- Welcome to the first in the series
of meet your EMBN presenters.
We're here in the Whistler of the UK,
this is Frome, my hometown.
Let's get back to my house,
check out what I've been doing in the bike world.
So my name's Chris Smith,
I'm from Frome in Somerset, a small Somerset town,
I've been riding roughly around 25 years, I think,
something like that, maybe a couple more years.
So, I've actually been professional since 2002,
so that means 16 years.
And, obviously, this awesome job come up as a presenter,
so I decided, as a change in direction,
and an awesome way, you know, to further my career.
Riding for me started as a kid, I messed around on BMXs,
you know, sort of to and from my mates house,
we had BMX planks of wood, you know, little jumps,
messing around, things like that.
We used to build, like, trials courses
on our local building site, as well.
But then that came a bit more of a,
from a mode of transport it came into an actual interest,
and we started, like, doing tricks, watching videos,
watching the old Props BMX road fools thing,
things like that, got a bit of inspiration from them.
So I rode BMX for a little bit,
but then I sort of felt a bit,
I was always that little bit taller,
so I used to find the BMX quite small,
so that sort of turned my attention to the mountain biking.
I think my brother actually brought me a Peugeot,
like, hybrid, like, cross thing,
it had shifters on the down tube
and, like, cantilever brakes,
he brought it from the car boot sale for me.
He had a mountain bike already,
then we started going out hitting the trails.
That was my first, kind of, mountain bike experience.
(mellow electronic music)
So welcome to my house,
this house is actually full of mountain biking relics,
and it's all up in the loft, a lot of it,
it's either here or at my parents house.
Let's have a look at a few of the little bits
that we've got lying around here.
So, of course, I've dug out some old school photos for you,
and, first up, it's the embarrassing school photo.
Here, look at that.
Aged a bit since then, though, bit more stubble.
But yeah, embarrassing as always.
Got my first time on two wheels,
this is like a fixed steering cricket,
like a little scooter thing.
I actually rode it, at my parents house, down a stair set,
but the only problem was,
it was like an L-shaped set of stars,
so I went flying down the first step,
and obviously couldn't turn
so I just smashed straight into their wall.
One story that my mum always reminds me about as well,
so that's pretty cool.
Yeah, just basically spent my whole life on bikes,
and got a few cool shots from over the years here.
This is about '99, 2000, something like that,
doing a nice fence ride, no helmet, someones fence,
I was being a bit of a bad boy on the streets,
I think that fence broke in the end,
sent me over the handlebars out onto the road,
so that was quite a nasty experience.
Again, another shot from there.
I think I was tryna get my knee down there,
something like Rossi going round the corners,
but yeah, look at the old school tracks and everything,
that's a pretty cool shot as well.
So this is one of my favorite shots,
this is actually probably the shot,
sort of transgressing from being like a privateer
to a pro rider.
Pretty pixelated, it's an old school pic.
Basically, I was out with Steve Geall at a local spot,
at the quarry, and Steve was on a shoot, but I went along,
he invited me along as well, and I did this huge drop,
Steve Bear shot this photo, he's a legendary photographer,
and he come to me, like, two or three days later saying,
oh it'd be great to do a shoot on you
and freeride and things like that.
And this was a pretty big drop back in the day,
this is, again, early 2000s, sort of,
so some of the bigger stuff the UK had seen as well.
So that was, you know, means a lot to me, that shot,
it's a cool one.
National champs jersey,
I raced quite a lot of
four-cross in sort of late 2000s,
this is 2014, this is.
So, gold medal in that.
Raced the whole series,
I actually won the whole national series as well,
in the master category, but it's still pretty cool
to have a national champs jersey,
and that BC gold medal, so.
Dabbled a bit in racing,
but always been a bit more freeride-y,
I like to do, sort of, my own thing,
get a bit more stylish on the bike, so, as I say,
racing, I've sort of proved myself a little bit,
I've done big national races as well.
Downhill, cross-country,
some international races out in Mexico,
downhill, and just, yeah, freeride, slopestyle,
dirt jumping, trials.
You name it I've kind of done the discipline, so yeah,
mixing it up has always been a big part of it, for me.
We've got all these cool covers up in the hallway.
These range from, like, early 2000s,
all the way up to some of the more recent stuff as well.
But every time I go up the stairs,
take a quick look at those and think, Christ.
We could talk about new school, so this is, like, I think,
me, Gee, Danny Holroyd, who's like a trials guy,
we did, like, a triple cover, that's pretty cool.
But yeah, every time I look at it,
it brings back good memories,
just reminds me how old I am now.
(Chris laughs)
(mellow electronic music)
- [Man] What do you think of this?
- Britain's number one freerider?
That's true, init?
(Chris laughs)
- So I think one of my big first successes,
for me, sort of, personally, was getting invited
to the big UK bike show, it's actually,
got an invite from the organizers to come
and showcase those skills
that I'd basically been practicing out on the trails,
by myself, in front of, you know, a massive audience,
and I was, like, pretty stoked to be invited along.
