Singletrack Issue 126 | Rock[et] Science – Manon Carpenter

Pete catches up with an enthusiastic and at peace Manon Carpenter on her South Wales home trails.

Words & Photography Pete Scullion

A shout from the front of our three-person train manages to find its way to my ears through the clatter of bikes and dust. “Watch out for the low tree!” yells former World Champion Manon Carpenter as she disappears rapidly round the next apex, despite being three hours deep into our ride.

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At five foot three, I shrug off the notion that a tree might be too low for me, only to drop a shoulder straight into the four-inch-thick trunk of a birch. Why I didn’t listen is beyond me, as I have no idea where I’m going. The dusty switchbacks have us all champing at the bit for the next turn as we wind our way down our penultimate descent of the day.

South Wales has had its fair share of top riders and racers over the years, but on this bright summer’s day I’m here to see arguably the most successful. Manon Carpenter’s meteoric rise to downhill stardom all began with Jason, her dad, organising races on some of the toughest tracks in the UK. The Dragon Downhill series was renowned for using anything that would test riders to their limits, and it was certainly an arena in which a young rider would either thrive or struggle. Luckily for Manon, she chose the former and it wasn’t long before she was racing Nationals and World Cups. I recall quite vividly standing on a stinking wet Swiss hillside in Champery in 2011 and watching Manon peel apart her competition at the Junior World Championships.

That was eight years ago and a lot of everything has changed since; today’s chat won’t turn in the direction of racing very much.

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Always a champion.

Almost immediately it would appear that Miss Carpenter is one of those humans who can turn their hand to pretty much anything, and succeed at whatever that might be, but are far too grounded and generally lovely that you’re not really in any position to grumble. Even before plans had been set I was offered a spare bed and made to feel very welcome as soon as I stepped foot in her house.

Despite having just returned from a year’s placement in Canada, Manon makes it pretty obvious that Caerphilly is very much home for her, and before my engine has ticked cool there’s a glass of juice in my hand and plans afoot for a variation on the ‘Super Loop’ for the following day. Vancouver might well be the launching point for many people’s holidays to Whistler and the other famous riding destinations in British Columbia. For Manon though, while that was definitely a factor, it was the march towards a degree that took her to western Canada. An MESci Geology (International) course pipped the standard BSc, as it gave the option of a year abroad. Manon’s penultimate year of racing world cups would run side by side with studying for the first year of this course.

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Like many riders who have any longevity in the industry, there’s a drive and a passion that gets poured into everything they do – both on and off the bike. In Manon’s case, on the bike and off the bike are two very different worlds. One day she might be hammering any one of the multitude of trails just out the front door, the next could be spent in Cardiff University library studying for a fast-track master’s degree.

It might often seem odd to some that a professional rider with the option of living anywhere in the world would pick an unassuming housing estate just north of the capital of Wales to use as a base, but scratch the surface and it all makes sense very, very quickly.

Big year out.

One solid sleep later and I’d have porridge and coffee put under my nose, both enjoyed in the garden under a rapidly warming May sun, a garden awash with plants alive with the hum of honey bees. A recurring joke then finds its seed. A year has passed since this ride was originally meant to happen and an email with the words ‘big day out’ found their way out of my fingers before I immediately forgot about it. Every email I’ve had from Manon since was thusly titled and I couldn’t work out why. I’m convinced I never said it; Manon says she’ll find me a screenshot to prove I’m wrong as soon as we get back from our ride.

I’m given plenty of options about where to ride, and despite making it clear that I’m happy to play follow the leader, there are still more ride options coming at me. Clearly this part of the world isn’t short on trails and even though we’ve a four-hour lap planned, I get the feeling we’ll barely be scratching the surface.

