Welcome to Ben Bikes - So who am I?

Cappadocia - along some epic singletrack on a spectacular ride

I've been biking longer than I can remember and these days it has developed from a hobby into a passion, a job and hopefully a career, but it's not always been like that...

While I was growing up we were not well off, every bike I had during my earlier years was built from what we recovered from the local tip. (To this day, I've not owned a 'new' bike) I can remember spending hours outside with my dad while he built bikes for friends and he was constantly fixing or tinkering with own bikes. In those days I wasn't so hot on the maintenance side of things, it wasn't as interesting as actually riding the bike! Fortunately things have changed and all my bikes are built by myself, although only my road bike is a genuine scrapyard bitser.

While I was 13 or 14 we joined a local MTB club called the Chiltern First 15, or C1XV - I was by far the youngest and most fearless but I loved being out riding every weekend or two with the guys and my dad. This was until I turned 17 and could drive, then, as these things do, it all went out the window! A social life, partying and then travelling around New Zealand, the USA, Malaysia and Norway, having interesting cars and riding a motorbike all got in the way. Between 17 and 27 I really only MTB'd a handful of times, and that was mostly when I was in New Zealand. Looking back and thinking how much I missed out on, you never know if things had been different I could even have been a pro!

Lake Wanaka, the greatest place in NZ. Also has rad trails.

Fast forward to March 2015 and my first ski season in Les Gets was coming to a close and I had a hankering to be back on a bike. Snowboarding down the trails and around berms, shooting through tree's and finding log-jumps in the woods had got me fired up, but what to do? I tried to find work in Les Gets, Morzine and Avoriaz, but to no avail. Instead I stumbled across MTB guiding jobs for both Neilson Holidays and Mark Warner. It wasn't really what I wanted to do, but I thought 'why not'?

Aaaah, Les Gets. Cheap wine, learning to snowboard and drifting a Renault Traffic in the snow.

Mark Warner (thankfully) turned me down, but Neilson must have been desperate because they agreed that if I got a guiding qualification in the 2 weeks I was due home, before they would need to fly me to Turkey, I'd have a job. Determination gets you a long way, and 2 weeks after coming home from France, I was on my way to spend almost 7 months living in Marmaris, Turkey.

On the Turunç beachfront, mid way through our 50km ride.

It turns out that actually, I love guiding and, after doing this 2 summers on the trot, both in Turkey, I might have found a way to make this Mountain Biking lark a career! Season 1 was a steep learning curve, I was in a resort on an island with 21 bikes, upto 12 guests at a time and upto 45 degree's of heat during the peak season. Fortunately my manager had been a bike guide previously and steered me in the right direction. The combination of his guiding hand and Dave, the instructor who has done my MIAS level 1, 2 and 3 training, instilled high standards in me as a guide and over the season I ended up being the highest ranked Bike Guide in Turkey for Neilson - an achievement I am still proud of.

That's Marmaris behind me, otherwise known as 'Turkeys Benidorm'!

With the advent of season 2, I already knew where I stood as a guide, so this was an opportunity to build on the previous year, and continue to excel. As I was in Neilsons premium Turkish windsurfing resort, it'd be rude not to improve my windsurfing skills too. I had a great season and had the pleasure of working in 3 separate resorts, two in Turkey, and once in the beautiful resort of Vounaki, in Greece. Once again, I had a relaxed manager who let me do my job and I was able to really focus on having fun and making the most of my time there. Over the season I was able to introduce some new rides and meet some amazing people - from Bob and Angie at the beginning, who were both in their 60's and had only just started MTB'ing through to Ian Drake who ran British Cycling at the time and, at the end of the season, Vicky (Vicky Bikes), who has been a regular biking buddy ever since. Meeting people and enjoying spending time with them while mountain biking through some really interesting terrain has definitely helped me fall in love with the sport again.

'so smooth' guiding in Vounaki, Greece.

Unfortunately for me, just under 3 years ago I had a snowboarding crash and ruptured some ligaments in my right shoulder. As Season 2 drew to a close, I decided it was time to get this sorted and so throughout the whole of 2017 I have had to cancel working seasons and do a mundane retail job so I could have an operation. On the plus side, this has allowed me to work on many of my bike handling skills I would not have been able to progress with in Greece - I have been around Cannock, Bike Park Wales, Afan Argoed, up and down Snowdon, Swinley and a host of other places in pursuit of riding the best trails across the UK.

Half way up Snowdon on my custom/prototype On One Hadza

As 2017 draws to a close my shoulder has been operated on and I have a 2 year Working Holiday VISA for Canada. So where do you think I'm going next? Whistler baby! Bring it on! It's time to really turn my guiding into a career, and where better to do it than the West coast of Canada? But first, a winter season...

Whistler (photo credit to the Four Seasons website)

Thanks for reading, more from me soon on a variety of topics such as; building your own bike, working as a bike guide, and Canada; why shouldn't we all move to Whistler?