JEDDAH, 2 December 2003 — A team of British mountain bikers is visiting Saudi Arabia for the first time, showcasing their spectacular skills to the public.
The team, sponsored in the Kingdom by Mountain Dew and managed by former triathlete Giles Wolfe and led by Jeremy (Jes) Avery, former British mountain bike Dual Slalom champion, is hoping to encourage growth of the sport and worldwide recognition as a competitive “extreme sport.”
A spokesman for PepsiCo said that the team’s tour was part of the company’s drive to develop minority and extreme sports in the teenage market. “Sport yields many health and personal benefits,” said Farhan Hasan. “The physical and skills challenges it affords young people can only be good. We want to encourage that.”
Using their own mountain bikes, each custom-made to the riders’ individual requirements and costing up to $2,500 each and weighing about 11 kilos each, the team thrills the crowds by leaping broad gaps, balancing on narrow beams and dropping over two and a half meters with inch-perfect precision onto softdrinks cans placed as targets.
“Fitness development is an aspect,” said Giles Wolfe, “but a high level of fitness is not necessary to begin. A 15-minute display is equivalent to a 90-minute workout in a gym. When newcomers start out, they ease into routines slowly — fitness develops as skill level develops, and you hardly notice.”
The MAD team (mountain-bike aerial display) is the largest in Europe. “We focus on trial-based stunts, a series of balance and control skills that have grown out of the skills needed for success in the cross-country trails-skills of competitive mountain biking,” said Ian Drummond, 22. “The attraction of the sport is that the skills can be developed in an urban environment with very little space and transferred to a highly competitive sport.”
The trials aspect of the sport is still relatively young. Born out of the established sport of mountain biking, the team hopes to help raise public interest and eventually have it recognized at the extreme sports world championships.
Simon Sagar, the youngest team member at just 18, has been seriously involved in the sport for the last four years. “It sort of grew from meeting people with similar bikes, setting up obstacle courses for ourselves and competing against each others’ skills. It’s nothing to do with racing — it’s a sport that needs great dedication and focus — a tiny mistake and you fall, and you remember that.” Hoping to stay involved in competitive biking and then progressing on to team management, Simon sees the sport as a career with a future.
That opinion is echoed by Craig Lambton who has been biking competitively for only a year. “I find great satisfaction at seeing a gradual increase in personal skills on a weekly basis,” he said. “What presents an impossible challenge one week becomes, with applied practice, a standard trick in a month or so. You don’t need expensive bikes to begin with — a heavy cheap bike is often better. It builds your fitness as you develop the skills.”
Jes Avery at 34 is the “father” of the team. An accomplished competitive mountain biker, he held the world record for the “bunny-hop” — a jump from rest over a bar of 1.2 meters. “That record lasted about 16 hours, but that’s biking,” he said with a grin. “As one sets limits, someone else is fired up to beat it.” One record Jes set — a leap of over 12 meters over five cars using only pedal power — still stands as the official world record and is logged in the Guinness Book of World Records. “That,” he said modestly, “was hairy.”
The team will be taking their biker roadshow to Riyadh, Dammam, Abha and Jeddah until Dec. 21.