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A fully murdered-out Radon appears from the well-armoured garage, and we’re off. Faff is limited as you’d expect, just bikes out of the garage and wheels turning. Manon assures me that she’s far less picky about bike set-up nowadays than when she was racing and prefers to lug a few extra pounds up the hill on the bike, knowing that it’ll take more of a kicking on the way down. I do my level best not to be the reason for holding up the show. Trails right on the doorstep is a recurring theme of this series, and we’re only a sniff along a cycle track further than Steve Peat’s house was from Wharncliffe before setting off up the opening climb.

It’s not long before Manon makes the first proper gradient look a little too easy yet again. I make a quick grumble about the amount of climbing before being told with a smile that it was all my idea. She might not be racing much these days, but ‘steady’ for her is still definitely in the upper reaches of what I can do. Chat turns to everything from racing Dragons in the pouring rain many moons ago, to carboniferous fossils we’ve found on our travels. It almost doesn’t seem like I’m meeting Manon for the first time. I feel a little daft to start with, having come a fair way for a lap with Manon, only to have more questions put to me than the other way around.

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Take a look at the results sheets after 2017 and you won’t find Manon’s name on them. You won’t find her riding a downhill bike much either any more. She professes to not really having the time at weekends to watch the World Cups, but usually happens across the results over the weekend during the usual cruise through social media. Broken collarbones that take too long to fix seem to have put paid to breaking out the big rig, and after another break at Crankworx last year the downhill bike has been gathering dust. Following her retirement from racing, Radon, her then sponsor was more than happy for her to continue as an ambassador, and it’s not hard to see why. Radon got Manon on board for the launch of its new bike, which led to changing from racer to ambassador, showing off the places you can go on a bike, from the front door or into the world’s mountains.

Early starts.

It doesn’t take too long to find out why basing yourself in South Wales can mould someone into a very good rider from an early age. Our first two descents are dry, for now, but we all know that this can be a wet old place. The trails in the hills above Caerphilly lure me in with an easy flow to the first few turns and I’m content that I can keep Manon in my sights until the first awkward turn that appears from nowhere. I’m left to try to find my speed again as a Radon Jab and its rider vanish into the greenery. There is something within riding distance to test even the best riders.

We find a line of hip jumps after some tree slaloms off the top of the first climb, and it’s clear that Manon is quite happy with her wheels well and truly clear of the dirt. Along with her former competitors Rachel Atherton and Tahnee Seagrave, Manon was part of a wave of young female riders that showed that they could cut it in the air as well as the guys and today is no exception. Manon seems to relish airtime despite claiming some nervousness about going big, while I would rather keep my wheels on terra firma as much as possible. Manon points out that there’s plenty of smaller jumps for me, but I’m quite happy with the lines I’ve eyed up already.

Whether we’re wheels in the air, navigating a mess of beech roots or carving some steep, back-to-back turns, after the first apex, Manon leaves me for dust. I might be disadvantaged riding blind, but there’s a smooth effortlessness about how she puts more air between us. I can rest assured that come the bottom of the trail, there will be a smiling person, completely composed, awaiting me as I attempt to wheeze myself back to normality as I’m asked more questions like whether the fading wild garlic leaves remind me of sweetcorn and peas from a can…

The more we ride, the more I understand why there’s really no reason to be based anywhere else. Yes, there might be bigger mountains and chairlifts elsewhere, but we’ve been out for barely an hour and ridden three completely different tracks on three different hills, all within a stone’s throw of Caerphilly. There’s an airport and a capital city minutes away, and Manon can cycle into Cardiff University from home, avoiding the traffic that no doubt comes with rush hour on the A470, but laughs before insisting that she’s always getting lost on the way home. That running theme of building a world around you that works for you is evident again with Manon’s set-up, but it might be a little less obvious than say Joe Barnes or Steve Peat.

While the hills might not be massive here, you can be back at the top of a plethora of trails pretty quickly as long as you have the legs. We’re no sooner winching back up a fire road to more cheeky complaints of the ‘big day out’ before we’re dropping into some more handcrafted gold that has me really pushing on to try to make the gap between us not too embarrassing come the bottom of the hill. It’s the perfect training ground for riding hard and keeping it on the gas when you’re tired. It’s this skill that makes the best racers. Having that fitness to give you clarity of vision four minutes into Fort William is what separates the good from the winners, and it’s obvious that this particular part of being the best has been honed here in the woods above Caerphilly.