I think I actually ended up winning
that whole competition as well,
so I walked away from that event, like, super stoked,
I won all this money, shown all my skills,
I think I was limping around, probably a few big crashes,
but yeah, it was, like, a massive success for me,
and sort of went from there.
So what do I wish that I knew back then what I know now,
is actually the art of progression.
I think sometimes I got a bit carried away,
I started pushing tricks, like, way too early,
and, like, getting hurt,
and if you get hurt it really knocks your confidence level,
you know, you're upping your skills,
but your confidence level has actually gone backwards
'cause if you keep taking a beating,
tryna push yourself too fast, too soon,
you're gonna get hurt,
and obviously that means time off the bike,
so, I was trying, like, these big gap jumps and crashing,
and I, like, broke my ankle one day, you know,
and broke my back as well, at the same time,
and that took me off the bike for, like, nearly a year.
And, like, I think if I hadn't attempted that,
sort of, back then, it's kinda like mentally scarred me,
so I wish that I'd taken that time
to progress to something the next step.
So mountain bike heroes to me, as I was growing up,
and still to the present day, probably,
let me think back to the earlier days,
probably, like, Hans Rey, he was a massive influence.
He was the guy that showed, like, trials was pretty cool.
Obviously not forgetting Martyn's,
Martyn Ashton, obviously, and Martin Hawyes as well,
the stuff they were doing back in the early 90s
on trials bikes really influenced me,
and, sort of, got me interested in that.
Then, the godfather of freeriding, himself, Steve Geall,
big friend of mine, also, like,
a massive talent on the bike, taught me so much,
so big thanks to him.
And then, obviously, all the big freeride stars
you saw in the movies.
Wade Simmons, Darren Berrecloth,
and, again, back to the UK, more recently, sort of,
Chris Akrigg, Danny MacAskill, all those guys, sort of,
pay a massive part in my interests in bikes, as well.
Sam Pilgrim, obviously more up to speed with, like,
the e-bike stuff as well, that's a big influence as well,
pushing each other hard all the time.
So yeah, there's plenty of them out there,
just take a bit from each person, get inspiration.
The best experience, for me, on two wheels,
is probably seeing pretty much the whole world,
just because of riding a bike.
I've been lucky enough to go to Australia twice
on riding trips, I've been all over Europe, America,
you name it, you know, I've pretty much been
to every trails spot.
You know, stuff like Utah, Rampage Site, Slickrock,
California, Santa Cruz, Germany, Italy, Spain,
literally everywhere on bikes.
I feel really lucky to have had, you know,
given that opportunity purely just because of riding bikes.
It's been an amazing time doing all that stuff, yeah,
and I loved the experience.
So my favorite place to ride, it's a toss-up really, like,
used to be here, where we are now, back in the day,
when I had this place, like, primed with big lips
and landings and stuff.
But this was, probably, in it's prime about 10 years ago,
I suppose, so, it's kind of a little run down,
but this has always, means a lot to me this place.
So we're on route to the birthplace of freeride in the UK.
This is my local quarry, I've ridden here, probably,
countless months, hours, I spent, you know,
much of my life in this place.
Have a little tour round, see some of the spots,
see some of the big hits I did back in the day.
And, yeah, have a little ride, have a little play,
get into it, see what happens.
(electronic dance music)
So what would I have been doing if I didn't get into bikes?
I dunno, I kind of, when I left school I was, like,
always, sort of, pretty physical,
sort of sporty kinda thing, so,
maybe it went down that route, but I actually worked for,
I think a year and a half of my life,
in a silver, like, a factory,
basically using these big, huge, hydraulic presses,
making silver photo frames, jewelry boxes, things like that,
and I used to polish them on this big machine,
using the press.
The only good thing about that job was
seven o'clock 'til two, so it meant
that I could ride every single day after work.
But, apart from that, it pretty much sucked.
So one of my biggest regrets in riding,
is sometimes when I think how hard I've, kind of,
pushed my body, over the years.
Like, I haven't really thought about when you're,
well, late teens to mid twenties,
is like the highlight of your career,
it's when you're pushing yourself that much harder,
and you're actually getting pretty hurt, you know,
over the years, as I mentioned earlier,
I broke my back, I've broken both ankles, I've broken arms,
broken elbows, broken wrists, broken shoulder blades,
let alone the amount of times you've been knocked out
and things like that.
So I sometimes wish that I'd, sort of,
thought about that a little bit more,
'cause it does, sort of, play on your mind a little bit,
like, I think, when I'm 60, I'm, like, thinking, Christ.
You know, I'm 37 now,
and sometimes things can get pretty hard,
like, with your body.
So I just wish that I'd thought about
that a little bit more, maybe, when I was younger.
(electronic dance music)
I think my fave EMBN moment is any trip with Steve, really,
the guy is such a character,
and we go on some pretty epic rides,
but we also have some, like, pretty good laughs,
like, behind the camera as well, so, like,
just joining that whole team has been,
like, a blast the whole time.
So that's it, I really hope you've enjoyed watching
this video today, a little bit behind the scenes about me.
If you've enjoyed this video,
be sure to check out my eMTB exploration video
with Steve Geall, down here.
And up here, there's how to ride your natural trails faster.
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