Going With the Flow

When 13 year-old Ian Moult first started mountain biking things didn't go too well. "I was going over one of my first dirt jumps. My forks snapped in half. I landed face first into the ground and had to get stitches in my face," says Ian, who began riding mountain bikes after going to a summer bike camp in 1999.

While those first couple of rides may have been a bit rough, Ian is now a sponsored free rider which means he gets a free bike, free pads, free helmet and free everything else. His sponsors include Ellsworth Bikes and Mantra Eyewear. He now rides for a team called Flow Riders from Vancouver, BC. Ian and his team tour all around the Pacific Northwest giving extreme mountain bike demos. You'll catch the Flow Riders flying off 15 foot (5 meter) jumps, riding along narrow beams and defying injury by balancing along other sky-high obstacles.

When Ian isn't at school, he spends virtually all of his free time mountain biking as he tries to master new tricks and take his riding to the next level - because that's the only way to get better. "When you're starting out, the best thing to do is try easier stuff. Practice it over and over again until it's no problem. Then try a jump or a trick that's a bit harder or higher," says Ian. "The first time I jumped from a big jump, it was really scary. But once I did it, it wasn't so bad. The more times you do something that's scary, the easier it gets."

The Flow Show has been to several outdoor shows, festivals and mountain bike races around British Columbia and Washington State and it may head to Germany in the fall of 2001. Ian hopes his passion for going with the flow will lead to a full time job as a professional mountain bike rider.

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