Return to the Trails

It's time for a confession. Throughout my teen years, and all the way through university, I was in love with Mountain Biking. Spent all my money on it, had little time for other sports. I almost lived on 2 wheels, to the point where, living on campus, I would carry a bike down a flight of stairs, just to ride it 200m to a mates room. When I bought my first camera, during university, I had grand visions of photographing mountain biking and other extreme sports. I went up the hill a few times, but the desire to ride often overcame the desire to stop and take photos of my mates riding. I started shooting concerts, which I'm certainly not complaining about.

Fast forward a few years, and I've shot concerts, portraits, events, travel, documentary, editorial, even some landscape. But I never shot mountain biking after the first year, which occasionally puzzled me.

Now that I've moved to Sydney, I also finally reconnected with some old friends that I rode with back in Wollongong (it's 90 minutes south). One of whom hand-builds his own custom frames, under his Ed Racing brand. His mention of an untested prototype, and the offer for me to borrow it, led to my grand reunion with downhill mountain biking one recent Sunday.

While I'm stoked that somehow I rode fast, hit big jumps, and didn't crash... I'm more stoked at catching up with 3 old mates, catching up on each of their big life events of the last few years, and actually stopping to take photos, like these.