How to pick a university

It’s no good if you end up in a town that’s flatter than a corpse’s ECG (we’re looking at you Norwich). If you pick a uni that’s not near any mountains, you may as well leave your bike at home.

Josh Lowe, a Solid Reverse Factory racer, said: “I couldn’t imagine living in an area without riding. So to be honest the process actually started by finding the universities that had mountain biking clubs and trails nearby (Exeter, Sheffield, Bristol, Edinburgh, Swansea). I decided Exeter because it had surf too (and I suppose the course looked good).”

Some universities will actually offer sports scholarships to mountain bikers if you’re racing at a national level. Thomas Owens was lucky enough to represent the University of South Wales. He said: “It was a great bonus to have them supporting a relatively unknown sport to the wider public. I wanted to study whilst still being 100 per cent committed to racing.”

Of course, all of this takes a bit of organisation, and if you’re anything like most students that won’t be your strongest suit. Jono Jones got lucky when he applied to Nottingham: “I didn’t really look ahead for riding spots when I applied for university, I was riding too much to do anything but rush through the applications and get back out on the bike when the sun came up!”

BUCS

The highlight of any student shredder’s year is BUCS, or the Biritsh University and College Sport Champsionships.

Hundreds of students, from World Cup racers to XC nodders all descend on a National Standard course for a weekend of shredding, heckling and, of course, boozing.

Quite often it’s carnage and probably one of the most stressful events to marshall all year. Most of the riders are have-a-go-heroes and look more like lemmings than seasoned dh racers.

Over the weekend, the field is whittled down to 100 riders that qualify for the finals. The rest of the field take to the side of the track for a good, old fashioned heckle. Mike Straw, the owner of MJRacing, said: “There is no pressure like there is at national races so its more about riding with mates and watching all the noddies KO themselves. This year at Antur the uplift was wicked and there was a decent crowd at the bottom giving out abuse which is always good.”

It’s a social affair too. This year’s race was held at Antur Stiniog and Exeter and Sheffield ended up sleeping on the floor of the Village Hall then riding together all weekend.

Surrey missile Jono Jones took the win in 2016 riding for Nottingham. He said: “The BUCS races are phenomenal! Such a cool atmosphere there, and really cool people. Not everyone is a through and through downhill rider and that makes it wicked. But the racing is still really close and times get very tight! There’s hundreds track-side, can in hand, making more noise than Heathrow runway during finals! Can’t wait for the next one and looking forward to seeing everyone there!”

Maybe best of all, university offers loads of opportunity to get involved in the bike industry. Of the people we spoke to, both Josh is a fully sponsored rider, Sam is now working for Mojo and Jack runs his own team.

If you’re heading off to uni, get in touch with the club on Facebook, they’ll be happy to chat to you and will have all the answers to any questions you have.