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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. 😉
Neil Donoghue, it was on a course so he was more of the performing monkey for the day rather than riding shoulder to shoulder trying to out brake him into a berm or anything like that. His bike really was just an extension of his body, he clears doubles at about a quarter of the speed you think he'd need to do so with about as much difficulty as most people walk down the stairs.
Fastest Muggle rider was a Mate of some friends of mine, could ride anything on 2 wheels, anything. started as a kid on Trials Bikes (with Rob Warner) then raced Superbikes (not BSB, lower division, clubman stuff) and finally picked up MTBing in his mid-30s when the Motorbikes were going to bankrupt him. This was his 'learning curve'.
At 35 he sits on his first MTB, 30 seconds later he's bouncing on the back wheel, riding it like a pogo stick. It's taken him another 60 seconds or so to learn to wheelie/manual as far as he likes.
First ride, Whites Level at Afan, he's struggling with the gearing and climbing rocks, so he rides them like a trails rider, spends most of the climb either on the front wheel, or back, rarely both it seems.
Final Descent he follows me down, studying how I do it (I'm not great now, was worse then), chatting all the way whilst I try to hold onto my bike. He's on a HT from memory, I'm on a 150mm FS bike.
Fairly quickly buys a little 4" travel Kona Kikapu. He's now the fastest rider in our group by some margin.
3-4 months after he first sits on a MTB we go to Morzine for the first time, we've all got new DH bikes, he rents a horrible condition Kona Stinky from Alpine Elements. Takes it back 2 hours later because the bearings are so shagged the back we steers as much as the front, they tell him "they all do that" they don't, but he carries on anyway.
Day 2 and he's having a ball riding with our 'Guide' who it stupid fast compared to us. Guide tells him about the unofficial Pleney DH run competition between the Guides and shows him the board with the times on, he borrows and 'Tony Hawk Action Cam' (terrible pre-GoPro action cam) from another friend and sets a new record.
Lives in New Zealand now, hope he still rides.
Rob Jebb, many years ago when I was about 16 and he was a couple of years older.
I joined up with a chain gang whilst on my way home from work and thought i might as well get a few miles under my belt with them. The pace was crazy, i was going full gas just trying to stay in the middle of the group. I then started to realise that i was going to end up on the front with no legs left and embarrass myself hugely. About 4 miles in i was on the front, going full chat and seeing stars when up ahead the traffic lights turned to red and we all grouped up waiting. 2 riders along from me were the Brownlee brothers, Alistair then turned round to everyone and said ‘ ok warm up finished, the race starts from here to....where ever it was. I pretended to not be able to clip in and did a u turn when they had shot off. No way was i going to keep that pace up for more than about 30ft!
...from Lawnswood Cemetery?
Rob Jebb, many years ago
Does an hour and a half behind on 3 Peaks CX count? No? Ah well...
Geex, obviously!
Rode wi quite a few very good/world class riders but most enjoyable was (where i actually learned and picked up skills) a couple o' days riding wi Joe Barnes, Stu Thomson (mtbcut tv), Liam Moyniham and Steve Jones (dirt mag) round Kirroughtree and other areas in Galloway for a magazine feature/photoshoot back in 2007, It's only when you ride with such effortlessly skilled riders that you realise you are just average.
Ooh I remember! We were camped next to a lovely family at the PMBA event at gisburn a couple of years ago that the kid was racing, a 16 year old lass who, though had done a few XC races, was riding her first enduro (on a very XC focused KTM iirc) After staying up chatting the night before we rode round with her the next morning. She was wheelieing up most of the climbs and when she stopped to wait for us, regularly, she was doing no hand, no foot trackstands. After we got to the end, we were comparing times, and we were significantly slower than her on the stages, much to her amusement. ‘How are you so slow?!’ Etc. 😭😭
I dont mind regailing this story quite so much now, the lass was Martha Gill.
Fastest Muggle rider was a Mate of some friends of mine, could ride anything on 2 wheels, anything. started as a kid on Trials Bikes (with Rob Warner) then raced Superbikes (not BSB, lower division, clubman stuff) and finally picked up MTBing in his mid-30s when the Motorbikes were going to bankrupt him. This was his ‘learning curve’.
Ridden with a few guys who race motorbikes, a lot of them seem to do really well I suspect because they're coming from the opposite end of the spectrum, if you're used to hauling on the brakes at 150mph then 15mph at a trail center probably feels like quite a slow entry to a corner. Whereas the rest of us have to build up a bit at a time letting the bike off the brakes a bit more each run to pick up speed, they never touched the brakes in the first place.
Having said that I've also ridden with Weeksy and PP who both like their motorbikes but it doesn't seem to have transferred as well 😜
Ladies:
Showed the handsome Chantal Blaak the way to the finish of tour of flanders when she was a bit lost.
Had Andrea Tafi wait for me when I had rubbish legs one day out with some mates.
