Ryan Middleton
Electrical engineer by week, style god and trail building genius by weekend.
I catch up with Ryan on all things life and find out what motivates him to dig, ride and what it’s like racing a world cup on a hire bike after his was stolen.
Ryan is arguably one of the most underrated mountain bikers in the UK currently...
With an effortless style, a serious addiction to digging trails and a humble attitude to match, you’d struggle to find someone with a bad word to say about him.
Much like myself, Ryan slowly faded away from racing, got himself a day job and began riding more for pleasure. I always respected that and I wanted to dive a little deeper and ask him how he finds balancing work with his passions of riding and digging.
Ryan parks up, quietly gets out of his van and starts pulling his bike from the back while shouting “Hey, don’t get my kid’s play mat in the shot. Folk might get the wrong idea!”
IG: Hey man, let’s get stuck in! Can you tell me about your job and what it involves?
RM: I’m currently a full time electrical engineer with the water board. Pretty much go around pumping stations and water treatment plants to fix any electrical faults that occur. Can be anything from pumps, control panels, different sensors and variable speed drives.
Before I have a chance to get my camera out, Ryan immediately starts doing maintenance to the jump we plan on shooting. He’s brought his own shovel and a drum of water to dampen the 8 foot tall lip that he’s built.
IG: What’s it like balancing work with getting out to dig and ride?
RM: It’s difficult. Especially during the winter months when you only have the weekends to get out. That being said, I can’t remember many weekends that I haven’t spent either digging or riding. I guess that’s the benefit of working full time; it always keeps you motivated and looking forward to getting out!
As Ry drops in for the first run of the day, I watch in disbelief as he hits the sand lip fully tapped and busts out the most inverted euro table i’ve ever seen…
“Reckon we can go upside down on that one!!” He shouts as he runs back up for round 2.
Effortless and oozing finesse, it’s a pleasure witnessing Ryan hit this lip over and over again, each time tweaking the bars and hanging a leg like no-one else i’ve ever seen ride before.
Ry-dog certainly isn’t uncomfortable in the air.
IG: You’re hooked up by a couple brands. What are they and tell us how that came about?
RM: Yeah! I’m pretty lucky to be getting support from Deity Components, Fasthouse, Juice Lubes & Shredder MTB Zine. I’ve mostly got Stuart from Shredder to thank for helping promote me to these companies, he was the one that put my foot in the door for sure. It’s rad because they’re all brands I would choose to run even if they weren’t helping me out!
Old codes… If you know, you know! I’m stoked to see brands supporting riders like Ryan. It just goes to show that you don’t need to be at the top of a results sheet to live the dream!
IG: On your days “off” what can we expect to see Ry Mid get up to?
RM: Either riding my bike, building new features or looking for new spots to build. Just a bit obsessed!
“Yo Ryan, go slap that right hander for me? I wanna get some roost going!”
IG: You’ve done a fair bit of travelling to ride your bike... What are the best places you’ve been to? Did you have any financial backing from brands to get to these places?
RM: My most recent trip to New Zealand was definitely one of my favourites for sure. Some of the best dh tracks I have ridden with a good mix of everything. I also loved Canada, mainly for its flowy jump trails. They seem to have those dialled over there!
Nah, no financial backing. I just treat it more as a holiday and a chance to improve my riding. there’s no way I would manage to afford to go on these amazing trips if it wasn’t for working during the week.
photographic evidence of roost…
IG: You were close to being stuck in New Zealand due to Covid 19. That could’ve been fun? Tell us about what happened.
RM: Yeah that was pretty wild. We had a trip planned for 3 weeks of riding. We had been out for a week and half I think when things started to get a bit crazy back home in the UK. It just happened to be a rainy day so we decided to go past Queenstown air port to make sure our flights were still all good. We were told on arrival that the airport was going to be closing down the following day and our only option was to book another flight out! I was pretty gutted. I think our flight was set to leave at 16:00 the next day. The morning of that rescheduled flight I went up dream track for sunrise. I wanted one last solo session before leaving, which in hindsight probably wasn’t the safest thing to do but those jumps are too good! I did kinda just want to stay but luckily we stuck with the plan because the night we flew home it was reported that NZ was going into full lockdown and all the bike parks where to be shut anyway. Definitely need to get back there though, so much riding still to be had!
Build, ridden and destroyed, for lack of a better word, by Ryan himself.
IG: Racing. When we were both wee groms we were hitting SDA’s (Scottish Downhill Association) pretty hard but you seemed to slowly find your own niche of just riding and digging for fun? Is that right? Any plans to race?
RM: Yeah, I think racing was the main path back then in Scotland and I loved it even though I couldn’t get my head around a solid race run. I’ve still got the memories of seeing you go over the bars on that last finish jump at Pitfichie at our first race in 2010. I’m sure my dad’s still got that on the dad cam haha. I’ve always been into digging, even while racing. Back then there wasn’t really much riding around my local area and as the saying goes, “no dig, no ride!”
The racing stopped in 2014 for me. I had travelled to Leogang, Austria for my first European World Cup. The morning of track walk, our team van was broken into and all of my kit and bike had been stolen. I ended up racing on a rental bike with the #69 number board and not qualifying haha! After that I couldn’t afford to get a new dh bike to finish the season so started to do more of my own thing back home, riding and digging for fun. I still like to do the odd local Scottish round now and again. It’s good to support the scene y’know. I don’t plan on doing any serious racing again though. I’m finding trips out to new spots with mates and filming video projects way more enjoyable!
Cool, calm and collected. Don’t let Ryan’s quiet demeanour fool you into thinking he can’t bust some serious shapes!
IG: How do you steeze quite so well?!
RM: Haha! I don’t think it’ll ever be good enough In my head.
Just so you know Ryan, we all think it’s good enough!!
IG: Any last words?
RM: Nah, not really!
A huge thanks to Ryan for being a part of this, hitting the same jump or corner hundreds of times until we were both satisfied, for not complaining each time I asked for #onemorego and of course you, for reading this far!
-You can follow Ryan on Instagram HERE and myself on Instagram HERE.
Signing off,
Innes