Reader Story: Mountain Biking & Autism

From a very young age, I was destined to ride mountain bikes as both my mother and father were avid mountain bikers racers who competed nationally and internationally for New Zealand from the late 80s to the mid 90s. They both raced cross country and downhill before having me. One dark gloomy Canterbury winter's afternoon, after being stuck inside for days, Mum decided to take me on a walk and bring my plastic bubble bike up the hill with her and let me loose whilst being tied to a rope and from then I was instantly hooked. But it hasn’t been an easy road to get to where I am now.

As I sit here with a broken wrist, an elbow which is shattered in three places and broken collarbone, I realize these are the least of my worries. At under a year old, my parents took me to hospital for a routine check up and to undergo some testing to see how I was developing. To cut a long story short, my mum was told by the doctors that I was never going to ride a bike, go to a mainstream school and function within a modern day society due to the fact I had a bunch of disorders.



Those included Dyslexia, Dyspraxia, Hypersensitivity Disorder, Autism and my brain wasn’t fully functioning as the neurological pathways weren’t talking to one another as they weren’t connected. All these things together made for one hell of a time growing up and I’d be lying if I said it was easy. I spent years training my brain to function properly, learning how to read, write and most importantly figure out how to pedal a bike. Many of these exercises to help train the brain involved balance, focusing on targets and following things with my eyes so that the brain could talk to my eyes along these pathways in order for me to focus. Without the persistent support from my parents and not wanting to give up on me just because I was “different,” I wouldn’t be where I am today.

Part of being on the Autism spectrum is that once you find something that you are into, you get absolutely obsessed with it and it consumes you. I watched the Series Drop In New Zealand as a kid which was released in 2006 (I was 7) hundreds of times on repeat, especially the one when they went to Blenheim and rode at Jentree which was owned by Justin Leov and his family. Watching the series and being so influenced by it planted the seed more for my mountain biking obsession.


Fast forward to my first year of high school in 2013. I was told that I needed to choose a sport for Wednesday afternoon. Since I was absolutely hopeless at team sports, I joined the Cashmere High School Mountain Bike Club on Wednesday afternoons which was led by a group of Year 13s. The man behind the rides was Will Keay. In Victoria Park on the Port Hills of Christchurch, there's a track called Sesame Street which has a wall ride on it and for years I dreamt of doing it. After being talked into it by the boys on the ride, my 2004 Kona Kula cross-country bike and I went up and gave it a nudge. I landed it and from then I was hooked. Every Wednesday, we’d go riding rain or shine in the summer months. Without the peer pressure from Will 8 years ago to give the WallRide ago, who knows where I’d be.

As my 14th birthday present, I got my first full suspension bike which was a Giant Reign 26” with a 2x10 Groupset and I ran that thing into the absolute ground as I'd never had a full suspension bike before. I was hooked instantly and couldn’t believe how much fun it was. I even did my first ever race on it at the Living Springs Dual Slalom held by Gravity Canterbury. I ended up having a Blast and coming 4th in Under 15s. A couple months later, I had a crash whilst riding downhill and ended up bending a pair of Fox 32s. Whilst it hung up in the shed, my parents quickly realised I needed a downhill bike so I was less likely to keep blowing up parts. There was a period where I went through 9 rear derailleurs in a year. Clearly watching Drop In TV all those years ago had caught up with me and I wanted to ride and race downhill.


For the next three and half years, I raced downhill competitively nationally around the country. What I hold highest during this time as my best results was winning the 2016 Under 19s NZ Open DH and 2016 New Zealand Secondary Schools DH for Under 20s. Around late 2016 and early 2017 a bunch of drama and conflict began to happen within the New Zealand Downhill Racing. Because of my disorders and learning disabilities, this really got to me and I decided to make the switch to enduro racing as I began to spend more and more time on my enduro bike.

Being on the Hypersensitivity scale, meeting a whole bunch of new people in a different environment was super overwhelming and this became an issue for years to come. Lots of noise and loads of new people meant I ended up keeping to myself a lot. With Autism, reading people socially or emotions was super hard as I never really knew what was going on. This meant at the races I found it extremely difficult to make friends and meet new people in all these different environments even if people who were there think otherwise. This meant high school was absolute hell and it didn’t get any easier at university.

Once again, the Autism spectrum and its addictive traits got me hooked on the enduro racing scene. I was lucky enough to be able to race the Enduro World Series in Rotorua in 2017 which was an absolute mud bog and to this day still the hardest race I’ve ever done. My best results in my racing career have come from racing enduro. Winning Linger & Die Enduro as a Junior in 2018 and as a Senior Men in 2020. A 5th Place in Trans NZ Enduro which is a race held over 6 days all across the South Island of New Zealand. What I hold the most special to me and I still find it hard to believe from a child who was told he would never be able to do a lot of things was Winning the Open Mens SantaCruz NZ Enduro in 2019. An absolute dream came true.


As much as I love racing my bike, volunteering and giving back to the community is something which I also love doing. Gravity Canterbury is Christchurch’s main mountain bike club and I’ve been on the committee since 2014. Over the last 7 years, I’ve had the pleasure of helping in organising many events from Local Races to National Championships. Amongst all this I've lots of opportunities of plan racecourses for everyone to enjoy by using the hill in as many different ways as possible for both Downhill and Enduro. Some questionable designs have been used which has resulted in some positive and pretty negative feedback in the past but because of all this it has helped me learn social cues and other people's perspective on things as I may think it’s a great idea whilst others don't.



In more recent years, Will Keay rejoined the committee which has been absolutely amazing and it’s been an absolute pleasure working with him when it comes to planning events and courses. Most recently helping with the set up for the 2021 New Zealand Downhill National Championship held at the Christchurch Adventure Park, where we were out taping the track at 11.30pm on the Thursday Night to ensure everything was sorted for track walk and racing that weekend. Winning the Sports Men Downhill and becoming the National Champion is something I'd never thought I'd achieve considering I hadn’t raced Downhill since 2017.


I’m writing this in the hope that other people who might be struggling out there and think that it's impossible to succeed when others have told them because of certain things they won’t be able to, and I hope that my story inspires them.

I’d like to also thank my parents for backing me 24/7 even when at some points I would be kicking and screaming saying “I’m sorry but mountain biking isn’t my passion” but I’m 100% glad that I followed through with it and became who I am today. Without them I wouldn’t have traveled to all the races, seen the country and achieved all the results I have.

A massive thank you to my Sponsors. Goat Cycles, Hyperformance Hardware, Santa Cruz Bicycles, DVO New Zealand, Cascade Components for all the support they’ve given me!
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