Turned down Tim Donn " man with the halo" as a training buddy(my then housemate though we would be a nice match)
Rubbed shoulders with Tom Boonen and blew my engine trying to keep up with Fabian Cancellara.
Hora, one Monday night though he claimed to be Binners 😂😂😂
On a mountain bike i guess Ryan, who used to be a guide with Freeride Spain many moons ago..he was phenominally quick even on his spindly arse-in-the-air XC hardtail.
Roadie - i guess Harry Tanfield, who rides with our local roadie club....though that might become a much rarer sight now he's been signed by Katusha!
I used to ride into work with Gethin Butler who held the LeJog record from 2001 - 2018
I once knocked Christophe Dupoeey (I may have spelt his name wrong) off into some nettles at RedBull 24hr in Sandwell...if that counts!
Fabian Barel probably. Certainly the best rider that's ever going to ask me about my line choice... my answer- "I'm just gonny kind of skid down the middle and see where I end up"
Rode out the school gates with Peter Keen a couple of times 😀 and foolishly tried to beat Max Chaya up a col in Corsica once - you'll prob have to Google them both anyway, but after playing tail end Charlie on a weeks tour of Corsica (and getting the nickname diesel dick) I thought I'd give it a go on the last ascent, just hadn't accounted for Max's over riding competitiveness and promptly "burst into flames" at the summit 😒
Does riding Pedalhounds stages with Brendog and his crew just in front or behind count? 😀
My mate Jelly.
Graeme obree
he had to wait for the rest of us😂😂
I've never ridden with anybody famous but my ambition is to bask in the glow that is Geex.
Wow, this got me thinking:
Njee - before we both got kids and riding time became rare
Atherton brothers - rode with them a few times back in Somerset. Actually got my arse kicked by them but ya know....
Anthony Kappes, Neil Fachie - piloted a tandem for them on various training camps. Rode with a load of other paralympians; I learnt a valuable lesson with these dudes!
Steve Bate - piloted a tandem when he was being tested for team GB worthiness. He was, I had a family (and so wasn't)
My Renvale RT team mates - we're friends and have really helped each other through some tough times.
Ben Greenwood - this kid was an amazing rider. If he had arrived a few years later than he did I would be amazed if he hadn't ended up in the Pro Tour.
There are peolpe on here who do the Leeds chain gang? It's a small world!.........
Ride with (actually with) Steve Peat once because he's a friend of a friend , but the friend didn't turn up so was a bit awkward.
(Needless to say, he was well impressed and went on to win the world chaps a few weeks later.)
Best riders technically I've ridden with are probably the more talented guys from my days at Southampton Uni and the friends of friends that became part of the annual Afan trip for many years after.
Wade Simmons
Scruff
Brett Tippie
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!
I have exactly the same experience with Martin Söderström. Otherwise, there are a couple of local riders who are beyond just ordinary good; raced DH at WC level bitd and another does well at national level in trials.
Marco ,(& young Mark) from Ciclomontana!
And Harris off of here, best fun at least. 🙂
I used to ride with a bloke called Steve.
He was awesome, he not only looked fast but he was fast. Yet we both rode to each other’s strengths and spent many thousands of Km’s rattling around the Eastern Dolomites' on some s****y roadies.
We also rode SS together (in a small group) and he was as popular there as when we were riding alone.
He has grace, pace and is ace.
And he’s a male model who does underwear adverts and you’ll have seen his torso on plenty of advertising media over the years.
#mancrush
Johnx2 - yes it was from the cemetary and i bailed out at the lights by the Dyneley Arms. I didnt have the legs that day but even so the pace was pretty full on.
The ghost from Jacques Anquetil joins us every week when I'am biking with my pals.
And he’s a male model who does underwear adverts
Jacques is not doing any underwear adverts.
Through racing and travelling I've had the luck to ride some bits with quite a few famous folk. The highlights were Tracy Moseley, Greg Minaar, Nico Vouilloz but the standout by far was Cedric Gracia. The way he rode was mind-blowing. So aggressive and stylish and he was just so enthusiastic about everything
Elliott heap, because his skill is off the charts, and Sam hill, because he's Sam hill!
Marcin Bialoblocki...ish. He raced our local 10 mile TT recently, and annihilated the field and the course record. I wasn't on course at the same time as him, but did get chance to watch before i started. He looked astonishgly fast, holding 32mph on a road surface that would make some gravel tracks look smooth. He caught his minute rider after half a mile, and put over 7 minutes on me...
I saw Chipps on a the same Polaris as me & my mate many years ago. The main thing I remember is he had overshoes on and the front was all ridden up like Aladdin shoes 😆
He wasn't riding at the time though, so I couldn't tell how talented he was 😉
Oh, and I ride all the time with my mate Rosie who won the Red Bull Fox Hunt a couple of years ago.
Paul Hopkins as an absolute XC machine Chris Smith as a free ride dude stand out locally. Crazy to think that the very best are another level all together on top of their already insane talents.