Wise Words is our interview series talking to some of mountain biking’s most switched on people.
We’ll ask our short list of questions to a heap of influential, inspiring and outspoken people that we feel are driving the direction of mountain biking today. Some will make you think, some will make you laugh, some will be plain dumb, some will inspire you to better yourself and your riding. We hope!
Wise Words this week comes to you from none other than Lachlan Blair.
A graduate from the Hazzard Racing academy before moving onto Orange Factory Racing, Lachlan Blair is a Fort William native who’s style on a bike has to be seen to be believed. After mangling his leg, he’s just back on two wheels and is a privateer backed by the likes of Deviate, Hunt, Rubicon RAW, OneUp and Leatt. The only time he’s not smiling is when he’s making corners worried.
Photos by Finlay Anderson.
How would your closest riding buddies describe you to someone who has never met you?
An overly positive, highly competitive person with an abundant appetite for food, coffee and cycling.
What thing or things have you bought in the last year that had the biggest effect on your life as a mountain biker / cyclist / person that works in the bike industry?
A “Sage Barista Touch Impress” coffee machine, it has brought guaranteed joy to every morning. Apart from the mornings when I have forgotten to stock up on coffee beans and discover it’s empty, now that is a feeling of pure disappointment.
For maximising the enjoyment of life with bikes, my best purchase would be a set of high quality allen keys. I used to round bolts all the time and it caused me so much stress but it turns out using high quality allen keys (instead of ones you get free with a magazine) makes a massive difference to enjoyment of bike maintenance.
What unusual habits do you have as a bike rider?
It’s maybe not unusual but I seem to have acquired the unfortunate habit of sustaining serious injuries, I’m hoping it is a habit I can get out of.
Riding wise an unusual habit would be the extent to which I hang off the sides of the bike when riding especially on steep ruts. I really like to swing off the bike. Appearing sketchy when actually feeling fully in control is the side effect of this habit.
I also run my brakes bite point pretty close to the bar, not quite as close as Mr Top Chief Joe Barnes with his custom levers which pretty much touch the grips but I run them as close as a Magura HC3 brake lever allows.
What piece of advice do you think every mountain bike rider should hear? And what piece should they ignore?
Riding bikes is all about having fun, don’t worry about trying to go faster all the time, going faster just makes the descents shorter. It’s hard to pinpoint exact advice that people should ignore but if your mates are pressuring you into riding something that is way beyond your skill level, it’s probably sensible to ignore them… sometimes…
If you could go back and re-ride one day from your life so far, where/what/when/who would it be? Would you change anything?
This is a really difficult question. I have been lucky enough to have countless unbelievably incredible days riding all around the World with so many friends, from epic days out taming the greasiest rock slabs in Norway with Pete Scullion to achieving my best ever DH World Cup result on home soil in Fort William.
It’s an impossible decision but if I had to pick one to do all over again it would probably be a day from a van trip to Portugal I had with Morgan Gulland and Ronan Taylor. We arrived in Tarouca where Ronan knew someone who could uplift us for the day, the trails there were incredible, freshly built loamy/sandy delights. After days of driving to get there it was an absolute joy to be treated to some of the best trails I have ever ridden.
A few runs in we were greeted by the mayor of the town who came up to the top of the trails to have a photo with us. Our uplift driver then insisted on taking us out for dinner to an absolutely delightful local restaurant which ended up not being the only time we were treated to exceptional hospitality on that trip. When we were in Lousa a few days later, a group of forestry workers saw us sat at Morgan’s van eating tinned tuna and oatcakes and came over, they didn’t speak English and we couldn’t speak Portuguese so we thought we were coming to tell us we couldn’t park where we were or tell us off for riding the trails, but that was not the case!.
They actually came over to invite us to share their lunch with them at the nearby picnic area, we discovered on that trip it is really really hard to beat the kindness and generosity of the Portuguese.
What have you wasted the most time on in your life as a rider or bike industry career that you wished you’d given up years ago?
Time spent regretting decisions. When there are things that don’t go to plan or feel like a waste of time, those things tend to be the most valuable experiences. Making mistakes is crucial to progressing, it’s impossible to learn without making mistakes.
How do you motivate yourself when you’re struggling or lacking inspiration?
Motivating myself to do something when I’m struggling for motivation is a very difficult task. If I have the luxury of time I will leave the task and find something else easy to achieve and come back to the original task when I feel more motivated. It’s easy to do a terrible job of something when you are lacking in motivation so delaying it is usually the best option.
If it’s something which needs done and I don’t have the gift of time, knocking back a can of Rubicon RAW and concentrating all of that energy into completing the required task usually does the trick.
What single and specific thing about riding bicycles do you gain the most happiness from?
Being out riding bikes with your friends is a guaranteed source of happiness, for a very specific aspect, riding an absolutely disgustingly filthy bit of steep, rutted, root riddled tech smoothly, there’s no feeling quite like that.
What single thing would you like to erase from cycling history from the last year?
The collapse of Signa Sports, the chain reaction this had on most of the cycling industry was brutal to see, so many jobs lost and riders left with nowhere to go. I like to think all clouds have a silver lining but at the time it was hard to see the positives.
What single thing would you like to make happen in the cycling world in the next year?
I would love to find a way to help more people discover a passion for cycling, it’s always a joy to see people out riding their bikes, progressing their riding and enjoying the sport we all love.
Who else should we ask these questions to?
Fergus Lamb, he is a man of mystery and wisdom. How can he ride so little but go so fast? Everyone is desperate to know his secrets.