Blurring the future.

Manon has successfully blurred the lines between academia and professional sport in a way that not many bike riders of similar talents have. There are mentions of PhDs too, something I am sure most World Cup racers, retired or current, aren’t considering. Certainly not in something as far removed as geology. That said, it gives Manon a unique perspective on the ride we’re doing. As with any South Wales valley, industry was king here at the turn of the 20th century, and few can tell you more about what man and machine hauled out of the darker places of the world than your 2014 World and World Cup Champion.

While we might be close to home, I’m told the ‘Super Loop’ has to be completed. Ducking out early isn’t an option. Despite my tiring legs, we’re not even tackling the ‘big beast’ today. I am reliably informed, though, that the pub lunch at the halfway mark will be more than worth it and will more than offset the lack of food packed this morning. After exploding tomato ketchup and gammon steaks larger than a human head, we winch our way up a brutally steep tarmac climb – pretty much the last thing you want after a hefty pub lunch.

It’s only this late into the ride that I realise that Manon, almost without trying, focuses much of her attention on the now and the future. It would have been all too easy to chat about World Cups all day long, but it really doesn’t seem to crop up. Emphasis is thrown full force into enjoying what’s on the immediate horizon, in this case showing me some of the finest trails South Wales has to offer, all under a blazing sun.

A fairly modest trophy cabinet is the only real reminder of a very successful downhill racing career. However, the collection of rocks from all over the globe that sits on the mantelpiece is more prominent. Why would you focus on the past when you’ve got so much to look forward to?

Chat then turns to trips to the Highlands and for me, as a regular visitor, it’s quite a surprise that Manon has never ventured further north than Fort William. That said, Leogang so often lands the weekend after the Scottish round of the World Cup, there’s little time to celebrate, lick wounds and pack up before the long drive to Austria, so there may never have been time before. The seeds of a 2020 Scottish road trip are sown and you can’t help but feel that racing isn’t going to be missed all that much.

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Bring the sting.

Our final climb of the stay is a major stinger and I’m back to the ‘big day out’ jokes. The heat of the day is now very much at its peak, and we’ve the most drawn-out climb to the summit of a hill that sports some Bronze Age burial mounds. I almost eat tarmac trying to save a bee until we can find a suitable flower to leave it on…

From the vantage point high above Caerphilly, the sprawl of Cardiff and its bay can be seen stretching west to Swansea and the Gower. Landmarks like the Principality Stadium can be picked out with ease. About-turn and there’s very little in the way of anything other than the rolling hills sandwiched between the M4 and the Brecon Beacons with Pen y Fan standing tall on the horizon. Two very good reasons to be based somewhere like Caerphilly. A city with the appropriate university and the mountains on either side is pretty much the perfect combination. Cardiff is a far cry from your usual capitals too. You don’t have to go far to be out of the hustle and bustle and into the hills and mountains of South Wales.

What’s pretty obvious is that the drive that is a constant with the best in the business is as present with Manon as it is with anyone else who has succeeded in this sport. What is more astounding about Manon’s story, though, is that while she might have turned her back on racing, it’s certainly not been the end of the world. There are few riders as fast as Manon who can keep a riding career going and still be on the path to becoming the fastest doctor on a mountain bike.

In a very pleasant, unassuming way, Manon puts everything she’s got into whatever she’s doing, and has the skills to back it up. The route preparation, the fast-track master’s degree and the garden are all first class. There’s an academic brilliance that puts her in a different league to most other riders, but without the snootiness that sometimes comes with that kind of talent.

The day after I get home, I get an email entitled “;-)” with the screenshot of my original email with the words ‘big day out’ in the last sentence.

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