apart from yourself obvs. not just met, or seen on the trail, actually had a ride with ? a bimble or a pootle count as well as a shred. skill wise ....!
Nick Craig. Rode with him from the end of the Manx End2End challenge to where he was staying 2 years in a row.
The absolutely nicest cycling person I have had the pleasure of meeting.
Best as in skillz?
My mate Callum who is a Wharny local and could be up there with Craig Evans and Swinney if he bothered to train and/or enter races.
Jambalaya
All three of my kids, the day they took feet off ground and onto pedals.
Jonathon Edwards, the Eurosport presenter and Triple Jump world record holder was pretty quick when I rode with him at Manchester to London a couple of years ago. Bar that, no-one people will of heard of. My friend is married to an ex GB triathlete, he is also pretty quick and a lovely fella too.
A Dutch lady I met whilst on holiday in the Cairngorms. She joined us for a day on the bikes and was a fantastic rider. Apparently had some success in XC at home but couldn't get enough sponsors to turn pro. Not only could she accelerate her bike like I've never seen before but she had a mad amount of stamina and flowed through technical stuff like an EWS rider.
Raced against Sean Yates, well rode the same ten mile tt as him. When I was young one of my mates was British Kilo champion and GB squad rider
I rode alongside Alex Dowsett along the length of a car park once. Does that count?
The MNPR crew.
my mate went out on a group ride with a ginger bloke, cant mention his name as he's not allowed to ride MTB offroad by his team.
anyway something about track golds at last 3 olympics, euro and world champs etc.
said he was fast offroad and really fast on road..
me personally.. no one
Whistler park laps with Steve Smith, he was riding on his own and hopped on the same lift as me, asked if I wanted to do some laps with him.
Semenuk joined in for a couple. Whole thing was quite surreal.
Me at 110% flat out trying to keep up. I'm amazed I didn't crash my brains out that day.
bluearsedfly
Oh yeah, also rode my bike around Alpe D'Huez 20 odd years ago with a old guy who used to race XC back in the day against the like of Tim Gould and Barrie Clarke. He was fast downhill but seriously fast uphill, never seen anyone climb like he did, seriously impressive.
All at the same club...
Isla Rowntree - Multiple national and world cx medalist, no introduction necessary.
Louise Robinson - Multiple national and world cx medalist and daughter of Brian Robinson (I believe)
Roger Iddles - Palmares too long to list but includes world titles. At 60+ he would regularly rip the legs off riders half his age!
Tom and Hannah Payton - Both national medalists.
It was quite a club as you can imagine, but the sunday club runs were so hard I left after two seasons and there was then a split in club over arguments that it was too elitist.
Hells Bells Hob Nob that is radness personified!
martin earley. TDF stage winner.
you need to be old to remember him.
Phil Pearce at the local group. His speed is effortless. Doesn't matter what obstacle you put accross his path, he clears it with ease. Up, down, sideways, through- he'll do it.. on 100mm FS XC machine (Spec Epic at the time).
The other one was Stephen Millyard, his Dad built the V10 Dodge motorbike and THAT famouse DH bike with the internal drivetrain and some other cool tech. We were both young teenagers, but he was rapid. Also handy at the skate park.
I've got 2 - one was back in the 90s/2000s - young 16 year old called Christian used to come on our XC rides with us on a GT Zaskar with the seat slammed. Kid could ride anything, so fast. We used to send him down stuff first and he'd just disappear, t-shirt flapping behind him. Did some dh races on his hardtail. I think he got interested in girls or something... shame he couldn't have left us with a bit of his talent if he had no use for it!
The other is on here and he's a big headed bastard already, so I wouldn't want to inflate it any more 😆 😆 only kidding Doc. 😉 Can still see that jump he did, I think it was at Lordswood, in the rain.. it was massive!
My mate Boydie. His brother was a semi pro DH rider so he must be good!!
I let Steve Peat go in front of me at Greno once. He disappeared quite quickly though....
Liam of the Dudes, he's unreal, an absolute monster. And a cracking guy to boot.
Smith and Semenuk! Now, that's impressive 😀
I've raced against John Archibald on track (well, been thoroughly beaten and lapped multiple times might be a more accurate description).
Ridden with Greg Jolliffe for a day mostly off piste at GT I think, although he was introduced as "my mate Greg" by our mutual friend. The confidence and speed down stuff he had was very impressive, didn't even try to keep up down most stuff!
Nobody's mentioned GW yet.
Ridden with is a bit of push, I rode with her to the top of the Verbier Bike park where Tracey Moseley then galloped off into the distance after a couple of turns of a run.
Ridden with a very good guide in Zermatt. On his MK1 BFe.
Njee when he was quick I guess
Phil Pearce, Nick Craig both absolutely lovely people.
Also ridden a few laps with Gunn-Rita Dahl-Flescha.
