or shaking hands with every single one of the hundreds of tired, but elated, riders at the end of a 24 hour race. (Not to mention persuading a certain Royal landowner to let him run a race in the grounds of her stately home. Several times!) 

His disarming cheeriness opened doors and hearts alike. You knew when you’d been talking to Pat as you left the conversation buoyed up and ready to conquer the world. 

He counted Olympians, Tour de France stars and mountain bike champions as friends, but always remained humble and approachable. His wide-eyed enthusiasm for cycling and cyclists never waned, despite not riding himself for years. He was never more fired up than when talking about his next latest project and his plans to make the next thing better than the last. 

In recent years, Pat had stepped back from event organising to concentrate on his other love of lead soldiers, running the successful British Toy Soldier Company with his wife Chris, leaving the event-running to her son Alex. He still kept tabs on the mountain bike world and, despite wondering aloud if anyone would remember him after these few years, it was clear he secretly knew the profound effect he’d had on the sport he loved. 

The world is a poorer place without Patrick Adams, but it’s a world that has been made better by his ideas, passion and love.