The Red Bulletin June 2019

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MTB street “When you’ve got a big bike, you’re looking for things only the craziest person would ever dream of doing on a BMX” T he British city street is under pressure. It’s trapped in a slow-grind crisis where stress is rife and anxiety is the new normal. But within its concrete canyons, beasts are stirring – and it’s not the rats. Sitting astride burly, overbuilt mountain bikes are a row of riders in full-face helmets and a patchwork uniform of gloves, skinny jeans, unbuttoned shirts and freeride jerseys. They stare down from a 6m-high asphalt overpass, gazes locked onto a double set of red-brick stairs bordered by concrete slopes, studded with rocks, and scattered with the usual urban debris: broken glass, cigarette ends… Breaking their focus, the riders split, peeling off back up the road and out of sight. Stop and stare in a city and eventually the street will notice you. Here in Portsmouth, pedestrians have begun to crowd along the top of the overpass, looking down at the stairs and the small portable ramp that has been set up at the top. The rising whoosh of fat rubber tyres accelerated by pedal power reaches their ears as a rider rounds the corner, launches off the ramp and hurtles down the stairs, whipping his back wheel in the air. But he doesn’t quite clear the platform between the flights of stairs, clipping his back wheel and, with a tortured crunch, smacking the underside of his bike’s frame into the edge of a step. Only strength and experience prevent him from being catapulted face-first into the pavement. The rider swears into the city air. “That ramp really launches you,” reports Simon Brettle, the 31-yearold carpenter and mountain biker. “My landing zone is exactly the same size as my bike – there is literally no room for error.” The street is built from intersecting concrete blades. There are harsh, unyielding angles everywhere you look. It’s a far cry from the rounded, flowing lines and loose dirt of an off-road mountain-bike trail. “I find that terrifying, to be honest,” says another of the riders, Josh Reynolds, who is sponsored by Sick Bikes and works as a fitness equipment engineer. “Stair sets and bricks are a lot harsher. When you start pushing it, everything becomes more highconsequence.” Consequences leave scars, and Reynolds’ injuries from both MTB and BMX include a dented skull, blown ankles, a shattered collarbone and smashed back teeth. He’s 24 years old. “If you’re riding off-road, you’ll have a nice big jump with a long landing to hit, which will slope off into the flat,” he continues. “It’s not angular; it doesn’t go from 45° to flat within an inch.” Street geometry and the arithmetic of impact is violent and uncompromising, but Reynolds isn’t complaining. The riders all wear adversity like a badge of honour – it shows they belong. At one point, Brettle and local rider Ben Matthews compete to gross us out by flexing their injured wrist joints – bones clunk and push against the skin, unanchored by any ligaments that may have survived previous crashes. The bravado isn’t just a front, and you don’t ride a mountain bike in the street to be subtle; it’s a statement of intent. Reynolds grew up riding 56 THE RED BULLETIN
Left: Reynolds in his Chainbreakers Cycling Club jacket. Below: at Brighton Marina
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The Red Bulletin June 2019

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