Jack Reading

My name is Jack Reading, I’m 21 years old and a student in Manchester, England.

I’ve always loved to ride mountain bikes and have done so from a young age. Towards the end of the 2006 season I rode a downhill bike for the 1st time and loved the experience! It was a Specialized Big Hit and I soon came to realise after my 1st couple of downhill races that this was no race bike. I had my Ellsworth Rogue with Rock Shox Boxxers on the front sat at home and I was convinced this lighter, hand built quality machine with just as much travel would be a far better race bike for the season.

I was right. From struggling to get into the top half of the senior men rankings at the beginning of the 2007 season, me and the Rogue improved to a 4th place overall finish in the national rankings and a 3rd place finish in the national series for the senior men in the UK. This placing earned me a promotion into the Expert category for the 2008 season.

Between October 2007 and September 2008 I took a gap year from school and went to live in Whistler on the west coast of Canada in British Columbia. I spent the winter skiing and snowboarding and then the summer riding my bike all the time. Not a bad life I suppose. I got a new Ellsworth Dare in June and loved it from the 1st minute I rode it. For downhill this bike is perfect in my eyes. It’s strong, extremely well built (by hand), light, has 9 inches of pedal efficient travel and will take a serious beating very well. Trust me I can vouch for it!

Out in Canada I did 2 BC cup races and won them both which was unexpected and the 1st signs that living in Whistler was improving my riding by huge amounts! I took part in the Garbanzo Downhill race during the Crankworx festival and came 11th overall (there is a race report on my Ellsworth blog) and also a Canada cup where I crashed and finished 3 seconds behind 1st place.

In March 2009 I signed a contract with Ellsworth making me an official team rider. 2009 was a great season for me. I won the expert category in the UK so have been promoted to elite for 2010, earned enough UCI points to qualify to race World Cups in 2010 and won the Canada Cup which I crashed in at Sun Peaks the year before!

I'm just emerging from a hard off season of training on the bike and in the gym, alongside studying at Manchester University where I'm training to be an Optometrist. I have a new race bike which is a bigger size and I'm getting on with it awesomely, and a Moment for training purposes. I'm feeling really good for the 2010 season and can't wait for racing to get started!

To keep up with how my races are going check out my reports on this blog!