UNDER COVER COVER BOY

Santa Cruz Bikes Catalogue Cover. Seb Kemp hamming it up for Jordan Manleys lense.

I turned thirty this summer and there’s no way that I expected the summer to be like it has in terms of where I have managed to get myself. Cover shot on both the Santa Cruz and Giro catalogues. WOW.

When I was 17 at school and I remember very clearly saying to my Business Studies teacher that if I haven’t achieved anything worthwhile by the time I was thirty then I would take my own life. My reasoning was that if I, or anyone for that matter, hadn’t done anything worthwhile with their life and was putting back into society then they were just a drain on societies resources so should just step aside. As you can imagine my teacher was shocked. Especially as she was a 45 year old woman having to deal with the kind of shit that only 17 year olds can deal out day in day out. Of course, over the years I mellowed and realised that I was being way over the top. So it’s even funnier that now that I’m thirty, and at that deadline, I finally feel like I’m doing a lot of really cool things. Sure being on the cover of some bicycle product catalogues, writing caustic journalism for a bunch of mags, being a summer bum, coaching people to ride mountain cycles better, floating around the globe building ribbons of mountain cycle trail, and being the keeper of my own narcissistic blog, isn’t exactly saving the world or contributing to the spiral of mans ascent to higher being. Oh well. It’s fun and I’m not hurting anyone. Thirty more to come at least.

Here’s the rest of the photos that I call my greatest contribution to the survival of man…

Giro Catalogue. Ross Schnell photographed by Colin Meagher...and some random 29er fool spoiling the shot.

Back cover of SBC catalogue. Ninja Cougar tree climbing by Jordan Manley. barely staying upright by moi.

Double pager SBC catalogue t-shirt spread. Again no face or credit so it could be anyone. Jordan Manley killing the shots even when faced with adversity, like having to polishing the turd that is the riding of a bunch of hack "journalists".