Watching him riding the expert sections of the course on a mountain bike blew my mind! As you probably already know, trials is a fairly niche sport, and the latest competition style trials bike geometries lookโฆ kinda freaky. I recently had the opportunity to watch Ryan compete again at the 3rd annual trials competition hosted at the Arrowhead Bike Farm in Fayetteville, WV. After you read this interview, check out the video highlights from the expert category of that competition!
My dad and I got into mountain biking when I was about 15 years old. I would always try to ride through riverbeds or up and down steep inclines. For some reason I was attracted to obstacles more than covering miles.
One day my dad and I were driving through Springdale and Jeremy Van Shoonhoven was doing a demo at a business, we stopped and watched Jeremy effortlessly hop from one stack of pallets to the next. I had no idea trials existed before this point, but now I was hooked and had a goal to work towards. It would be years before I got my first trials bike a used Planet X Zebdi but I practiced on my mountain bike constantly. I took over setting up both of those comps but stopped after several years due to lack of interest.
The comp at Arrowhead Bike Farm was a great experience and reminded me of those rider focused comps where trials was the main event and not just a tack on. I love natural rocky terrain, skinnies, and sometimes urban. Everyone has a different approach and strength so watching other people can give you new ideas to try. Motivation comes and goes but I try to keep myself excited about trials by learning new weird ways to approach the same old obstacles or seeking out totally new obstacles and seeing if I can clean it the first time.
We have had a few riders come and go over the years but generally our group has been between riders of the past 10 years. I have backed off of pushing myself to go as big as possible, I have been hurt a few times over the years and had to learn a few times the hard way:. Never try new moves in an area where there is no safe place to bail. This might mean hunting for the perfect size wall in an urban setting instead of trying an up to front for the first time in a river bed full of rocks that want to hurt you.
