Major increase in speed, accidental awesomeness, feeling of accomplishment, unnatural radness, sensational confidence and mild arousal are all positive side effects you’ll experience from a Ben Cathro training day!

The gentle giant of downhill from Scotland tells us about his new exciting project and gives a candid insight into the life of a privateer.

Ben Cathro Launches Sick Skills Guiding and Coaching

2011 was a decent year for me, I gained a couple of top 20’s at the world cups and scored a top 10 at La Bresse which was next level.

The summer of cruising around the world with the MTBcut/Orange crew was over and I was left with some amazing memories and an empty bank account. It’s the classic story of the privateer racer.

Work to earn some money during the winter while trying to train at a decent level then blow it all racing during the summer. While this does sound like I was living the dream it doesn’t really hold much hope for the future. I kept pushing myself and promoting myself to try and score that “Big Deal” and earn a living but sadly I never quite got there.

So the prospect of another winter of scraping money together hit me and for the first time ever I thought, I want a change. Bam! Sick Skills started.

I started planning everything out and I realised World Cups were off the list, the costs were too high and I couldn’t dedicate myself 100% to training with a company to run. Racing is still something I love to do so I decided to focus my efforts on racing in Britain which means I’ll try to make it to as many SDA, BDS and Gravity Enduro races as I can.

The company took a while to come together. There’s lots of qualifications to gain, paperwork to do, finances to get in order and legal junk to sort out. After a lot of hard work and late nights I’ve finally got to the stage that I can officially announce that Sick Skills is up and running!

So, Sick Skills is a mountain bike coaching and guiding company that I created. I always knew at some point I would move into coaching the sport that I love and 2012 just felt like the right time. I aim to deliver detailed and thorough courses with a laid back and humorous atmosphere while teaching people all the tips and tricks I’ve learnt over the years. I’ll be running the courses on my local trails near Oban with the plan to expand into other areas. I am also offering a service where I come to your local trails and perform a day session for you and a group of friends.

For the price of a new bike component you could have a fun day learning new skills and improving as a rider. Side effects may include:

Major increase in speed, accidental awesomeness, feeling of accomplishment, unnatural radness, sensational confidence and mild arousal.

I’ve just finished throwing together the website so pop over have a look and book yourself onto one of our fantastic courses: www.sickskills.co.uk

I’d like to thank all my sponsors, without them it would not have been possible to make this happen: Hope, Renthal, Maxxis, 661, Madison Clothing, Stans Notubes, GoPro, Works Components, Element 9 Graphics, Gravity Dropper, Santacruz, Mojo Suspension and Shimano.

See you on the hill!

Ben Cathro

Sick Skills