Introduction

Who I am, how I got involved with Pinkbike, and what I'm all about. Copied from the old Meet the Staff section.Name

Ryan

Date of Birth

September 1979

Location

During the school year, I’m in Bozeman, Montana. It’s a gorgeous little city in the mountains and I’ve been here since the beginning of 2004.

I spend my summers in Calgary, Alberta, which first became home in 1990.

The Fleet

(click the thumbnails to enlarge)

Unsecure image, only https images allowed: http://content.mtbr.com/images/Tradeshow/12/246/prodimg10.jpg2006 Iron Horse Sunday Elite

Custom Strong road bike with Columbus Spirit tubeset and Reynolds seatstay (Regular stiffness).

2003 Titus QuasiMoto. It’s burly and has 4.5” to 6”, but it’s set up for cross-country.

The Supercommuter. Based on a 1992 Cannondale Delta V 700 that was my first proper mountain bike. It now has a road drivetrain and full commuter set-up. Not pretty, but I adore this bike.

2003 Sunn Riviera street/vert BMX. Poor little guy gathers dust most of the time.

Non-cycling Interests

- Engineering and most anything sciencey
- Social justice and human rights
- Environmental issues
- Politics, religion, and other light subjects
- Anything that involves being in the mountains

Cycling Background

It’s hard to say when I started riding. The training wheels came off when I was four, but I was logging a lot of miles on the Big Wheel and hand-me-down trike prior to that. I’m told I was quite the walker pilot, too.

I’ve been riding for as long as I can remember – some of my earliest memories are of getting in trouble for taking off on rides with friends without telling my parents where I was going. It wasn’t until I was eighteen, though, that I realized cycling wasn’t just something I did in my free time, it was an important part of who I am. I’m not someone who rides, I’m a cyclist.

I founded the University of Calgary Bike club in 2000 and became involved in cycling advocacy and trail access issues. I remained the president of the U of C Bike Club for four years before moving to Bozeman. Most of my close friends came from that club and two friends who met each other at a club event are now married. To everyone reading this: Join a bike club; only good can come of it.

There was a phase from about 1999-2002 when I shifted from cross-country to downhill and urban riding. My fitness vanished, I put on weight, and I started to miss actually going somewhere when I rode. The transition back to cross-country was difficult: I was so out of shape that trail riding seemed more painful than it was worth. Eventually the fitness came back, the weight came off, and I was back to enjoying going down and going up.

My first road group ride happened at the end of 2002. I showed up on The Supercommuter (sans fenders) and wearing a full-face, knowing full well what they’d think of that. The laughter stopped when I was able to hang with the fastest third of the group and I had far more fun than I’d expected. I started to mix more road riding in with my cross-country (and the occasional Millennium Park session) until I bought my first road bike in late 2003. I camped out in front of Bow Cycle prior to the beginning of the annual sale to get that thing at cost, but it was more than worthwhile.

In terms of enthusiasm, I’m usually split about 60/40 in favour of cross-country over road, but my actual saddle time is the inverse due to the abundance of great road riding in the Bozeman area. I’ve been enjoying the downhill bike over far more than I expected and it was the most frequently used of the fleet in the summer of 2007, so we’ll have to see what 2007 brings for me.

History with Pinkbike

I’ve been familiar with Pinkbike since before it was Pinkbike. I’d seen the origins of the site when it was still on the shaw.ca domain, but I didn’t give it much attention until a friend heard through coworkers at Bow Cycle that a local site had started called Pinkbike. We both emailed all our bike buds and suggested they check it out.

Then the site died.

Talking about it the next day, it turned out that every single one of us had a 1.5 M/s cable connection and had downloaded every single video on the site at exactly the same time. I…umm…I think we may have caused the very first Pinkbike server crash.

I started using the forums before users were required to log in (I had to switch from Ryan to RMR after some moron started posting as Ryan ) and when most of the other forum users were people with whom I’d ridden. Eventually, the site and the forum became more popular until it was necessary to use some sort of forum management software. The local community feel had diminished by the time he change to phpBB software was made and I took a break for about a year. I got over the changed feel of the site and came to realize that there’s still an element of community and I can still meet local riders, but I can also interact with a worldwide community – and that’s pretty fun, when you think about it.

I was made a moderator several years ago and I’ve been an administrator since late summer, 2006. You’ll usually catch me in Ask Pinkbike; All Mountain & Cross-Country, Road, Touring, Tri, Commuting, Fixies; or Bikes, Parts, and Gear. Ask a great question about bike design philosophy or mechanical/biomechanical efficiency and you’ll make my day.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the forums!