That jump in Verbier…it was just one that had to be done. I was pretty nervous the night before, but myself and Rob Breakwell (ex Dirt team racer) both stomped it, the landing was so harsh that it bent the steerer on my forks. Looking up after the big compression on landing I sailed straight off another 10ft drop to flat – always check your run–out. To this day I’m gutted I never saw the photo of that jump as Steve Jones lost it!

Orange bikes – it just happened after buying an old Orange 222 and doing a season in Les Gets on it. It worked, nothing went wrong, despite getting a hammering day in day out. Ever since then I have raced and ridden Orange bikes. I think we suit each other, there’s a lot of bollocks in mountain biking, unnecessary complications that people buy into. Those guys who just put their bike back in the shed and take it out the next time they want to use it and give it absolute hell – well I’m with them all the way.

When I started trail building I was particularly carefree, whistling and singing songs to myself, wielding my mattock happily in the woods all day then riding my bike afterwards. I was working outdoors, fit and strong and riding plenty. Employing people and running a business changes everything…more than I ever would have believed.

My best friends, family and girlfriend have always brought a sense of normality to my life, they don’t ride and only take a flirting interest, it’s very much my hobby and when I’m home we don’t talk about it too much. I quite like that, I feel grounded.

I have calculated that I have just one more year of work left in me at the current rate. I’ve been burnt out for the last three years! Seventy–hour weeks are slowly but surely grinding me down, but I have a focus and I have a dream that I will see out. After that I will need a long holiday and some hair dye!

If it wasn’t for Brant Richards I probably wouldn’t be doing what I am today. Let’s not forget we all owe everything to Brant!

ASH SMITH

Yes, of course I’m a map freak. It started at a very young age with road maps and A–Z type things that I’d have dug out of the family book shelf and scanned for hours on end. I’m obsessed by the layout of geography’s natural and man–made features and how this could be represented on paper.

I’m fascinated by place names and by the idea that people can ‘belong’ to somewhere. I was born in the North East of England in the late seventies, but was moved abroad at a young age because of parents’ work. And so, since 1984, I’ve felt like (and have been perceived as) a foreigner wherever I’ve lived, nowhere more so than in the UK. For much of the time from then until the present, I’ve thought it must be deeply satisfying to belong to and therefore be able to ‘represent’ a town or a region…or even be able to give a simple answer to the question “where are you from?” ­ because I never did or could do that at any level really, in any country.

In order of duration (longest to shortest) I’ve lived in Belgium, Switzerland, England and France. Belgium isn’t an outdoor person’s place, but apart from that it’s great. Switzerland…seriously f–k Switzerland, I hate the place, or at least I hate Swiss society – indoctrination of a nation, surely close–on North Korean standards. I don’t like England very much personally (can’t speak for Wales or Scotland). France, in my view, is an unfairly judged country…”oh, the French, especially in the service industry, are so rude”… are they? In the UK, I can well imagine the uttering of the “deux bieres!” in any bar outside the M25 making front page of the Daily Mail. They just wanna little r–e–s–p–e–c–t–(–e).

The idea of using a mountain bike to travel to and through this discovery and adventure, leads me to what my current occupation is today.

It would appear that railways are in my blood…they aren’t. I was born in Stockton–on–Tees (home of the world’s first railway), there was a railway line behind the back garden when I was little, I worked for the Swiss Federal Railways for nigh–on 10 years, and now there’s a line out the back of the house again, where we currently live.

Then there was the almost attempt at a music career. A few collaborations, and even a demo tape (well a CD) was recorded as the singer–songwriter guy. For one reason or another I never pushed it or sent anything off to anyone. I’m not sure it was me and, looking back now, maybe I was just worried about the type of shit you might get into as a successful musician. More likely, it wasn’t truly good enough to be one. I doesn’t matter now.

Fast–forward to the present day. It’s always nice to be working on a little project and this time it’s personal. I want to attempt to take a step (even just one) into the world of being a fast mountain biker (I’m talking descending not ascending, the latter will never happen). There are so many Enduro races to do that it’d be rude not do to a good few a year, if only to serve as a personal reminder of the pain that I myself put 70 riders through each September at the Transprovence.