DAVE CULLINAN

It’s day two and hero house number two. It’s another California street that looks like every other California streets. The houses are all the same, it’s baking hot, the grass is all being watered by timed irrigation systems and the cars on the driveways are so clean they gleam in the eternal sunshine. There is one house with the garage open and a rack of bikes behind a pile of household things. It looks like someone is moving out. I assume without looking at the number that I’m in the right place.

“Hi, my name is Grant. I’m here to see Dave.” “Oh hi, I’m his wife Brijette and this is our little girl Davyn, say hello Davyn.” She calls into the garage, “DAVE, Grant is here to see you.” He appears, he looks like Cully just a lot greyer and he’s big. Like kick my ass big, I hope he didn’t hear my thoughts…”Dave, hey, how’s things?” He shakes my hand. “I’m good, well except for the crazy day going on here. It’s meant to be a day off but we have builders, furniture appraisal lady, cable men, a kid and dogs running all over the place. Sorry for the mess, what do you want to do? I hope not see the house. Did you bring a bike? We should get some breakfast. Do you like bagels? There’s a good bagel shop around the corner. Ah, here’s the cable guy. Hey can you help me move this massive piece of furniture so he can get at the cables behind it?” OK, this is good, big character and he likes to talk, I’ll leave him to it. We get some bagels and sit with Brijette and Davyn in the garage at a faux Spanish dining table that they’ve sold and is awaiting pick–up. All around me are the helmets. I try not to look and keep my mind on the conversation. This guy can talk. It’s refreshing. I can sit back and listen.

Like Eric yesterday he has opinions that seem to have been formed through much thought, experience and time away from the sport. He is blissfully unaware of the top names in the sport today. He recognizes names but the race scene is not his day to day world, bikes are now a way for him to keep in shape. He works in digital publishing and could sell the idea to a caveman. In fact everything he talks about it seems as though he is trying to sell you the idea or at least convince you that what he is saying is right, not that he isn’t. He seems bitter that he had to leave the sport due to injuries and health issues. Not bitter and holding a grudge, far from it, but bitter that what he loved was taken away by circumstances that he had no control over. He calls Brendan Fairclough (who is in California training) for directions to a trail. “Ha ha, I don’t even think Brendan knew who I was except for the fact you told him!” We jump into the truck and find the trail. It’s crazy what natural ability allows you to do. Third time in and he’s cleaning a 10×30 foot jump on his ‘brand new for the shoot’ Santa Cruz DH bike.

It’s hot. He sweats like it’s going out of fashion. I offer him a second T–shirt that’s in my bag to use as a towel. “You know that Troy Lee uses me as a sweat tester for their new lids?” He hits a fresh jump and misses the downslope by 8ft and lands so hard that his forks stay compressed. We pull them back and they seem to still be working. He decides to turn the jump into a hip and make a one–foot table out of it. BANG! He blows his tubeless tyre off the rim landing sideways. This is not how it was meant to go, so we head back to the truck for the pump. It’s sorted and he hits the jump three more times with classic Cully style then spends most of the time in between runs complaining about his wrist that was badly broken and has now been fused. He has to let go of the bar to flatten his tables now but it doesn’t seem to be affecting his riding and he is keen to get to the trails.

We move on to a local jump spot, ‘The Sandbox’ as it’s known to the locals. It’s full of kids who are left standing in awe at this old dude who’s just showed up and, despite being off his trail bike for two years, has flowed the entire line third time through. If only they knew. He pushes his front wheel in so hard I find myself catching my breath thinking it’s over, but then remind myself this is the style that so many wish they could possess. There’s no effort to his riding, it’s floaty and silky smooth. He stops for a rest under the shade of a tree and everyone there stops riding to and gathers around to hear what he has to say. Although they have no idea who he is they seem to understand he is someone that knows the score. The sun is setting so we head home stopping to look for comet C/2011L4 that is meant to be in the sky for the next two nights. We end up in his garage talking custom paint, motocross and getting old. He is over repeating the heart issue but gives the rehearsed answers when I ask saying it was the most painful thing he has ever experienced. An internal organ shredding itself is a feeling like no other.

Dave: I can tell you I won my first competition on a girl’s bike! Ha ha, yeah, it was called the Green Pea or something like that, big green banana seat and the set–up belonged to my sister. I won this bike rodeo thing at school and this older kid was all pissed at me because he was a racer and his only leg to stand on was that he was the best bike rider in school. Well, obviously not ’cause I just beat him. So he challenged me to a wheelie contest. He bet he could wheelie further across the school ground than I could. Well, he made it about half way and I carried on going until the fence at the edge of the field. So he said to me that I should race, so I did.

Well, I was tired of what BMX was becoming. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the sport just not some of the elements of what the race scene had become. You were racing guys who were putting on 25–plus pounds of pure muscle in the off–season…call it extra vitamin D if you want…just extra agro vitamin D. People know my thoughts about it, I don’t like juicers, I always say they should have had a ‘stock’ class and a ‘modified’ class then it would have been a little more true to life. Myself and bunch of others rode clean and relied on natural talent, style and determination. I was the first to ride clipless in a BMX race…first ever. But I had to because all these f–king meatheads would tear you apart out of the gate then get in a fight with someone else at the finish line because they were so full of goods. A friend of mine said I should try this new sport called mountain biking. It was off weekend for BMX racing so I took him up on it. He lent me his wife’s bike and we went to Mammoth, this was 1989. I had so much fun, it felt grass roots and it felt real. The next season I was offered a pretty nice deal from GT to race. I did and became the first racer to have both a BMX and MTB contract. At the first race that second year my rider pack had two free beer tickets and our team was sponsored by a condom company…what else can you ask for. It was MTB for me from then on!