When editor JCW said he wanted to do a new series about all the different riders you come across on the UK’s trails, I thought it
was a great idea. But then he said the group he wanted to kick off with was older blokes – and that I’d be perfect for the job... I wasn’t sure how to take that. But the more I thought about it, the more it appealed. Younger riders seem to be stealing all the headlines these days – from Jackson Goldstone and Jordan Williams winning DH World Cups aged just 18, to 13-year-old Harry Schofield sending huge jumps at this year’s Crankworx Innsbruck festival and Liv Taylor doing drops most adults would baulk at. But what about those guys (and they were mostly guys) who were there at the start of the sport in the UK and lived through the so-called ‘golden era’ or the late 1980s and early ’90s. I know many of them are still riding, but do they still rip now they’re in their sixties?
The fab five
The Surrey Hills have had mountain bike trails since the early days of the sport, so I get in touch with ‘Tattoo Dave’ Hancock,
