riding influences?

My yo yoing waist line influences my rding! The larger the diameter the slower I am (up hill atleast) 🙂

"McRoy, Warner and others in that free MBUK video…"

Oh yeah I forgot about that – that counts.

wiggins …late 30's ??

Ivana Fukalot

WA from Chocolatefoot.

I was busy trying to be better, faster, gnarlier and he reminded me that enjoying your riding was more important than anything else.

wa is a legend. took me to the surrey hills shore 🙂

no one really. My mate Jed was the one who encouraged me into mountain biking, he's dead now though. I think Graeme Obree is/was pretty cool (him and Rober Millar are the two famous cyclists that I can think of who I can associate with the most – And I'm not even scottish!) and I like Lance doing the look but apart from that, I just like riding bikes.

Norman Tebbit.

evel Kneivel and wee Graeme (bought an LTS DH with his student loan in 1995 kicked our arses at DH but it just made us try to beat him – stoner snowboard bum now)

I'm a huge fanboi when it comes to any great riders/riding but none actually influence me. my shady style is all my own.

2 Pauls – Paul Dexter (now of Cotic fame) – been chasing the little bugger for 14 years now, and although I'm faster some of the time, he has more style than I'll ever have. Paul Fowkes (of tandem seesaw fame). Just gets out and does big rides in big terrain, often on his own, doesn't get phased by anything up or down. Not flashy, or especially stylish. Just determination and a really good attitude

Any mtb guide (but especially the AQR guys and Ash & co from TA for just getting on with riding anything and everything, up, down, across, over, day in, day out, and keeping smiling.

Early influences – Brant, Steve Worland, Jo Burt. JMC. Now Peaty and the Athertons, Vanderham and Hunter for style points. Anybody who's fast and smooth and makes riding look effortless.

Only one man for me – Tim Gould. That shows my age!!

I have a VHS somewhere of the national XC series from eons ago and I remember one bit had a run down of Goulds bike, with roadie clipless pedals with a grip on the back. I wore that bit of the tape out, I watched it that many times.

I'm too old now to admire many of the current riders.

And **** what the doubters say but Lance Armstrong is definitly a inspiration to me. Just got the Leadville 100 DVD of his 2009 victory which I can recommend. Fab piece of filming.

I'm too old now to admire many of the current riders.

how does that work? 😕

who has been your greatest influence in mtbing?

Jim Cooper, joint founder of the Bog Trotters. When I was a new rider he was unfailingly patient, and would always notice when you managed to ride something which had previously defeated you and say "Well done!". I try my best to emulate his example, though really I'm too unobservant to carry it off…

[/quote] I'm too old now to admire many of the current riders.

how does that work?

Because non of what they do has any relavance to me, unfortunately. Too much emphasis on DH in the current coverage for my liking. I accept others enjoy that more and that reflects the general change in the sport over the last 15 years in my opinion. each to their own.

Justin Inman for doing good tabletops on his bmx

clembo – why are you keeping up with DH coverage? XC is still around and covered, freecaster for example has the XC WC races live and various websites cater towards traditional XC style riding too.

yeah GW, I've looked at freecaster a bit. Pity there isn't more coverage as a whole on sky etc. I saw the recent live bits on sky of the final WC DH race from New York. I ended up FF too the end, only to see peaty fall!

I'm probably just a stick in the mud and like what I like. DH doesn't really float my boat but I admire how they ride and how fast they can do it.

What about Elbry??

The people I ride with. Some of them are bloody good and ride loads, so I'd be silly not to try to pick things up from them.

I love watching the DH WC, but my own efforts at mincing down DH courses are so far removed from it that I can't really see it as an influence. An inspiration maybe.

Frank Spencer

that late 90's pic of steve geall in aminal kit doing a inverted table on his dodgy giant dh bike.

i aspired to be able to ride like that.

For me, seeing the pros was never a big influence, although its good to see how they ride. The person who was the single biggest influence is my old boss, Chris Trippet. He was and i presume still is a fast, aggressive rider and the first time i rode both dh and xc with him blew me away. He was pedalling round corners i was braking into, and i wasnt a slow beginner. I must try to get out for a pedal with him again.

At the moment, just the guys i'm riding bmx with, it's shown me that cycling should be all about having fun, and pushing your own personal boundarys, what everyone else is doing doesnt matter.