My roommate Gary Fisher was excited. Reigning national champion John Allis was in town, wanted to go on a ride and was looking for a local guide. We hopped on our matching orange Colnagos and headed for the place where he was staying, a fifteen minute ride away from the house we shared.
On the way over, Gary discovered his frame was cracked. He had to abandon the ride. it was left for me alone to show the champion our local roads.
He wasn't riding hard, not training, but on the hills he didn't seem to notice the slope. He never changed his pace and it was all I could do to keep up. Fortunately, he needed me to show him the way back to town, or I may have finished alone.
Fabien Barel on a Keswick bikes demo weekend back when he was on kona, T-Mo was injured so say out that day but brought the van up when the rep bust his shoulder. Fun day out but getting him out in Keswick labour club later that evening was more fun.
Raced Remy Absalon in a mega qualifier or rather watched as. He went from 6" from my front wheel to going out of sight really quickly.
Had to turn down a practice lap of the enduro I was doing with Chris Ball as it was too damm hot but did have a great evening talking bikes & travel with him and Cedric Gracia
Geex , obviously....
my mate went out on a group ride with a ginger bloke, cant mention his name as he’s not allowed to ride MTB offroad by his team.
anyway something about track golds at last 3 olympics, euro and world champs etc.
Don't worry, no-one will work it out from the scant information you've given...:)
Rachel Atherton at Antur, chatty in the bus, didn’t really see her much on the way down.
Chris Boardman at Llandegla, span up the first half of the climb with me. Again, he was chatty, I couldn’t breathe.
my mate went out on a group ride with a ginger bloke,
I went to to school with the ginger bloke, never rode with him though.
been overtaken by lots of folk in races though, does that count?
Danny Hart in Lake Garda on a days guided ride!
Passed Chipps on the inside on a corner @ SSUK in Wales 🙂
Overtook Shaun Palmer on a demo day going up Garburn
🙂
Once got lost at Swinley with Bullheart, very little raddness IIRC but lots of hoofing cancer in the slats.
Quite a few XC racer types with the TH Trolls, it's not so much the climbing that gets you, it's fast but you can feel like you could get fit and catch up. It's the technical stuff where you think you might get a breather, or maybe they'll live upto the lost roadie stereotype, but they just don't slow down one bit. If anything it's more tiring as not only are you now pedaling flat out on anything even slightly smooth, you're also riding the techy bits at least twice as fast as you previously thought was a competent group ride pace!
Steve Peat
Hans Rey
Dudes of hazard
Whitfield brothers
Though mortals Dazh and Rikk Legge from the mnpr are very much top of the pile too
I've lined up alongside Peaty in a local "mates race" dual. Wouldn't be fair to say I raced him as he finished about 5 secs up on a 17 second course!
Danny Macaskill. He was working at Bothy Bikes at the time and a few of them came down to ride with us in Craigellachie after a chat in the shop, Andy Toop of Backcountry Biking was there too and was pretty handy on the bike as well.
The lasting memory from that ride was Danny's X-ups off the log stacks and when he rode across the Fiddichside bridge using the 12" wide wall on the side. It's a fair old drop if it'd gone wrong...
Njee when he was quick I guess
*blushes* aaaw, shucks! I’m taking that as a complement!
I went out several times with Dan Lloyd when he was riding for Cervelo Test Team, went to Afan with Rowan Sorrell and Oli Beckinsale for an MBUK feature too some years ago. All were very quick - Sorrell’s pace downhill was insane. It helped he knew the trails intimately, but really talented. Nice guy too!
Oh, I forgot about these two too: Guided Mike Metz (Owner of Bike Culture in Rotorua and brother of Rob Metz of Zerode) and Nick Lambert (Kiwi freelance photgrapher), both ex Kiwi pro BMXers, I believe and both unbelievably fast, confident and stylish on their bikes.
This made me a bit sad, I've ridden in the same place as a few name riders but never on a ride as such.
Would be nice if some pro riders did organised rides and that, maybe they don't want to. would be a buzz though.
I've been at Corby and Radical Bikes a few times when some pro riders are throwing down during a public session, that is really cool.
Whistler park laps with Steve Smith, he was riding on his own and hopped on the same lift as me, asked if I wanted to do some laps with him.
Semenuk joined in for a couple. Whole thing was quite surreal.
Me at 110% flat out trying to keep up. I’m amazed I didn’t crash my brains out that day.
I could have ridden at 200%+ and still been 5 laps behind.
Amazing experience to have!
My mate Huw Oliver (topofests if anyone follows that) is shitting fast. When I met him he was a DH rider dabbling in XC and the first time we saw him firing his Orange 5 down a chute with the swingarm bending so much it looked like a dog wagging its tail we all looked at each other and went "bloody hell".
Sadly he is now into niche-monger bikes and twiddling around the Cairngorms on fat bikes. A talent wasted. 😉