Hobbies: Enjoy sailing and canoeing, recently did my 1st Mountain Marathon on foot but it was called off due to bad weather, this experience has made me shut up about conditions at the 2008 Spring Polaris, MM and D2D etc….!

Training: Involves riding when ever I can, often this is just commuting. On the run up to a target race I will take few ‘sports days’ off work and go out for an afternoon of riding. I make sure it is never a chore.

Diet: Ha ha, anything and lots of it. At 63kg and over 1.85 m tall fighting the flab has never been an issue. Tends to be tons of carbs and white meat.

How I got started: I was the 1st kid in school to get an MTB (back in 1987!) and I lived in the North Pennines, it was the perfect place to enjoy it. 1 hour climbs and 8 mile decents from the house door. 20 years on I still can’t get enough of the same trails. The urge to race has always been there, be it the school egg and spoon race or to be the 1st in the que for the weekly mobile ice cream van. Racing mountain bikes was always on the cards once I wasn’t the only kid with one!

Why I like my bikes: This is the bit when we can write a few cheesy lines that you will expect to see on the marketing leaflets, fortunately I do happen to think my E120 is great so I say the following with a truly straight face, a lot of the events I do tend to be over 5 hours, be it the Polaris Challenge or an Enduro, the suspension lets you just get on with pedalling. 7 hours carrying a full pack is a whole load easier than it used to be on a hard tail. It goes without say that the huge mud clearance has been perfect for the British summer..

Type of riding: ?

Idols: For years Marco Pantani and Robert Millar were my cycling idols. Like me they were both skinny whippets and I admired their ability to race up hills, since then we have found out that one took drugs and the other has become a women. These were not qualities or things I expected from my aspirational idols! This has left me in idol limbo, if you think it should be you drop me a line explaining why in no more than 25 words.